I have called my shopping pal Essie and we will shop at the Crafts Market today. In the meantime, I decide to wash out a few clothing items and hang them on the line. This is apparently some sort of cosmic challenge, because within 20 minutes a torrential downpour begins.
The shopping expedition is like so many bazaars around the world - multiple high pressure salesmen vie for my attention, so much so that I cannot concentrate on the wares at all. If it were not for Essie I would have bought nothing. As it is, I did not buy much as the environment had me sweating, and it was cool there! I want go back to Global Mamas where I can shop in peace! I have not learned how to tune it all out as the Ghanaians do.
Last night I could hardly sleep, even with earplugs. A nearby church has service lasting 5 hours and ending at 4:30 am. My host family went to a similar service at their church and then returned and men spoke loudly out in the living room. I now understand culture shock!
I suddenly have great empathy for our arriving exchange students who are confronted with vastly different foods, routines and customs. The family members here rarely sleep 8 hours. They get by on short naps and then they go back to their hard work with so many fewer appliances and without hot running water. Rhoda uses an electric skillet to cook and yet sweeps the floor with a short broom made of tied twigs.
Friday: Plans change. I had been invited to do fabric printing at the workshop at Kwame's home (AFS Director) but got a text message that the power is out. Reginald raises his eyebrows and says "He's a Ghanaian, right?" Meaning maybe, maybe, not. Scouting around for something to do, Rhoda mentions she is going to the market for food. I join her gladly and as we walk through the compound to the front gate, we stroll through the big kitchen patio and I am warmly greeted by the sister cooks. They show me each of the dishes they are preparing, including a mountain of bread dough. They will feed 740 today. They are such cheerful, friendly sisters, I no longer care about the earlier plan.
I get my first tro-tro ride to the market (trow-trow) - remember the vans I described earlier as death-trap.. Maybe that was dramatic effect - this tro- tro is fine. While we wait for it to arrive, a parade of a sign waving, folks come marching toward us with their musicians leading the singing. They are a church revival group and I get a little video shot of the procession. Everyone enjoys my filming and a few stop for still photos.
Almost everyone here enjoys seeing their pictures, so the iPad mini is really a great tool and conversation starter. People often ask me to take their pictures. On to the market, which is better described in the photos below. I buy some live blue crabs which Rhoda later makes into my first fou-fou, an essential Ghanaian dish.
Fou-fou is a slightly fermented, rubbery paste made of cassava root and . It is served in an oval shape about the size do a bread bun. The soup you dip it into with your fingers can be made of many different ingredients. The one I am served is a soup of ground palm nuts and has the whole crabs ( you eat them shell and all) and a small smoked salmon. It feels so weird for this left-hander to dip right hand fingers in the soup to feed myself. A bowl of clean water stands nearby. It is bad form to use the left hand for eating, waving, etc. in Ghana.
I stave off afternoon boredom by paying another visit to the kitchen cooks. The welcome me vivaciously and I while away an hour watching them light the big oven for bread baking, wash millet for tomorrow's breakfast and talking about life in the US. I am always assuring people we are not all rich. They are flabbergasted to hear we have people who live under bridges or who don't have enough to eat.
Tomorrow I join the family for their 3 hour Sunday service. Depart for Cape Coast with my chaperone, Reginald tomorrow afternoon.
Right hand novice, Jackie
Pics: Rhoda, rice dish cooking, revival parade, mom/ baby @ mkt, blue crabs, fou-fou, millet washing
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for following! J