Anyway, I posted some pics from this weekend. Saturday is wash day here. Everyone does their laundry by hand with buckets. There are no washing machines anywhere in town! As you might guess, laundry is a hard and time consuming process. I went over to my friend Victoria’s house so she could teach me how to wash my clothes properly. In her mind, washing is an art form and not something to be done half-ass. The process takes a very long time. First you wash and rinse, then hang the clothes on the line to dry for several hours. After this, you have to iron everything.
My hands were red and sore after a few items and Victoria found my technique very hilarious.
After a couple hours of this, I needed a break. We had a typical meal of rice and a red sauce fish stew. She gives me very large portions because she doesn’t think I eat enough! Well, with the heat, I don’t have much of an appetite, but she is right to think I need to eat more.
Her husband came home with his friend Henry and asked if we would like to go out for a while. There was a football game (soccer) on at 5 pm (Ghana revolves around football). So we traveled by taxi to a local restaurant/bar. I ordered a Star Beer, which comes in 625 mL bottles. The electricity was out so it was desperately hot in the restaurant, but luckily the beer was cold. We sat and chatted for a while, then went off to The Club House to watch the game. It was Manchester United vs. Arsenal. I don’t really know anything about football so I just sort of watched and talked to folks who came by to introduce themselves to the Broni (White Woman) and find out my life story. Air conditioned places are hard to come by and I was hoping that this popular place would be cooled, but alas, not to be. So I just had another Star!
The Club House has a grill that cooks goat on skewers and Henry bought me a couple of these for dinner. They were very good. I don’t think I have ever had goat before, but it is really the only red meat around. They cook meat very well done to guard against parasites and other things I don’t really want to think about, so the meat was a little like jerky, but it was very good none the less.
Manchester won handily and then they switched the TV to another football match from the French league. By this time I was pretty tired of football, but please don’t share this with me Ghanaian friends…they would be very disappointed in me. I took a taxi home and slept well with my belly full of goat and beer!
Of course, Sunday is church day. My friend Joe and his family pick me up at some horribly early hour and we go to church.
Church starts at 7:30 am and continues until 10:30 am. This is a lot of church for anyone to handle. I go to a Baptist church which is similar to what you may see in the southern US. Lots of singing and dancing. It is at least entertaining!
After church, Joe invites me home and his wife cooks us lunch. She never eats with us, but spends about 1 hour cooking for us. Joe wanted to introduce me to fufu, a local meal with fish. Fufu is a doughy substance. This is placed into a fish soup and you eat it with your hands. I can’t say that I liked the fufu, but I ate as much as I could. They serve the fish with the head on it and this really grosses me out.
After church, Joe invites me home and his wife cooks us lunch. She never eats with us, but spends about 1 hour cooking for us. Joe wanted to introduce me to fufu, a local meal with fish. Fufu is a doughy substance. This is placed into a fish soup and you eat it with your hands. I can’t say that I liked the fufu, but I ate as much as I could. They serve the fish with the head on it and this really grosses me out.
After the fufu, I went home to take a nap! So nice!
Around 5 pm Christiana, a little girl who lives down the hill, came to my door for her daily dose of cookies. She is very cute and very sweet. Her English is not very good, but we try to communicate as much as we can. I would say she is about 8 years old and she tells me that her father is sick and her mother takes care of him so they don’t have very much money. She usually waits outside my door for me to come home from work. I give her cookies and offer her whatever I can find in my fridge (which is not much).
Well, that was about it. Today is another hot day in Ghana and i am procrastinating at work by writing my blog!
Around 5 pm Christiana, a little girl who lives down the hill, came to my door for her daily dose of cookies. She is very cute and very sweet. Her English is not very good, but we try to communicate as much as we can. I would say she is about 8 years old and she tells me that her father is sick and her mother takes care of him so they don’t have very much money. She usually waits outside my door for me to come home from work. I give her cookies and offer her whatever I can find in my fridge (which is not much).
Well, that was about it. Today is another hot day in Ghana and i am procrastinating at work by writing my blog!
1 comment:
All sounds very familiar! I was told that even the way I stirred a pot of stew was weird. I found there is a rhythm and dance-like move to everything in Africa. Form and function, man. Watch someone sweep some time and look at the pattern they leave. Incredible. And I think fufu might be the same thing as Toh in Mali. I was fond of saying, "Je n'aime pas de toh, pas du tout."
Post a Comment