Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Nougat
After work on Friday I got some pants-fixin. A zipper replaced on one, and the other pair hemmed up. Then I went into town and wandered the market for a bit before heading back after it got dark.
I decided that it was about time that I make an effort to meet some other foreigners. There are quite a few foreigners I see around Tamale, mostly volunteers or NGO workers, but so far I have not met a single one. This is partly me being anti-social and partly because the guesthouse I am staying in seems to be occupied mostly by Ghanaians and very old Europeans. The biggest reason, though is that I completely avoid any restaurant or bar that caters to foreigners, partly due to prices, but mostly because I would much rather eat a $.50 meal of local food at a humble chop bar. It’s just more fun. Also, in the south it was easy to make friends with the Ghanaians as their English was much better, but here in Tamale most people’s English is barely comprehendible
But I started to realize that as long as I do that, I will never meet anybody else. So I checked my guide book for one of their recommendations of a good bar and rode my bike back into town and went to the “Points 7 Spot”. It was about 9:00 when I got there and it was all but empty. So I ordered a beer and about three minutes later I saw I white guy and girl wander in looking kinda lost. I waved them over and introduced myself. Nicola and Liz, both from France. They sat and ordered beers. Liz is also working with an NGO for about the same amount of time as me, doing a similar program as me through her school. Nicola has been traveling for about three months. He started by taking a boat from France to Morocco, then found a ride with a Mauritanian man, and he rode all the way to Mauritania with him. Then he traveled through Mali and Burkina Faso and has now been in Ghana for two weeks. These two were good company, and like true French people chain-smoked the whole night. I was glad we were in a fairly open air bar as smoking in Ghana is VERY rare, and people generally seem offended by it, a problem, I assume, for most European backpackers in Ghana.
I had asked if they had a bathroom and was told no, but later when Liz asked, the waitress took her around back. When Liz returned she looked horrified. “That was the worst bathroom I have ever used,” she said. I doubted it was that bad. I feel like I have traveled enough to have experienced some of the worst. However when I asked the woman to take me to the “bathroom”, it was true that I had not experienced this before. It was basically a 5’x5’ square room made of scraps of corrugated metal with a dirt floor. No hole. It was dark, so I was confused if I was seeing correctly. I laughed when I realized that I was. I walked back with moist feet from all the splashing that occurred on the hard dirt floor. J
Somehow we made two rounds of beers last until about 11:30, and the bartender had to come up to us and tell us she wanted to go home (the one other person in the bar had left much earlier) and made us quickly pay and leave. Nicola had just arrived in Tamale that evening and had not even checked into a guesthouse yet. Liz was pretty sure she was in for a long walk home as there were no cabs this late, plus she did not know if her host family would still be awake. I had not come home late before and was not sure on whether they would have closed the gate at a certain time. So we parted ways, all unsure of how our nights would end up.
When I arrived at my guesthouse, sure enough, the gate was closed and locked. This is not something I have not faced before, and the gate was only about 6 feet high. So I started to lift my bike (which had gotten a flat tire just at the moment of arriving at the gate) over the gate. It got stuck, and I was trying to fenagle it over the edge without it dropping too hard. All of a sudden I see a security guard running up to me, yelling frantically and I just freeze. “You no climb this gate. I see somebody break in, I shoot! I shoot, you no more! You might be thief, and I shoot! I apologized and asked what I should have done. “Next time, you call security!” he said. I was confused. I told him I didn’t have the phone number. “No,” he said, “you yell out, ‘Security!’ and I come and let you in.” Oh, that makes sense.
That night Liz angered her host mother for coming home so late, but Nicola didn’t have a problem getting into the nearby guesthouse.
The next day I rode into town at about 12:30 to meet up with Nicola and Liz and her two Canadian friends to watch the Ghana vs. Rwanda U-20 football match on TV. Unfortunately, though, because the match was on public TV, the guesthouse that usually shows games was not going to be showing it. Plus Liz and her friends were hungry so we decided to stop for food. I had already had a breakfast of rice and beans, so I wasn’t hungry. We went to one of the popular restaurants for Westerners that serves all sorts of European and American, at quite ridiculous prices. It took about 10 minutes to get menus, 40 minutes to take orders, 30 min. for food, and another 30 for the girls to pick at their dishes. Fried chicken, two cheeseburgers and a bowl of soup. We missed the match entirely, but I did get to see where all the westerners were hiding. They were assembling en mass around every table. It was kind of a strange sight, but I was part of the same group, so I couldn’t afford to be too critical. Then again I couldn’t afford $5.50 for a burger either.
At 5:00 Nicola, Liz and I went to the Al Hassan guest house to watch the Manchester United Game, just as I had done the previous week. It was a good game, Man. U. won 2-1, and people were mostly happy.
After the game we went to get some food, ($.50 cents worth of plantain and beans, plus about 6 oranges), then they wanted to find somewhere to have a beer. Liz, still traumatized from the previous night’s bathroom, wanted to find a new place. I offered to take them to one of the local “spots”, and they were down. We walked down a side street toward the thumping music and faint glow of a couple neon blue lights. I did not get any feeling from Liz that she was sketched out, so we proceeded through the front door (a bead curtain, except the beads were folded Coca-Cola caps, sweet) where there were maybe three other people there among maybe 6 plastic tables on a dirt floor. The matriarch of the bar quickly arranged a table with 3 chairs for us and we ordered a round of beers.
It turns out they really liked this place, especially simplicity and dinginess of it. I agreed. When Liz pondered asking for the bathroom, I assured her that it would not be worse than the previous night. So she was led to the bathroom, and when she returned, she was wide-eyed and said, “oh yeah, it’s worse!” She pointed to the dark corner of the bar, where there was a little wooden and corrugated metal gate, about 4-feet high, again, just a square with a dirt floor, though this one was indoors and had no privacy. When I went, I was able to pee, and wave to my new French friends at the same time. This was a feature I really liked. Imagine if it was like that in America. Girls could never take big group trips to the bathroom, an event that I believe causes great insecurity to most men.
I asked Nicola what he did for a living back home. When he first answered, I figured I misheard him, or at least something got lost in translation. He repeated, “I make nougat.” Liz looked confused too. We were both like, you mean the candy? Oh yeah, I kid you not, this guy makes his money by making and selling high-end nougat, which apparently is a French thing. I wonder if Americans knew that they would start calling candy bars, “freedom bars”. If only.
We hung out for quite a while, but Liz had to leave around 10:00 so she stayed on good terms with her host family. Nicola and I, however, ordered another round. By this time, the only people left in the bar were us, the teenage boy serving us, and raving mad drunkard sitting in the corner. This guy just kept babbling in Dagbani at nobody in particular, though sometimes he raised his voice and it seemed he was angry with us.
We started chatting with the young guy working there. He said his name was Joe, but his real name is Abulio, which means “from the cemetery”. I liked that. Meanwhile, the drunk guy keeps babbling. We asked Abulio what he was saying. “Oh, he wants you to buy him some bitters”. Well, at $.20 for a shot of the locally made liquor, Nicola was all about fueling this fire. He sent him a drink with two shots of bitters.
Eventually Abulio told us that he was going to close soon, so we finished our beers. Then I asked about the drunk guy, who was now stumbling around the bar, just kinda yelling and hitting things. “Doesn’t he have to go too?” I asked. “Oh, no,” Abulio said, “he’s our security guard.”
Nicola and I died laughing. We couldn’t tell if this was a brilliant idea, or a terrible one. At this point the man had started yelling at us to leave so he could get some sleep. He started to set up his bed of plastic crates. Abulio just laughed, locked up the liquor room, and we all left together. We could see the drunk security guard through cracks in the wood walls still walking around inside, just kinda babbling.
Nicola and I walked toward his guesthouse, but stopped first to have a kebab some people were grilling on the sidewalk. As we ate our kebabs (at only $.20 I ate two) I remembered my brilliant purchase from earlier in the day. Two huge bottle rockets. I asked the kebab-griller, a guy in a South Park t-shirt with Towelie on it, if it was alright if we lit them. He seemed excited and even let us use a crack in his table to stick the rocket in. Well, he put the bottle rocket in a bit too firm, and when we lit it, and did not budge, but screamed and eventually exploded into a huge burst of sparks all over the kebabs. Luckily everyone laughed. We stuck the second one in the dirt and that one went off much better.
After doing my laundry on Sunday I went back in to town to meet up with Liz and Nicola again. We were kind of a little crew by this point which was fun, but unfortunately Nicola would be leaving the next day. We walked around looking for something to eat, and decided to try Tuo Zafi (better known as T-Zed) for the first time. We found a little stall serving it. It was a squishy white ball made of pounded millet, served in groundnut soup. Surprisingly it was Liz’s first time eating with her hands. I didn’t know how you could be in Ghana for 2 weeks and never eat with your hands. We all decided that it was a very good meal, especially as it was very filling and only $.50.
After wandering around town, Nicola wanted to take us somewhere. He seemed to know a lot of people around town and was always running into people he met while traveling. One Dutch girl he knew was staying with a host family that owned a bar/restaurant and that’s where we were headed. It was a long walk to get there, but it was a really cool place out of the main part of town. A wide area all under the shade of a ginormous mango tree. The mangoes had started to get ripe as we sat there, dropping like fruity green bombs. I was just waiting for one to shatter our plastic table (it never happened, but some of them did get close). The Dutch girl’s host mom was very nice and she sat and talked with us for a while. I told her that I was staying in a Guesthouse, but I was still looking for something cheaper. She offered to look for a home stay for me, and I told her I was down. At a cost of $100/month for a room and two meals/day, I was excited about this idea. Two hours later she came up to me and said she found a place for me. So I might be moving soon.
We sipped on beers for a while and ordered some banku, a food I did not like my first time having it, but thought it was great this time. The sauce on the side of it was very spicy this time. All of sudden a guy behind me said, “Buenos noches,” I replied, “Buenos noches, como estas?” “Bien bien y tu?”, and then he started speaking French all of a sudden. Liz and Nicola took over for me. He was from Cote d’Ivoire, and I was so confused as to why he approached us in Spanish first, especially since he didn’t speak much Spanish. He told me because I looked like I would be able to speak Spanish. That was weird. He sat and spoke French with Nicola and Liz for a while, and somehow got us to buy him a Guinness. When he asked if he could have a beer with us, I of course said yeah, not knowing he was going to put the beer on our tab. It felt like Belize.
We left with Liz around 9 so she could get home in time and we walked her to get a taxi as we said goodbye to Nicola. He had to be back in France in 10 days so he could make more nougat. I am kinda glad that now I have a good reason to go to France: Nicola’s nougat.
I decided that it was about time that I make an effort to meet some other foreigners. There are quite a few foreigners I see around Tamale, mostly volunteers or NGO workers, but so far I have not met a single one. This is partly me being anti-social and partly because the guesthouse I am staying in seems to be occupied mostly by Ghanaians and very old Europeans. The biggest reason, though is that I completely avoid any restaurant or bar that caters to foreigners, partly due to prices, but mostly because I would much rather eat a $.50 meal of local food at a humble chop bar. It’s just more fun. Also, in the south it was easy to make friends with the Ghanaians as their English was much better, but here in Tamale most people’s English is barely comprehendible
But I started to realize that as long as I do that, I will never meet anybody else. So I checked my guide book for one of their recommendations of a good bar and rode my bike back into town and went to the “Points 7 Spot”. It was about 9:00 when I got there and it was all but empty. So I ordered a beer and about three minutes later I saw I white guy and girl wander in looking kinda lost. I waved them over and introduced myself. Nicola and Liz, both from France. They sat and ordered beers. Liz is also working with an NGO for about the same amount of time as me, doing a similar program as me through her school. Nicola has been traveling for about three months. He started by taking a boat from France to Morocco, then found a ride with a Mauritanian man, and he rode all the way to Mauritania with him. Then he traveled through Mali and Burkina Faso and has now been in Ghana for two weeks. These two were good company, and like true French people chain-smoked the whole night. I was glad we were in a fairly open air bar as smoking in Ghana is VERY rare, and people generally seem offended by it, a problem, I assume, for most European backpackers in Ghana.
I had asked if they had a bathroom and was told no, but later when Liz asked, the waitress took her around back. When Liz returned she looked horrified. “That was the worst bathroom I have ever used,” she said. I doubted it was that bad. I feel like I have traveled enough to have experienced some of the worst. However when I asked the woman to take me to the “bathroom”, it was true that I had not experienced this before. It was basically a 5’x5’ square room made of scraps of corrugated metal with a dirt floor. No hole. It was dark, so I was confused if I was seeing correctly. I laughed when I realized that I was. I walked back with moist feet from all the splashing that occurred on the hard dirt floor. J
Somehow we made two rounds of beers last until about 11:30, and the bartender had to come up to us and tell us she wanted to go home (the one other person in the bar had left much earlier) and made us quickly pay and leave. Nicola had just arrived in Tamale that evening and had not even checked into a guesthouse yet. Liz was pretty sure she was in for a long walk home as there were no cabs this late, plus she did not know if her host family would still be awake. I had not come home late before and was not sure on whether they would have closed the gate at a certain time. So we parted ways, all unsure of how our nights would end up.
When I arrived at my guesthouse, sure enough, the gate was closed and locked. This is not something I have not faced before, and the gate was only about 6 feet high. So I started to lift my bike (which had gotten a flat tire just at the moment of arriving at the gate) over the gate. It got stuck, and I was trying to fenagle it over the edge without it dropping too hard. All of a sudden I see a security guard running up to me, yelling frantically and I just freeze. “You no climb this gate. I see somebody break in, I shoot! I shoot, you no more! You might be thief, and I shoot! I apologized and asked what I should have done. “Next time, you call security!” he said. I was confused. I told him I didn’t have the phone number. “No,” he said, “you yell out, ‘Security!’ and I come and let you in.” Oh, that makes sense.
That night Liz angered her host mother for coming home so late, but Nicola didn’t have a problem getting into the nearby guesthouse.
The next day I rode into town at about 12:30 to meet up with Nicola and Liz and her two Canadian friends to watch the Ghana vs. Rwanda U-20 football match on TV. Unfortunately, though, because the match was on public TV, the guesthouse that usually shows games was not going to be showing it. Plus Liz and her friends were hungry so we decided to stop for food. I had already had a breakfast of rice and beans, so I wasn’t hungry. We went to one of the popular restaurants for Westerners that serves all sorts of European and American, at quite ridiculous prices. It took about 10 minutes to get menus, 40 minutes to take orders, 30 min. for food, and another 30 for the girls to pick at their dishes. Fried chicken, two cheeseburgers and a bowl of soup. We missed the match entirely, but I did get to see where all the westerners were hiding. They were assembling en mass around every table. It was kind of a strange sight, but I was part of the same group, so I couldn’t afford to be too critical. Then again I couldn’t afford $5.50 for a burger either.
At 5:00 Nicola, Liz and I went to the Al Hassan guest house to watch the Manchester United Game, just as I had done the previous week. It was a good game, Man. U. won 2-1, and people were mostly happy.
After the game we went to get some food, ($.50 cents worth of plantain and beans, plus about 6 oranges), then they wanted to find somewhere to have a beer. Liz, still traumatized from the previous night’s bathroom, wanted to find a new place. I offered to take them to one of the local “spots”, and they were down. We walked down a side street toward the thumping music and faint glow of a couple neon blue lights. I did not get any feeling from Liz that she was sketched out, so we proceeded through the front door (a bead curtain, except the beads were folded Coca-Cola caps, sweet) where there were maybe three other people there among maybe 6 plastic tables on a dirt floor. The matriarch of the bar quickly arranged a table with 3 chairs for us and we ordered a round of beers.
It turns out they really liked this place, especially simplicity and dinginess of it. I agreed. When Liz pondered asking for the bathroom, I assured her that it would not be worse than the previous night. So she was led to the bathroom, and when she returned, she was wide-eyed and said, “oh yeah, it’s worse!” She pointed to the dark corner of the bar, where there was a little wooden and corrugated metal gate, about 4-feet high, again, just a square with a dirt floor, though this one was indoors and had no privacy. When I went, I was able to pee, and wave to my new French friends at the same time. This was a feature I really liked. Imagine if it was like that in America. Girls could never take big group trips to the bathroom, an event that I believe causes great insecurity to most men.
I asked Nicola what he did for a living back home. When he first answered, I figured I misheard him, or at least something got lost in translation. He repeated, “I make nougat.” Liz looked confused too. We were both like, you mean the candy? Oh yeah, I kid you not, this guy makes his money by making and selling high-end nougat, which apparently is a French thing. I wonder if Americans knew that they would start calling candy bars, “freedom bars”. If only.
We hung out for quite a while, but Liz had to leave around 10:00 so she stayed on good terms with her host family. Nicola and I, however, ordered another round. By this time, the only people left in the bar were us, the teenage boy serving us, and raving mad drunkard sitting in the corner. This guy just kept babbling in Dagbani at nobody in particular, though sometimes he raised his voice and it seemed he was angry with us.
We started chatting with the young guy working there. He said his name was Joe, but his real name is Abulio, which means “from the cemetery”. I liked that. Meanwhile, the drunk guy keeps babbling. We asked Abulio what he was saying. “Oh, he wants you to buy him some bitters”. Well, at $.20 for a shot of the locally made liquor, Nicola was all about fueling this fire. He sent him a drink with two shots of bitters.
Eventually Abulio told us that he was going to close soon, so we finished our beers. Then I asked about the drunk guy, who was now stumbling around the bar, just kinda yelling and hitting things. “Doesn’t he have to go too?” I asked. “Oh, no,” Abulio said, “he’s our security guard.”
Nicola and I died laughing. We couldn’t tell if this was a brilliant idea, or a terrible one. At this point the man had started yelling at us to leave so he could get some sleep. He started to set up his bed of plastic crates. Abulio just laughed, locked up the liquor room, and we all left together. We could see the drunk security guard through cracks in the wood walls still walking around inside, just kinda babbling.
Nicola and I walked toward his guesthouse, but stopped first to have a kebab some people were grilling on the sidewalk. As we ate our kebabs (at only $.20 I ate two) I remembered my brilliant purchase from earlier in the day. Two huge bottle rockets. I asked the kebab-griller, a guy in a South Park t-shirt with Towelie on it, if it was alright if we lit them. He seemed excited and even let us use a crack in his table to stick the rocket in. Well, he put the bottle rocket in a bit too firm, and when we lit it, and did not budge, but screamed and eventually exploded into a huge burst of sparks all over the kebabs. Luckily everyone laughed. We stuck the second one in the dirt and that one went off much better.
After doing my laundry on Sunday I went back in to town to meet up with Liz and Nicola again. We were kind of a little crew by this point which was fun, but unfortunately Nicola would be leaving the next day. We walked around looking for something to eat, and decided to try Tuo Zafi (better known as T-Zed) for the first time. We found a little stall serving it. It was a squishy white ball made of pounded millet, served in groundnut soup. Surprisingly it was Liz’s first time eating with her hands. I didn’t know how you could be in Ghana for 2 weeks and never eat with your hands. We all decided that it was a very good meal, especially as it was very filling and only $.50.
After wandering around town, Nicola wanted to take us somewhere. He seemed to know a lot of people around town and was always running into people he met while traveling. One Dutch girl he knew was staying with a host family that owned a bar/restaurant and that’s where we were headed. It was a long walk to get there, but it was a really cool place out of the main part of town. A wide area all under the shade of a ginormous mango tree. The mangoes had started to get ripe as we sat there, dropping like fruity green bombs. I was just waiting for one to shatter our plastic table (it never happened, but some of them did get close). The Dutch girl’s host mom was very nice and she sat and talked with us for a while. I told her that I was staying in a Guesthouse, but I was still looking for something cheaper. She offered to look for a home stay for me, and I told her I was down. At a cost of $100/month for a room and two meals/day, I was excited about this idea. Two hours later she came up to me and said she found a place for me. So I might be moving soon.
We sipped on beers for a while and ordered some banku, a food I did not like my first time having it, but thought it was great this time. The sauce on the side of it was very spicy this time. All of sudden a guy behind me said, “Buenos noches,” I replied, “Buenos noches, como estas?” “Bien bien y tu?”, and then he started speaking French all of a sudden. Liz and Nicola took over for me. He was from Cote d’Ivoire, and I was so confused as to why he approached us in Spanish first, especially since he didn’t speak much Spanish. He told me because I looked like I would be able to speak Spanish. That was weird. He sat and spoke French with Nicola and Liz for a while, and somehow got us to buy him a Guinness. When he asked if he could have a beer with us, I of course said yeah, not knowing he was going to put the beer on our tab. It felt like Belize.
We left with Liz around 9 so she could get home in time and we walked her to get a taxi as we said goodbye to Nicola. He had to be back in France in 10 days so he could make more nougat. I am kinda glad that now I have a good reason to go to France: Nicola’s nougat.
Friday, January 23, 2009
big black boogers
On Monday morning this week I was on my way to work when I realized I had not tried the tea that I see women selling about every 50 meters on the side of the road. I hadn’t eaten any sort of breakfast my first week of work, mostly because I just don’t want to bother with it, but also to save money. But I figured this morning would be a good time to start with some tea and bread.
I pulled up to a table and asked for some tea and bread and waited. The middle-aged frail woman served me a large chunk of a fluffy white baguette (though not firm on the outside) and a very large plastic mug of tea, heavily treated with milk and sugar. I cannot describe to you the sensation of the first sip (though of course I’m gonna try). I was back in India for just a moment. Now, I cannot easily explain why this is. It was made from bagged tea, I don’t think there were any chai-like spices, and being served in large plastic instead of tiny terracotta, it was really very little like Indian tea. It may have been the milk that was used, or simply the environment in which I was consuming it. A slightly bustling street, a decrepit wooden bench, filthy air that results in big black boogers at the end of the day, a baked good to soak up the hot liquid, and curious children. That could have had something to do with it. The $.80 price tag, however, was nothing like India, and this may have to be just a once-in-a-while morning treat.
At work that day I hoped to find out that I would be heading into the field with either the Micro-credit project or the maternal health and child survival project for a few days. Both project leaders had told me they might be spending some time in the field that week, but weren’t sure. Well, unfortunately the trip for the micro-credit project was postponed, so now I was counting on the other project.
I had a few meetings that day with various project managers to talk about how I can serve their journalistic needs while I am here. Unfortunately it was sounding more and more like there would not be any trips into the field soon, leaving me feeling very useless.
Every day during lunch I go with the same group of guys to the same woman who serves us fried yams, plantains, beans, salsa (made from the local peppers, tomatoes and onions), and ground peanuts. There is a child, maybe 2 or 3 years old, who is always there, and every time he sees me he freaks out, starts crying and screaming, and runs away, continuing his screaming until he is out of earshot. Ya know, he should learn that we were able to reconcile our racial differences in America, and there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to in Africa. I mean, come on, get with the times kid.
The next day at work I was given a sweet new office project. The team that deals with water and sanitation recently had their staff cut, as well as other setbacks. They were supposed to put out a newsletter about the progress of their new project by November, but it still wasn’t done. Plus the format of their previous newsletter was not correct according to the NGO’s standards. My task was to create the newsletter. So that was what I spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday doing. Reading over tons of project reports and some of the material they had started to write for the newsletter, and working them into articles that would fit the proper newsletter format. It was less than exciting, but it got done. And I guess I can say that I freed up their time so that the Water and Sanitation team could focus their efforts on the very important meeting with Unicef today. Yea!
Oh, and Tuesday was inauguration day! Yay! I spent a lot of my spare time at work reading news articles about Obama and what he was working on, so I was pretty excited. However, I was less than excited about the extravagant funding of the whole thing. I am just as excited as anyone for this, but I would have appreciated him to set an example of being a bit more…say, frugal? Does that work? I mean, it’s great that he said, “go spend MLK day doing something to serve your community”, but the next day he spent $150 million in public and private money on a party for himself. Though I am excited about his quick work toward closing Guantanamo, getting presidential records public, and making some quick foreign phone calls.
At about 4:00 PM Ghana time, when some of the official inauguration business was going to start, I tried getting onto CNN.com to watch live, but of course, the internet was down again. So I started asking around and one of my co-workers Zita said her sister-in-law might be watching it at her place. After a quick phone call, I was on the back of Zita’s motorbike speeding toward where she lived with her brother and his wife. I got there just in time to see Cheney in a wheelchair and Biden get sworn in.
I thought Obama’s speech was not the best one he had ever given, but still pretty inspiring. I am glad that so many people (like my family!), voted Republican, but can still be optimistic about Obama. I was really disgusted, though, with some of the stuff I read on certain news sites in response to articles about the inauguration. A lot of it really showed that our nation still has a long way to go regarding the issue of race. I explained that to Zita and her sister. They seemed to be under the impression that Obama’s election was a sign that America’s race problems had been solved and were surprised when I explained otherwise.
I was kind of lonely for the first time that day though, kinda wishing I could enjoy the festivities back home, but I knew that it was also kind of exciting that I was watching it from so far away. One of the guys that I work with, Simon, asked me if people in America understand how much the rest of the world, especially Africa, looks up to America. I wasn’t really sure how to answer that. I am learning that in Africa America is like a big brother. I explained that I think that Americans know that, but don’t really understand the implications of it. Like, when we act, I don’t think that Americans realize that a nation like Ghana might follow in our lead. I feel kind of like Charles Barkley when he was criticized for his behavior. He said something to the effect of “I am not a role model, I don’t think your kids should be looking up to me”. Well, to bad Charles, you’re a basketball star, so you better set a good example. Does this make any sense? Any thoughts loyal blog-readers? Anyway, on the way back home that day I passed some kids, and instead of yelling out “hello” like most kids up here do, they yelled “China!”. Just like they did to my Korean predecessor Josh Lee! Haha, I called back “Ghana!” just as Josh had done a year ago.
That night I celebrated by going to the spot next door (the one with the guy that speaks Spanish with his dreadlocked wife, Akos) and having a beer. Akos asked if I voted for Obama and I said yes (yeah, even though my absentee ballot never arrived), and she looked surprised. “But you’re white!” she said. Instead of arguing about my partial Mexican heritage, making me kinda brownish, I explained that plenty of white people had to have voted for Obama or he couldn’t have won.
So on Wednesday the guys wanted to do something different for lunch and they were really excited about it. They had asked me a couple days before if I “take” pork. Psh! Yeah I take pork! So that day we were off on a short drive down a few dirt roads to this obscure spot where an elderly woman sat with a large bin filled with chunks of pork. When I looked in I saw one of the pieces had the curly tail sticking out. Another had an ear. And the most tempting piece had a full row of teeth and a tender looking tongue. It is really kind of funny to think how in America all the meet we eat is so…unidentifiable as an animal. I mean, think of a hot dog or a hamburger, quintessential American foods. What part of which animal do those come from? All parts of several animals if you do well! Haha! We picked out a bunch of pieces, and the woman took a big knife to them, chopping them up, taking some of the bones when possible. I knew this was a special treat in this predominantly Muslim city. The guys said that we had to get there early to get the good pieces (not a soul was there when we left at 12:30) and that by 1:30 it is all gone.
We took the pork back to the office where we had some kenke (remember that tamale-like food) to eat with the pork. And the sauce served with the kenke was much better than the previous time, and I really liked it. The kenke was better too. And so we all tucked into our big back of pork and our communal lumps of kenke and sauce. The pork meat was really good, though the skin was impossibly tough to chew. Plus, if you remember the line I drew about eating meat that still has visible hair on, well, yeah, I crossed that line. The pieces with skin (most of them) had an extremely rough quarter-inch stubble like toothbrush bristles. Mmmm! Dipped in the salsa, the good pieces of meat were great though.
After work I rode my bike in to town for a couple of missions. The first was oranges. Check. Didn’t take long. The second was to find some good music. After looking at a few stalls and a bit of bargaining, I got a couple of Nigerian Video CD’s. Then the last errand was to get a local newspaper with Obama taking up the entire front page. At the newsstand a couple of the guys and a girl seemed to be laughing at me. One of the guys rubbed his smooth chin and pointed at me. “What, my beard?” I asked. “Yes, yes! You look like Osama bin Laden” they laughed. I laughed too, and realized that I hadn’t noticed that having a beard here probably means you’re Muslim, as so many men have beards here. In fact, I remember one person asking if I was Muslim for what I thought was no particular reason. I asked them, and they assured me that a beard means you’re Muslim. I was like, whatever. Jeez, in two days I was mistaken for being Chinese AND the leader of a terrorist organization.
So, today I finished that newsletter, finally, along with a couple of smaller tasks, and got out of work a bit earlier than normal. I headed in to town on a new mission. CHEESE! Now, when I am abroad I have learned to steer clear of any kind of western food or imported specialties (as a means of saving money and forcing myself to dig deeper into local culinary culture). But what does one do when they crave cheese and has seen nothing but some weird Bluebell imported Cheese Spread? Well, I am a problem-solver like that.
I had noticed on more than one occasion that there are cows here. This happened once when a heard walked right past me at an outdoor spot, and another time when I almost crashed into one on my bike. Cows, I remembered, made milk. And if I am not mistaken (I have been to the Seattle Cheese Festival every year it has existed so I know a bit) cheese is made from milk. Therefore, there is a good chance they know this in Ghana and have in some way or another harnessed the God-given powers of the cow for things other than steak and roadblocks. I asked a couple people at work, but they couldn’t really think of anything. Then on my way out I asked Ramatu, one of the head peeps, and she said to go to one of the grocery stores in town by the traffic light. No, no, no, that wouldn’t work, I would just find that imported junk. I asked if there was anything Ghanaian made, that might be at the market. She thought a minute, and said, Oh, wagashee. Yeah, you can find it by such and such, girls might be selling it there.
Well, when I got in to town, of course I could not really find any girls selling any sort of cheese-like substance, nor could I really remember the name. Washeeba? Yeah, that sounded right. I asked a guy who sold me a bootleg CD where I might find any sort of cheese (he didn’t understand that), you know, like…washeeba?…umm, medicine?…no, cheese…wabeesha?…His friend seemed to know, and pointed me toward the small grocery store right next to us. At least they would speak better English, I thought. I went through the same thing with a young employee, showing her the Bluebell spread, saying, “yes, like this, but made in Ghana, cheese…washeeba?” She didn’t seem to know, but she seemed to know what I was looking for. She asked someone, and sure enough, they knew, “ahh! Wagashee!” They pointed in a general direction and that’s all I needed.
Wagashee, wagashee, wagashee, I kept repeating in my head. I stopped on the way and grabbed some kelewele, plantains fried and marinated with ginger and other spices. Then I just kept asking people, wagashee? And they would point. Eventually I was in the local marketplace being pointed down narrow walkways until I was pointed back the opposite way. I was so close!
Then I saw it. Not what I expected, but I knew I was there. I asked the large middle-aged woman, “wagashee?”. Oh yeah, it was fried! And soft. I had had something very similar in Nicaragua. It was not exactly what I had been craving, but $.50 of it turned out to be a pretty satisfying little snack. Plus the thrill of the hunt was just as much fun. I wandered around the market for a while longer, and eventually stumbled (quite literally) across something else I was trying to find. Obstructing the aisle was a huge pile of rubber scraps, seemingly from used tires. There was about ten men working diligently, the fruits of their labor out of sight. I knew I needed to investigate though. I was right! They were making “Afro-Moses” the rugged and cheap sandals made from used tires. One of the men said he would custom-make a pair for me, but the price of $5 was a bit steep for me. I offered him $3, and surprisingly he declined, and let me walk away. Oh well, I will be back for them. They looked really rad, though due to their weight they do not look like they would be ideal if I ever needed to run to catch a bus or evade cops.
I pulled up to a table and asked for some tea and bread and waited. The middle-aged frail woman served me a large chunk of a fluffy white baguette (though not firm on the outside) and a very large plastic mug of tea, heavily treated with milk and sugar. I cannot describe to you the sensation of the first sip (though of course I’m gonna try). I was back in India for just a moment. Now, I cannot easily explain why this is. It was made from bagged tea, I don’t think there were any chai-like spices, and being served in large plastic instead of tiny terracotta, it was really very little like Indian tea. It may have been the milk that was used, or simply the environment in which I was consuming it. A slightly bustling street, a decrepit wooden bench, filthy air that results in big black boogers at the end of the day, a baked good to soak up the hot liquid, and curious children. That could have had something to do with it. The $.80 price tag, however, was nothing like India, and this may have to be just a once-in-a-while morning treat.
At work that day I hoped to find out that I would be heading into the field with either the Micro-credit project or the maternal health and child survival project for a few days. Both project leaders had told me they might be spending some time in the field that week, but weren’t sure. Well, unfortunately the trip for the micro-credit project was postponed, so now I was counting on the other project.
I had a few meetings that day with various project managers to talk about how I can serve their journalistic needs while I am here. Unfortunately it was sounding more and more like there would not be any trips into the field soon, leaving me feeling very useless.
Every day during lunch I go with the same group of guys to the same woman who serves us fried yams, plantains, beans, salsa (made from the local peppers, tomatoes and onions), and ground peanuts. There is a child, maybe 2 or 3 years old, who is always there, and every time he sees me he freaks out, starts crying and screaming, and runs away, continuing his screaming until he is out of earshot. Ya know, he should learn that we were able to reconcile our racial differences in America, and there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to in Africa. I mean, come on, get with the times kid.
The next day at work I was given a sweet new office project. The team that deals with water and sanitation recently had their staff cut, as well as other setbacks. They were supposed to put out a newsletter about the progress of their new project by November, but it still wasn’t done. Plus the format of their previous newsletter was not correct according to the NGO’s standards. My task was to create the newsletter. So that was what I spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday doing. Reading over tons of project reports and some of the material they had started to write for the newsletter, and working them into articles that would fit the proper newsletter format. It was less than exciting, but it got done. And I guess I can say that I freed up their time so that the Water and Sanitation team could focus their efforts on the very important meeting with Unicef today. Yea!
Oh, and Tuesday was inauguration day! Yay! I spent a lot of my spare time at work reading news articles about Obama and what he was working on, so I was pretty excited. However, I was less than excited about the extravagant funding of the whole thing. I am just as excited as anyone for this, but I would have appreciated him to set an example of being a bit more…say, frugal? Does that work? I mean, it’s great that he said, “go spend MLK day doing something to serve your community”, but the next day he spent $150 million in public and private money on a party for himself. Though I am excited about his quick work toward closing Guantanamo, getting presidential records public, and making some quick foreign phone calls.
At about 4:00 PM Ghana time, when some of the official inauguration business was going to start, I tried getting onto CNN.com to watch live, but of course, the internet was down again. So I started asking around and one of my co-workers Zita said her sister-in-law might be watching it at her place. After a quick phone call, I was on the back of Zita’s motorbike speeding toward where she lived with her brother and his wife. I got there just in time to see Cheney in a wheelchair and Biden get sworn in.
I thought Obama’s speech was not the best one he had ever given, but still pretty inspiring. I am glad that so many people (like my family!), voted Republican, but can still be optimistic about Obama. I was really disgusted, though, with some of the stuff I read on certain news sites in response to articles about the inauguration. A lot of it really showed that our nation still has a long way to go regarding the issue of race. I explained that to Zita and her sister. They seemed to be under the impression that Obama’s election was a sign that America’s race problems had been solved and were surprised when I explained otherwise.
I was kind of lonely for the first time that day though, kinda wishing I could enjoy the festivities back home, but I knew that it was also kind of exciting that I was watching it from so far away. One of the guys that I work with, Simon, asked me if people in America understand how much the rest of the world, especially Africa, looks up to America. I wasn’t really sure how to answer that. I am learning that in Africa America is like a big brother. I explained that I think that Americans know that, but don’t really understand the implications of it. Like, when we act, I don’t think that Americans realize that a nation like Ghana might follow in our lead. I feel kind of like Charles Barkley when he was criticized for his behavior. He said something to the effect of “I am not a role model, I don’t think your kids should be looking up to me”. Well, to bad Charles, you’re a basketball star, so you better set a good example. Does this make any sense? Any thoughts loyal blog-readers? Anyway, on the way back home that day I passed some kids, and instead of yelling out “hello” like most kids up here do, they yelled “China!”. Just like they did to my Korean predecessor Josh Lee! Haha, I called back “Ghana!” just as Josh had done a year ago.
That night I celebrated by going to the spot next door (the one with the guy that speaks Spanish with his dreadlocked wife, Akos) and having a beer. Akos asked if I voted for Obama and I said yes (yeah, even though my absentee ballot never arrived), and she looked surprised. “But you’re white!” she said. Instead of arguing about my partial Mexican heritage, making me kinda brownish, I explained that plenty of white people had to have voted for Obama or he couldn’t have won.
So on Wednesday the guys wanted to do something different for lunch and they were really excited about it. They had asked me a couple days before if I “take” pork. Psh! Yeah I take pork! So that day we were off on a short drive down a few dirt roads to this obscure spot where an elderly woman sat with a large bin filled with chunks of pork. When I looked in I saw one of the pieces had the curly tail sticking out. Another had an ear. And the most tempting piece had a full row of teeth and a tender looking tongue. It is really kind of funny to think how in America all the meet we eat is so…unidentifiable as an animal. I mean, think of a hot dog or a hamburger, quintessential American foods. What part of which animal do those come from? All parts of several animals if you do well! Haha! We picked out a bunch of pieces, and the woman took a big knife to them, chopping them up, taking some of the bones when possible. I knew this was a special treat in this predominantly Muslim city. The guys said that we had to get there early to get the good pieces (not a soul was there when we left at 12:30) and that by 1:30 it is all gone.
We took the pork back to the office where we had some kenke (remember that tamale-like food) to eat with the pork. And the sauce served with the kenke was much better than the previous time, and I really liked it. The kenke was better too. And so we all tucked into our big back of pork and our communal lumps of kenke and sauce. The pork meat was really good, though the skin was impossibly tough to chew. Plus, if you remember the line I drew about eating meat that still has visible hair on, well, yeah, I crossed that line. The pieces with skin (most of them) had an extremely rough quarter-inch stubble like toothbrush bristles. Mmmm! Dipped in the salsa, the good pieces of meat were great though.
After work I rode my bike in to town for a couple of missions. The first was oranges. Check. Didn’t take long. The second was to find some good music. After looking at a few stalls and a bit of bargaining, I got a couple of Nigerian Video CD’s. Then the last errand was to get a local newspaper with Obama taking up the entire front page. At the newsstand a couple of the guys and a girl seemed to be laughing at me. One of the guys rubbed his smooth chin and pointed at me. “What, my beard?” I asked. “Yes, yes! You look like Osama bin Laden” they laughed. I laughed too, and realized that I hadn’t noticed that having a beard here probably means you’re Muslim, as so many men have beards here. In fact, I remember one person asking if I was Muslim for what I thought was no particular reason. I asked them, and they assured me that a beard means you’re Muslim. I was like, whatever. Jeez, in two days I was mistaken for being Chinese AND the leader of a terrorist organization.
So, today I finished that newsletter, finally, along with a couple of smaller tasks, and got out of work a bit earlier than normal. I headed in to town on a new mission. CHEESE! Now, when I am abroad I have learned to steer clear of any kind of western food or imported specialties (as a means of saving money and forcing myself to dig deeper into local culinary culture). But what does one do when they crave cheese and has seen nothing but some weird Bluebell imported Cheese Spread? Well, I am a problem-solver like that.
I had noticed on more than one occasion that there are cows here. This happened once when a heard walked right past me at an outdoor spot, and another time when I almost crashed into one on my bike. Cows, I remembered, made milk. And if I am not mistaken (I have been to the Seattle Cheese Festival every year it has existed so I know a bit) cheese is made from milk. Therefore, there is a good chance they know this in Ghana and have in some way or another harnessed the God-given powers of the cow for things other than steak and roadblocks. I asked a couple people at work, but they couldn’t really think of anything. Then on my way out I asked Ramatu, one of the head peeps, and she said to go to one of the grocery stores in town by the traffic light. No, no, no, that wouldn’t work, I would just find that imported junk. I asked if there was anything Ghanaian made, that might be at the market. She thought a minute, and said, Oh, wagashee. Yeah, you can find it by such and such, girls might be selling it there.
Well, when I got in to town, of course I could not really find any girls selling any sort of cheese-like substance, nor could I really remember the name. Washeeba? Yeah, that sounded right. I asked a guy who sold me a bootleg CD where I might find any sort of cheese (he didn’t understand that), you know, like…washeeba?…umm, medicine?…no, cheese…wabeesha?…His friend seemed to know, and pointed me toward the small grocery store right next to us. At least they would speak better English, I thought. I went through the same thing with a young employee, showing her the Bluebell spread, saying, “yes, like this, but made in Ghana, cheese…washeeba?” She didn’t seem to know, but she seemed to know what I was looking for. She asked someone, and sure enough, they knew, “ahh! Wagashee!” They pointed in a general direction and that’s all I needed.
Wagashee, wagashee, wagashee, I kept repeating in my head. I stopped on the way and grabbed some kelewele, plantains fried and marinated with ginger and other spices. Then I just kept asking people, wagashee? And they would point. Eventually I was in the local marketplace being pointed down narrow walkways until I was pointed back the opposite way. I was so close!
Then I saw it. Not what I expected, but I knew I was there. I asked the large middle-aged woman, “wagashee?”. Oh yeah, it was fried! And soft. I had had something very similar in Nicaragua. It was not exactly what I had been craving, but $.50 of it turned out to be a pretty satisfying little snack. Plus the thrill of the hunt was just as much fun. I wandered around the market for a while longer, and eventually stumbled (quite literally) across something else I was trying to find. Obstructing the aisle was a huge pile of rubber scraps, seemingly from used tires. There was about ten men working diligently, the fruits of their labor out of sight. I knew I needed to investigate though. I was right! They were making “Afro-Moses” the rugged and cheap sandals made from used tires. One of the men said he would custom-make a pair for me, but the price of $5 was a bit steep for me. I offered him $3, and surprisingly he declined, and let me walk away. Oh well, I will be back for them. They looked really rad, though due to their weight they do not look like they would be ideal if I ever needed to run to catch a bus or evade cops.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Un-American Football
After hitting up a chop bar for some groundnut soup and rice balls for lunch on Saturday, I rode around town looking for a place to watch the soccer games on TV. I had seen various places with chalkboards announcing what games would be on their TV’s. The one closest to my guesthouse did not look very happening, so I rode the Al-Hassan Guesthouse where I knew they would be showing them.
When I arrived I paid my $.50 entrance fee and was shocked to find such a huge crowd in the courtyard. There were easily 150 Ghanaian men packed into rows of benches under a temporary tarp roof. They had just started to watch the first two games, Chelsea vs. a less important team on the 30” flat screen on the left, and Manchester United vs. another less important team on the 40” flat screen on the right. I sat down on the end of a bench about halfway up. Although this was supposedly a popular place for backpackers as it is the closest guesthouse to the bus station, I did not see a single non-Ghanaian the whole time.
A guy behind me tapped me and said something I did not understand (this I have become very used to). I just smiled and nodded and he seemed to agree. Then I realized what he said. “Are you for Man. U?” NOOOO!!! I thought. I don’t follow soccer, but I know that Manchester United is one of the big teams that people all over the world idolize, Ghana being no exception. But I just could not picture myself rooting for a team with a name that sounded so…British!
But, I went with it, as it was easier and more fun to root with the majority, especially since I have no loyalties to any soccer team, expect maybe for the Sounders, the Chivas, and the Mexico national team. It did not take me long to get into it, though it took some work to follow both games. They were both pretty exciting, especially since almost all the goals were scored in the last ten minutes. Man. U won, 2-1 I think, and it was chaos for a few minutes as everyone celebrated. And for the other game, I think it was also 2-1, not sure who won. As you can see, I am still not that enthusiastic about soccer, but it will always be fun as long as the crowd you are with IS enthusiastic about it. This I have learned several times now. I just wish the world loved basketball like they do soccer.
After the two simultaneous matches were over, and there was about 15 min. till the next match started, I ran out to scrounge for some food. I walked around the nearby market and found something I hadn’t tried yet: Kenke. So, I was optimistic as it was made from corn and wrapped in a cornhusk, like a tamale, but bigger and denser and fermented, and not filled with a delicious stewed meat. It was served with a red sauce, which I don’t know if I quite feel yet. Well, I was able to eat most of it, enjoying primarily the fact that I had paid only $.30 for an enormous amount of food. If I am ever served this again, like in a village, or as a guest somewhere, I will happily eat it. However, I don’t see myself voluntarily buying this while I have other food options.
The next game was starting by the time I got back and the crowd had dwindled to maybe 100. This game was also pretty good, but I was so tired by the end of it I could not stay for the Barcelona vs. whoever match.
I rode back to my guesthouse and had some oranges, then went to a “spot” next to my guesthouse to have a beer. This spot usually has good music blasting when I pass by, so I figured it would be good. When I sat down there was a father and son (maybe 14 years old) manning the beer fridge while watching the Top 10 countdown of Ghanaian music for 2008. I was able to strike up a conversation with the kid about the music and he was able to explain who everyone was. The father, however, did not seem to be interested in conversing at all, and never smiled. Eventually the wife and her sister arrived. The wife, who seems to kind of run the spot, has rad dreadlocks and she and her sister have a very jovial, though intimidating demeanor. Like they could be great friends, though I would always be scared off them. One of them brought a bootleg DVD she had bought in town of 80 music videos from all over Africa. It looked pretty sweet so I need to go find it. Anyway, during the music videos, I saw the wife doing some steps that looked like salsa. I joked, “hey, do you salsa?” And she replied, “yes,” though I was not sure what to make of this. She asked how I knew, and I said I had learned a little bit in Central America. Then her husband (the quiet, angry-looking guy) pipes up, “do you speak Spanish?”… “Sure,” I said, knowing that it was pretty safe to show confidence in my skills here. He looked doubtful, “really?” he asked. “Umm, well, I speak it pretty well I guess.”
“Buenos Noches,” he responded, me thinking he had just picked some up from some Spanish NGO workers or something. But no, we then proceeded to have a long conversation, all in Spanish, about how he lived in Cuba for twelve years, and about politics, and Ghana and all this. It was kind of a shock, but it was good to know that I wasn’t going to be taking three months completely off from speaking Spanish. His accent was difficult to understand, but I think returning occasionally could be a good idea.
On Sunday I washed my clothes in my room before hanging them out on the line. The rate for having clothes washed by them is 4 pieces for a dollar, but I figure since I am spending so much on my room I’ve gotta save wherever possible.
At around 2:00, I rode a couple of km. to Tamale’s brand new soccer stadium to see RTU (Real Tamale United) play the Hearts, a team from Accra. The stadium was built about 2 years ago for the Africa Cup of Nations, held in Ghana. It is an awesome venue that has a strange resemblance to the “Bird Nest” from the Olympics this year. On the way in a couple kids asked me to pay their way in. I felt bad because entrance was only $3, and it would feel good to let these kids see the game. But when I looked around I saw a lot more kids hanging around that would also be expecting me to pay their way. I had only brought $10 anyway. But then I felt really bad because right after denying them, I spent a dollar on an RTU flag. Should I have given that dollar to one of them instead, hoping they could ask someone else for the balance? It seems like it could be harmless, but I really don’t know.
I parked my bike (cost me $.30!) and got my ticket and headed in. A middle-aged man struck a convo with me on the way in, and eventually kind of attached himself to me. He was friendly enough, and it was his first time in the stadium too, so he was a fun “single-serving friend”.
As soon as we started getting into our seats near midfield, just a few rows back some men were having a pretty heated argument. It escalated pretty quickly into a fight/mild brawl. It took the military/cop/security guys a few minutes to react. They look intimidating with their camo and rifles, but after watching some of their law enforcement, I am not too fearful. They also carry sticks, though some of their sticks are literally large twigs ripped off a tree. One of the guys, though, had a pretty hefty 3 foot long, inch-thick dowel. He started to raise it to one of the guys fighting, and the guy reached up and held his arm back. The cop proceeded to slap him, then bust him over the head with his stick, breaking it in half (the stick, not his head). Essentially the cops, apparently not having handcuffs, or the balls to use their guns to intimidate, became part of the brawl. Most of the people not involved in the fight just laughed. It was pretty entertaining.
As nice and modern as the stadium was, I bet the games were more fun at the old stadium. This place has a capacity of about 20,000, though I bet it was only ¼ full (leading me to wonder about this dispute over seating, as there was plenty of room for everyone).
Seeing as the game was held in Tamale, I assumed the majority of the fans would be for RTU, though if this was true, it was only a slight advantage. Accra fans must be dedicated because a LOT of them made it up, all yelling their team’s slogan, “PHOBIA!!!” While RTU said “WheWeYouNa” (Where Were You Now).
Late in the first half Accra scored the first goal, causing quite a bit of jubilation around me. Within five minutes, though, RTU scored on a PK, which lead to more jubilating, and possibly another fight.
Whatever lead to this fight, it quickly broke into several proxy fights, and I was quickly surrounded by big men beating eachother, army cops running up waving their sticks. At one point the butt of one of the guns was about a foot from my face, the stick 2 feet away. I just kept waving my RTU flag in celebration. Seriously, these cops were so ineffective, and actually seemed to be listening to what the guys fighting were saying, trying to sort out the situation in the middle of the brawl. They seemed to have very little power to escort people out of the stadium. Most of my section seemed to be in unrest as the people fighting kept running around, breaking more seats. By the end of the half things seemed to be under control, fans on both sides laughing at how ridiculous it all was.
During the break I walked out of the seating area to the corridors of the stadium, where men were lining up for their afternoon prayers. Some of them were using their RTU flags as prayer mats. I liked their resourcefulness.
When I got back to my seat, some of the guys sitting next to me had busted out some food from somewhere. One of them offered me some of the meat he was eating. I asked what it was. He didn’t seem to know, but then says, “oh, uh, bush meat!”. Umm, that can mean anything from iguana to monkey…Then I saw the little arms and claws. Oh, “is it grass cutter?” I asked. “Yeah!” he replied. It’s like a large rat. So I took a chunk off his full animal, and it was actually really good, and had strong flavor. He offered me half, but at that moment, I decided to draw the line at meat that still has visible hair, so I politely said no. I was glad I denied it because he seemed to eat the whole thing, bones, claws and all. Hardcore.
And early in the next half, ANOTHER fight broke out, though this one was in a section about three over and two up from me. Most of the stadium turned and watched the brawl as the armycops ran up there with their guns and sticks. One of the guys actually gave up on his stuck, and started slamming the butt of his rifle into the fight. Eventually we saw this one guy break free from the fight and we all laughed as he ran through a few sections of empty seats doing a good job of making fools of the cops trying to chase him. It was made all the more comical as the guy getting chased had a Rolling Stones shirt on, you know, the one that is just the mouth with the tongue out. Awesome. He eventually ran into a mob of reserve armycops that came from below and he was escorted out.
Then Accra scored again. Lame. Then the game was basically over. As the teams exited I saw another scuffle start down near the tunnel, but I didn’t feel like running down to watch like everyone else, so I peaced out. Although my team didn’t win it was a pretty fun experience (though not nearly as ridiculous as the Guatemalan soccer game I watched about a year ago).
When I arrived I paid my $.50 entrance fee and was shocked to find such a huge crowd in the courtyard. There were easily 150 Ghanaian men packed into rows of benches under a temporary tarp roof. They had just started to watch the first two games, Chelsea vs. a less important team on the 30” flat screen on the left, and Manchester United vs. another less important team on the 40” flat screen on the right. I sat down on the end of a bench about halfway up. Although this was supposedly a popular place for backpackers as it is the closest guesthouse to the bus station, I did not see a single non-Ghanaian the whole time.
A guy behind me tapped me and said something I did not understand (this I have become very used to). I just smiled and nodded and he seemed to agree. Then I realized what he said. “Are you for Man. U?” NOOOO!!! I thought. I don’t follow soccer, but I know that Manchester United is one of the big teams that people all over the world idolize, Ghana being no exception. But I just could not picture myself rooting for a team with a name that sounded so…British!
But, I went with it, as it was easier and more fun to root with the majority, especially since I have no loyalties to any soccer team, expect maybe for the Sounders, the Chivas, and the Mexico national team. It did not take me long to get into it, though it took some work to follow both games. They were both pretty exciting, especially since almost all the goals were scored in the last ten minutes. Man. U won, 2-1 I think, and it was chaos for a few minutes as everyone celebrated. And for the other game, I think it was also 2-1, not sure who won. As you can see, I am still not that enthusiastic about soccer, but it will always be fun as long as the crowd you are with IS enthusiastic about it. This I have learned several times now. I just wish the world loved basketball like they do soccer.
After the two simultaneous matches were over, and there was about 15 min. till the next match started, I ran out to scrounge for some food. I walked around the nearby market and found something I hadn’t tried yet: Kenke. So, I was optimistic as it was made from corn and wrapped in a cornhusk, like a tamale, but bigger and denser and fermented, and not filled with a delicious stewed meat. It was served with a red sauce, which I don’t know if I quite feel yet. Well, I was able to eat most of it, enjoying primarily the fact that I had paid only $.30 for an enormous amount of food. If I am ever served this again, like in a village, or as a guest somewhere, I will happily eat it. However, I don’t see myself voluntarily buying this while I have other food options.
The next game was starting by the time I got back and the crowd had dwindled to maybe 100. This game was also pretty good, but I was so tired by the end of it I could not stay for the Barcelona vs. whoever match.
I rode back to my guesthouse and had some oranges, then went to a “spot” next to my guesthouse to have a beer. This spot usually has good music blasting when I pass by, so I figured it would be good. When I sat down there was a father and son (maybe 14 years old) manning the beer fridge while watching the Top 10 countdown of Ghanaian music for 2008. I was able to strike up a conversation with the kid about the music and he was able to explain who everyone was. The father, however, did not seem to be interested in conversing at all, and never smiled. Eventually the wife and her sister arrived. The wife, who seems to kind of run the spot, has rad dreadlocks and she and her sister have a very jovial, though intimidating demeanor. Like they could be great friends, though I would always be scared off them. One of them brought a bootleg DVD she had bought in town of 80 music videos from all over Africa. It looked pretty sweet so I need to go find it. Anyway, during the music videos, I saw the wife doing some steps that looked like salsa. I joked, “hey, do you salsa?” And she replied, “yes,” though I was not sure what to make of this. She asked how I knew, and I said I had learned a little bit in Central America. Then her husband (the quiet, angry-looking guy) pipes up, “do you speak Spanish?”… “Sure,” I said, knowing that it was pretty safe to show confidence in my skills here. He looked doubtful, “really?” he asked. “Umm, well, I speak it pretty well I guess.”
“Buenos Noches,” he responded, me thinking he had just picked some up from some Spanish NGO workers or something. But no, we then proceeded to have a long conversation, all in Spanish, about how he lived in Cuba for twelve years, and about politics, and Ghana and all this. It was kind of a shock, but it was good to know that I wasn’t going to be taking three months completely off from speaking Spanish. His accent was difficult to understand, but I think returning occasionally could be a good idea.
On Sunday I washed my clothes in my room before hanging them out on the line. The rate for having clothes washed by them is 4 pieces for a dollar, but I figure since I am spending so much on my room I’ve gotta save wherever possible.
At around 2:00, I rode a couple of km. to Tamale’s brand new soccer stadium to see RTU (Real Tamale United) play the Hearts, a team from Accra. The stadium was built about 2 years ago for the Africa Cup of Nations, held in Ghana. It is an awesome venue that has a strange resemblance to the “Bird Nest” from the Olympics this year. On the way in a couple kids asked me to pay their way in. I felt bad because entrance was only $3, and it would feel good to let these kids see the game. But when I looked around I saw a lot more kids hanging around that would also be expecting me to pay their way. I had only brought $10 anyway. But then I felt really bad because right after denying them, I spent a dollar on an RTU flag. Should I have given that dollar to one of them instead, hoping they could ask someone else for the balance? It seems like it could be harmless, but I really don’t know.
I parked my bike (cost me $.30!) and got my ticket and headed in. A middle-aged man struck a convo with me on the way in, and eventually kind of attached himself to me. He was friendly enough, and it was his first time in the stadium too, so he was a fun “single-serving friend”.
As soon as we started getting into our seats near midfield, just a few rows back some men were having a pretty heated argument. It escalated pretty quickly into a fight/mild brawl. It took the military/cop/security guys a few minutes to react. They look intimidating with their camo and rifles, but after watching some of their law enforcement, I am not too fearful. They also carry sticks, though some of their sticks are literally large twigs ripped off a tree. One of the guys, though, had a pretty hefty 3 foot long, inch-thick dowel. He started to raise it to one of the guys fighting, and the guy reached up and held his arm back. The cop proceeded to slap him, then bust him over the head with his stick, breaking it in half (the stick, not his head). Essentially the cops, apparently not having handcuffs, or the balls to use their guns to intimidate, became part of the brawl. Most of the people not involved in the fight just laughed. It was pretty entertaining.
As nice and modern as the stadium was, I bet the games were more fun at the old stadium. This place has a capacity of about 20,000, though I bet it was only ¼ full (leading me to wonder about this dispute over seating, as there was plenty of room for everyone).
Seeing as the game was held in Tamale, I assumed the majority of the fans would be for RTU, though if this was true, it was only a slight advantage. Accra fans must be dedicated because a LOT of them made it up, all yelling their team’s slogan, “PHOBIA!!!” While RTU said “WheWeYouNa” (Where Were You Now).
Late in the first half Accra scored the first goal, causing quite a bit of jubilation around me. Within five minutes, though, RTU scored on a PK, which lead to more jubilating, and possibly another fight.
Whatever lead to this fight, it quickly broke into several proxy fights, and I was quickly surrounded by big men beating eachother, army cops running up waving their sticks. At one point the butt of one of the guns was about a foot from my face, the stick 2 feet away. I just kept waving my RTU flag in celebration. Seriously, these cops were so ineffective, and actually seemed to be listening to what the guys fighting were saying, trying to sort out the situation in the middle of the brawl. They seemed to have very little power to escort people out of the stadium. Most of my section seemed to be in unrest as the people fighting kept running around, breaking more seats. By the end of the half things seemed to be under control, fans on both sides laughing at how ridiculous it all was.
During the break I walked out of the seating area to the corridors of the stadium, where men were lining up for their afternoon prayers. Some of them were using their RTU flags as prayer mats. I liked their resourcefulness.
When I got back to my seat, some of the guys sitting next to me had busted out some food from somewhere. One of them offered me some of the meat he was eating. I asked what it was. He didn’t seem to know, but then says, “oh, uh, bush meat!”. Umm, that can mean anything from iguana to monkey…Then I saw the little arms and claws. Oh, “is it grass cutter?” I asked. “Yeah!” he replied. It’s like a large rat. So I took a chunk off his full animal, and it was actually really good, and had strong flavor. He offered me half, but at that moment, I decided to draw the line at meat that still has visible hair, so I politely said no. I was glad I denied it because he seemed to eat the whole thing, bones, claws and all. Hardcore.
And early in the next half, ANOTHER fight broke out, though this one was in a section about three over and two up from me. Most of the stadium turned and watched the brawl as the armycops ran up there with their guns and sticks. One of the guys actually gave up on his stuck, and started slamming the butt of his rifle into the fight. Eventually we saw this one guy break free from the fight and we all laughed as he ran through a few sections of empty seats doing a good job of making fools of the cops trying to chase him. It was made all the more comical as the guy getting chased had a Rolling Stones shirt on, you know, the one that is just the mouth with the tongue out. Awesome. He eventually ran into a mob of reserve armycops that came from below and he was escorted out.
Then Accra scored again. Lame. Then the game was basically over. As the teams exited I saw another scuffle start down near the tunnel, but I didn’t feel like running down to watch like everyone else, so I peaced out. Although my team didn’t win it was a pretty fun experience (though not nearly as ridiculous as the Guatemalan soccer game I watched about a year ago).
Monday, January 19, 2009
I'm HELLSA Bike-Havin
Friday Jan. 16
Bell… Basket …Kickstand…LUCKY! Oh yeah, I got me a BIKE yesterday! A locally made (I think) black single speed with a 1950’s style frame, a basket in front, and a shiny label, “Passport” along the frame. It has a bell (I made SURE the one I got had a bell), plus, to my delight, the mechanic who “greased” my bike hooked me up with a headlight on the front that is powered by the front wheel. It is awesome. The guy I bought it from even “dashed” me a lock, a contraption that hooks onto the bottom of the seat tube and has a clamp that goes around the rear wheel so it doesn’t roll. I am a bit concerned though that someone could just carry my bike away.
Toward the end of my second day at work, Rashid, one of the drivers, took me in to town to help me the bike. Thomas had told me the day before that I would probably pay between $30 and $50 for a bike. Sounded good to me. He also told me that Rashid would be good at bargaining for me and getting a good deal. Well when we got to the dirt lot with the bikes and accompanying shed of parts, Rashid seemed to know the guys there, and he told me that this is where the NGO gets all their bikes. This sounded bad. I looked at a few bikes (they were all basically the same, so I tried to find the one with the least wobbly rims and firmest brakes) and eventually chose one. Rashid told me that they were all $75, but since I was with him, I would get it for $70…Wait, who am I bargaining against here? $5 off isn’t a deal, and that Rashid is basically translating for me to his friends, I have NO leverage! I should have come alone. I know I could have gotten this for much cheaper, but I really had no choice. I said I would take it for $50 because of the wobbly wheels, but I was told that either way I would have to take it to a mechanic to get it road-ready, and they would fix them. I managed to get it for $65, and had them include a bell. They turned out to be good people though, who did want me to get a good bike, because when we took it to the nearby mechanic, they salesman brought a couple of the other bikes to swap out their good parts for my bad ones (like a less wobbly rim).
The mechanic told me it would be done in 2 hours, so Rashid drove me back to my guesthouse, where I changed clothes, and almost immediately started walking back to pick up the bike. The walk is a couple km. plus I hadn’t been into town on my own, and doubted I would find the mechanic in his obscure location on my first try.
As I strolled along the main road toward town it got more and more crowded the closer I got. Soon after the sun dipped below the horizon I watched as men gathered in front of homes, shops, inside mosques, arranging their prayer mats eastward, and slightly north toward Mecca. Eventually crackled cries of call to prayer started to burst out from the Mosques’ dilapidated speaker system, “Allaaaaah, Akbaaaar…” For the next ½ hour I meandered through streets and alleys past groups of men, and sometimes women behind them, performing their evening prayers. During this there was a very slight lull in the chaos of the street.
At one point I thought I knew where I was, thought I might be near the mechanic, or at least near the bike shop. Then, no, dead end. Just when I thought I was going to have to backtrack for about 20 min. I was there. I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden I was literally standing within ten feet of my bike, about to turn around and go back home. I gave the mechanic about $4 for parts (of which I know include that fancy light contraption, a basket, oil, and maybe new rims) and labor. Then I went back to the bike shop to settle up my $65 balance. I had to wait for everyone in front of the shop to finish up prayers before I could pay. The owner, Alhaji (his name implying that he has made his pilgrimage to Mecca) gave me a free lock. Sweet. Although I was annoyed with the high price I was forced into, everyone ended up to be good people.
On the way back, I stopped various times to collect food in my basket. My first stop was to buy a giant hunk of watermelon from a bunch of giggly girls. One of the girls, who was with her sister selling oranges, says, “dada, give me 10,000”, or about a dollar. I just smiled, and sat down to eat my watermelon. Luckily most interaction here is very lighthearted and it does not feel rude (unlike India) to brush off poor begging attempts by just smiling and saying no. She eventually sat next to me and kept asking me, “dada, 5,000”, and then “1,000”. I told her to sell more oranges and they laughed. After more harassing, I told her I would buy an orange from her for 1,000. She took the coin, then just sat there, looking satisfied. Apparently she did not understand that I wanted an orange, but her sister eventually gave me the hook up. After more begging came the marriage proposal, and I’m like, Cue to exit! Peace! I dinged my bell and went to get some street meat to take home.
The sausage, something I hadn’t seen in Ghana yet, was the real deal kinda sausage, like whatever chunks of whatever they could scrape together, chop up, and shove into an intestine. It had good flavor, but due to a lack of a quality grinding method it was very chunky, many of the chunks being far too rubbery and impossible to chew. I also got some fried dough, one kind covered in sugar, the other in a spicy spice. I got a few more oranges, and headed back with a full basket.
The next day at work, Thomas spoke with me about his time in America (he is there quite often to promote the NGO and speak at churches). He was telling me how great Americans are and how hospitable they are. He said that when Americans come to Ghana, anything he has is automatically theirs, as that is how he is treated when he is in America. This was refreshing. I get down on Americans so often, especially on our attitudes toward foreigners (particularly when it comes to illegal immigrants). It is good to hear of someone being welcomed so warmly by my people, especially as I have received such warm hospitality during my time here in Ghana so far.
That night I took my bike out for another spin. I rode into town and just wandered about for a few hours, occasionally stopping for oranges. It was so relaxing. Actually that does not make any sense. Riding through town is incredibly nerve wracking. I was raised on a bike, road biking up steep grades, mountain biking down technical trails, yet I felt paralyzed trying to navigate through the crowd of taxis, motorbikes, bicycles, goats, pedestrians, vendors, women with ungodly amounts of anything on their head. I am a menace to Ghanaian society on my bike. But still, there was something fun and soothing about making my way through town on two wheels. As much as I try to escape the worst aspects of American culture, sometimes it is impossible. Yep, I saw not one, but two, groups of people surrounding a TV, watching…American Idol…COME ON! What is this!!! As much as I hate that show, though, I was tempted in pulling up to watch, just to see what other people thought of it. I resisted though, somehow.
Eventually I got hungry and got out of busy streets and found some people serving a food. Figuring out their eating options was tricky due to a language barrier, but I managed to get a phat plate of rice and beans with “sheeto”, a spicy sauce, and a chunk of “guinea fowl”, some kind of bird. After washing my hands in the bowl on the table, I dug in. The guinea fowl was slightly tough, but very tasty, and the sauce it was cooked in was great.
I rode around for a little longer, until I was thoroughly lost (kind of a goal, I guess), then found my way and headed back, stopping for more oranges and some fried dough with sugar.
And now it’s Friday, and I’m about to get off work (I didn’t have anything to do for the last hour of the day). No real plans, but I do know there are some soccer games on TV tomorrow, so I might ride my bike around till I find some people watching.
Bell… Basket …Kickstand…LUCKY! Oh yeah, I got me a BIKE yesterday! A locally made (I think) black single speed with a 1950’s style frame, a basket in front, and a shiny label, “Passport” along the frame. It has a bell (I made SURE the one I got had a bell), plus, to my delight, the mechanic who “greased” my bike hooked me up with a headlight on the front that is powered by the front wheel. It is awesome. The guy I bought it from even “dashed” me a lock, a contraption that hooks onto the bottom of the seat tube and has a clamp that goes around the rear wheel so it doesn’t roll. I am a bit concerned though that someone could just carry my bike away.
Toward the end of my second day at work, Rashid, one of the drivers, took me in to town to help me the bike. Thomas had told me the day before that I would probably pay between $30 and $50 for a bike. Sounded good to me. He also told me that Rashid would be good at bargaining for me and getting a good deal. Well when we got to the dirt lot with the bikes and accompanying shed of parts, Rashid seemed to know the guys there, and he told me that this is where the NGO gets all their bikes. This sounded bad. I looked at a few bikes (they were all basically the same, so I tried to find the one with the least wobbly rims and firmest brakes) and eventually chose one. Rashid told me that they were all $75, but since I was with him, I would get it for $70…Wait, who am I bargaining against here? $5 off isn’t a deal, and that Rashid is basically translating for me to his friends, I have NO leverage! I should have come alone. I know I could have gotten this for much cheaper, but I really had no choice. I said I would take it for $50 because of the wobbly wheels, but I was told that either way I would have to take it to a mechanic to get it road-ready, and they would fix them. I managed to get it for $65, and had them include a bell. They turned out to be good people though, who did want me to get a good bike, because when we took it to the nearby mechanic, they salesman brought a couple of the other bikes to swap out their good parts for my bad ones (like a less wobbly rim).
The mechanic told me it would be done in 2 hours, so Rashid drove me back to my guesthouse, where I changed clothes, and almost immediately started walking back to pick up the bike. The walk is a couple km. plus I hadn’t been into town on my own, and doubted I would find the mechanic in his obscure location on my first try.
As I strolled along the main road toward town it got more and more crowded the closer I got. Soon after the sun dipped below the horizon I watched as men gathered in front of homes, shops, inside mosques, arranging their prayer mats eastward, and slightly north toward Mecca. Eventually crackled cries of call to prayer started to burst out from the Mosques’ dilapidated speaker system, “Allaaaaah, Akbaaaar…” For the next ½ hour I meandered through streets and alleys past groups of men, and sometimes women behind them, performing their evening prayers. During this there was a very slight lull in the chaos of the street.
At one point I thought I knew where I was, thought I might be near the mechanic, or at least near the bike shop. Then, no, dead end. Just when I thought I was going to have to backtrack for about 20 min. I was there. I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden I was literally standing within ten feet of my bike, about to turn around and go back home. I gave the mechanic about $4 for parts (of which I know include that fancy light contraption, a basket, oil, and maybe new rims) and labor. Then I went back to the bike shop to settle up my $65 balance. I had to wait for everyone in front of the shop to finish up prayers before I could pay. The owner, Alhaji (his name implying that he has made his pilgrimage to Mecca) gave me a free lock. Sweet. Although I was annoyed with the high price I was forced into, everyone ended up to be good people.
On the way back, I stopped various times to collect food in my basket. My first stop was to buy a giant hunk of watermelon from a bunch of giggly girls. One of the girls, who was with her sister selling oranges, says, “dada, give me 10,000”, or about a dollar. I just smiled, and sat down to eat my watermelon. Luckily most interaction here is very lighthearted and it does not feel rude (unlike India) to brush off poor begging attempts by just smiling and saying no. She eventually sat next to me and kept asking me, “dada, 5,000”, and then “1,000”. I told her to sell more oranges and they laughed. After more harassing, I told her I would buy an orange from her for 1,000. She took the coin, then just sat there, looking satisfied. Apparently she did not understand that I wanted an orange, but her sister eventually gave me the hook up. After more begging came the marriage proposal, and I’m like, Cue to exit! Peace! I dinged my bell and went to get some street meat to take home.
The sausage, something I hadn’t seen in Ghana yet, was the real deal kinda sausage, like whatever chunks of whatever they could scrape together, chop up, and shove into an intestine. It had good flavor, but due to a lack of a quality grinding method it was very chunky, many of the chunks being far too rubbery and impossible to chew. I also got some fried dough, one kind covered in sugar, the other in a spicy spice. I got a few more oranges, and headed back with a full basket.
The next day at work, Thomas spoke with me about his time in America (he is there quite often to promote the NGO and speak at churches). He was telling me how great Americans are and how hospitable they are. He said that when Americans come to Ghana, anything he has is automatically theirs, as that is how he is treated when he is in America. This was refreshing. I get down on Americans so often, especially on our attitudes toward foreigners (particularly when it comes to illegal immigrants). It is good to hear of someone being welcomed so warmly by my people, especially as I have received such warm hospitality during my time here in Ghana so far.
That night I took my bike out for another spin. I rode into town and just wandered about for a few hours, occasionally stopping for oranges. It was so relaxing. Actually that does not make any sense. Riding through town is incredibly nerve wracking. I was raised on a bike, road biking up steep grades, mountain biking down technical trails, yet I felt paralyzed trying to navigate through the crowd of taxis, motorbikes, bicycles, goats, pedestrians, vendors, women with ungodly amounts of anything on their head. I am a menace to Ghanaian society on my bike. But still, there was something fun and soothing about making my way through town on two wheels. As much as I try to escape the worst aspects of American culture, sometimes it is impossible. Yep, I saw not one, but two, groups of people surrounding a TV, watching…American Idol…COME ON! What is this!!! As much as I hate that show, though, I was tempted in pulling up to watch, just to see what other people thought of it. I resisted though, somehow.
Eventually I got hungry and got out of busy streets and found some people serving a food. Figuring out their eating options was tricky due to a language barrier, but I managed to get a phat plate of rice and beans with “sheeto”, a spicy sauce, and a chunk of “guinea fowl”, some kind of bird. After washing my hands in the bowl on the table, I dug in. The guinea fowl was slightly tough, but very tasty, and the sauce it was cooked in was great.
I rode around for a little longer, until I was thoroughly lost (kind of a goal, I guess), then found my way and headed back, stopping for more oranges and some fried dough with sugar.
And now it’s Friday, and I’m about to get off work (I didn’t have anything to do for the last hour of the day). No real plans, but I do know there are some soccer games on TV tomorrow, so I might ride my bike around till I find some people watching.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Arrival in Tamale, and saying that still makes me hungry
After the bus ride from Busua, to Accra, Adjavon, the country director for Ghana, picked me up and took me to his home in the suburb of Osu. He lives in a beautifully decorated house behind a large gate with a guard. I was to stay in the guesthouse, which had a kitchen, small living room, and bedroom with a huge bed. Yeah, I don’t ask for this kind of luxury, but when it is offered to me for a couple days at no cost, I’m all over it. I met Adjavon’s French wife (Adjavon is originally from Togo) and 3 of his 4 “half-caste” kids who attend the international school. At dinner, the middle one, a 9th grader, was talking about the debates they were having in her class about globalization, the world bank, and the WTO, and their affects on development and culture. I was quite impressed that her school was able to tackle these issues so early. I figure we don’t touch that in public schools in America as the topics are too controversial, or maybe our system is just too Ameri-centric.
The next day we went to the office to go over my scope of work for my internship and discuss possibilities for what I will be doing during my stay in Ghana, as well as a bit of paperwork. I met a ton of staff that I probably would not be seeing again, then Willy, and Admin Assistant, took me around Accra to run some errands and see the city. We got my plane ticket to Tamale, visited several offices trying to get my visa extended, got new passport photos taken, and drove past the American embassy, a gleaming, enormous and heavily fortified structure. The highlight of the day was lunch. Willy took me to a street side food stall where they were serving “red-red”. White beans cooked in palm oil and spices topped with a couple of different spicy sauces, and served with fried plantains. I mashed the plantains up with my fingers and used the chunks to scoop up the beans. It was awesome, but $.90 of this stuff was enough to fill me up and barely have any room for dinner 7 hours later.
The next morning I had to get up at about 3:45 for my flight up to Tamale. The plane took off around sunrise, the haze from the harmattan causing the sun to be dim and red. I was hoping to be able to see the ground during the flight and watch the landscape shift from the green rainforests, to the brown savannah. Unfortunately we flew above the sand clouds carried from the Sahara by the seasonal harmattan winds. As we descended, though, I saw the tan backdrop, dotted with trees and clusters of round mud huts with thatched roofs, arranged in circles, circles arranged into villages. It was like landing in a whole new Africa. Not the southern, and relatively modernized Ghana, but something different. I was brimming with the same excitement as when I landed in Accra.
Rashid, one of the drivers where I am working, was also on the flight, and his boss picked us up. About halfway to town, we stopped because Rashid wanted to get something to eat at a roadside stand. A woman served us each a large bag of “watchay”, a rice and beans, not unlike gallo pinto in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, topped with a mix of cabbabe, onion and tomatoes, plus a hunk of fish, a chunk of dry lamb and some spicy sauces. My review: meh, not bad. When we got to the office, I was introduced to the greatly dwindled staff. Until very recently, the NGO received about $11.5 million annually from USAID (United States Agency for International Development), which mostly funded a school feeding program (the Ghanaian government has a school feeding program already, but in the north it does not have the logistics to implement it, and that’s where this NGO comes in). The money also funded an HIV/AIDS support network program and partially funded other programs. The USAID money accounted for over 90% of funds for this NGO, and therefore, there is no longer a need for the majority of the staff here. The funding was cut because, as a country, Ghana is doing relatively well for the region. On paper it looks as if Ghana is pulling itself out of poverty, and in the south, that is a fair assumption. But the only the only program outside of the three northern regions is a couple of HIV/AIDS support groups. Where we actually work is in a pretty similar economic situation as the neighboring countries. I was immediately angered by the loss of funding, but the country director and other staff members seem optimistic. I guess that’s all you can do.
They put me right to work and my first assignment was a project to get ready for an upcoming delegation of American priests who are visiting the programs in Burkina Faso and Ghana. Apparently the staff in Burkina had come up with a nice packet of information (project briefs, staff bios, itineraries, etc.), but with the lack of staff here, it had not happened. So compiling this and making changes to the itinerary was now my job. Halfway through the day Thomas, the Global Solidarity Coordinator, and a few other staff members and I went to get some lunch. We walked to the nearest little stand and got a few bags of food to bring back. About $2.50 for enough food for 4 of us. Fried yams and plantains, beans, sauces, and ground peanuts. A pretty satisfying lunch that we ate communally standing around a table back at the office. I kinda wanted to sit around the table, but they said only the women sit to eat. I followed suit, but I felt that our eating positions should not be dictated by our urinating positions.
At the end of the day Thomas took me back to the hotel I had checked into that morning, the place they had arranged for me to stay. Catholic Guest House. Even though the prices in 2006 were about $8/night for a single, they were charging $18 now! Even before I could tell Thomas that I would not be able to afford this, he was chatting with a manager, trying to get a discount. He seemed to know everyone there, many of which he introduced me to as priests. He eventually talked to one of the priests who ran the place (or at least had a lot of influence) and apparently worked out a deal so I could stay for only $10/night. This could be feasible, but I have still never stayed at a place that expensive for more than a few nights (cept for in Seattle). The room was nice though. I had a TV (receiving about 3 or 4 Ghanaian stations that I cannot understand due to a mix of accents and poor sound quality), an air conditioner that does not seem to work, a bathroom (an actual plus), and a small balcony, which really is pretty cool. Though I think I would still rather live in a hovel for half the price. But then again, my blanket is shiny and pink with a big heart and matching pillow. We’ll see what happens.
Thomas treated me to a beer in the courtyard of the guesthouse (which pretty big and relaxing with lots of trees) before I went to my room to catch some rest, as I’d been up since before 4.
After a couple hours, I decided to take a walk before bed. As my guesthouse lies a couple km north of the city center, I didn’t make it all the way there. But I did get a few oranges from some women on the street. I found them much better in the south, although that is where they came from. It was mostly the fact that the drier climate had hardened the outside of the oranges, making them much easier to squeeze the juice into my mouth without puncturing them and squirting juice everywhere. They were gooder than anything, and I downed 4 of them as I walked back to my room. I could feel the air start to cool and it was a real blessing.
The next day we went to the office to go over my scope of work for my internship and discuss possibilities for what I will be doing during my stay in Ghana, as well as a bit of paperwork. I met a ton of staff that I probably would not be seeing again, then Willy, and Admin Assistant, took me around Accra to run some errands and see the city. We got my plane ticket to Tamale, visited several offices trying to get my visa extended, got new passport photos taken, and drove past the American embassy, a gleaming, enormous and heavily fortified structure. The highlight of the day was lunch. Willy took me to a street side food stall where they were serving “red-red”. White beans cooked in palm oil and spices topped with a couple of different spicy sauces, and served with fried plantains. I mashed the plantains up with my fingers and used the chunks to scoop up the beans. It was awesome, but $.90 of this stuff was enough to fill me up and barely have any room for dinner 7 hours later.
The next morning I had to get up at about 3:45 for my flight up to Tamale. The plane took off around sunrise, the haze from the harmattan causing the sun to be dim and red. I was hoping to be able to see the ground during the flight and watch the landscape shift from the green rainforests, to the brown savannah. Unfortunately we flew above the sand clouds carried from the Sahara by the seasonal harmattan winds. As we descended, though, I saw the tan backdrop, dotted with trees and clusters of round mud huts with thatched roofs, arranged in circles, circles arranged into villages. It was like landing in a whole new Africa. Not the southern, and relatively modernized Ghana, but something different. I was brimming with the same excitement as when I landed in Accra.
Rashid, one of the drivers where I am working, was also on the flight, and his boss picked us up. About halfway to town, we stopped because Rashid wanted to get something to eat at a roadside stand. A woman served us each a large bag of “watchay”, a rice and beans, not unlike gallo pinto in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, topped with a mix of cabbabe, onion and tomatoes, plus a hunk of fish, a chunk of dry lamb and some spicy sauces. My review: meh, not bad. When we got to the office, I was introduced to the greatly dwindled staff. Until very recently, the NGO received about $11.5 million annually from USAID (United States Agency for International Development), which mostly funded a school feeding program (the Ghanaian government has a school feeding program already, but in the north it does not have the logistics to implement it, and that’s where this NGO comes in). The money also funded an HIV/AIDS support network program and partially funded other programs. The USAID money accounted for over 90% of funds for this NGO, and therefore, there is no longer a need for the majority of the staff here. The funding was cut because, as a country, Ghana is doing relatively well for the region. On paper it looks as if Ghana is pulling itself out of poverty, and in the south, that is a fair assumption. But the only the only program outside of the three northern regions is a couple of HIV/AIDS support groups. Where we actually work is in a pretty similar economic situation as the neighboring countries. I was immediately angered by the loss of funding, but the country director and other staff members seem optimistic. I guess that’s all you can do.
They put me right to work and my first assignment was a project to get ready for an upcoming delegation of American priests who are visiting the programs in Burkina Faso and Ghana. Apparently the staff in Burkina had come up with a nice packet of information (project briefs, staff bios, itineraries, etc.), but with the lack of staff here, it had not happened. So compiling this and making changes to the itinerary was now my job. Halfway through the day Thomas, the Global Solidarity Coordinator, and a few other staff members and I went to get some lunch. We walked to the nearest little stand and got a few bags of food to bring back. About $2.50 for enough food for 4 of us. Fried yams and plantains, beans, sauces, and ground peanuts. A pretty satisfying lunch that we ate communally standing around a table back at the office. I kinda wanted to sit around the table, but they said only the women sit to eat. I followed suit, but I felt that our eating positions should not be dictated by our urinating positions.
At the end of the day Thomas took me back to the hotel I had checked into that morning, the place they had arranged for me to stay. Catholic Guest House. Even though the prices in 2006 were about $8/night for a single, they were charging $18 now! Even before I could tell Thomas that I would not be able to afford this, he was chatting with a manager, trying to get a discount. He seemed to know everyone there, many of which he introduced me to as priests. He eventually talked to one of the priests who ran the place (or at least had a lot of influence) and apparently worked out a deal so I could stay for only $10/night. This could be feasible, but I have still never stayed at a place that expensive for more than a few nights (cept for in Seattle). The room was nice though. I had a TV (receiving about 3 or 4 Ghanaian stations that I cannot understand due to a mix of accents and poor sound quality), an air conditioner that does not seem to work, a bathroom (an actual plus), and a small balcony, which really is pretty cool. Though I think I would still rather live in a hovel for half the price. But then again, my blanket is shiny and pink with a big heart and matching pillow. We’ll see what happens.
Thomas treated me to a beer in the courtyard of the guesthouse (which pretty big and relaxing with lots of trees) before I went to my room to catch some rest, as I’d been up since before 4.
After a couple hours, I decided to take a walk before bed. As my guesthouse lies a couple km north of the city center, I didn’t make it all the way there. But I did get a few oranges from some women on the street. I found them much better in the south, although that is where they came from. It was mostly the fact that the drier climate had hardened the outside of the oranges, making them much easier to squeeze the juice into my mouth without puncturing them and squirting juice everywhere. They were gooder than anything, and I downed 4 of them as I walked back to my room. I could feel the air start to cool and it was a real blessing.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Awwww yeah
-Jan. 3
After 3 months of anticipation it was hard to believe when I landed that I was actually in Africa. When I was younger, I always envisioned myself traveling the world, but I never seriously thought it would really happen, especially by the age of 22. I hope I can keep it up.
After 3 nights in a row of little or poor quality sleep, plus 8 hours of jet lag, I landed in Kotoka International Airport in Accra. I was greeted with the now familiar blast of heat and humidity, like a hug welcoming me back to the tropics. I was greeted by Rex, who drove me to the headquarters of the NGO I’d be working with. I met the country director, and then Rex took me to run a couple errands (change money, get a cell phone sim card, etc.) and then he took me to the bus station.
I was on my way to Busua, a small village on the beach where I would be meeting up with Sean. Other than the stifling heat and humidity, the transit was not too bad, and I was glad to find there is a limit to how many people can ride on a bus, unlike, say, India. The whole ride I kept my head hanging out of the window as a means of cooling myself, but also because I was simply mesmerized at everything that I was seeing. Everything was so colorful and vibrant. Music is also fairly constant here, which I love. The amount of poverty was also quite a surprise. Most everything I heard about Ghana was about how developed it was for Africa. It did not take long for me to realize that this is all very relative and that most of the wealth is very concentrated in the capital.
When I got to Busua, the first thing I needed was a decent meal. Sean was busy setting up for his New Year’s Eve reggae concert, so I was on my own. I asked a guy standing on the beach where I could find a “chop bar”, the informal and cheap restaurants I had heard about. He had me follow him through the village, between mud houses and dirt alleys until we came to what seemed like a communal yard area where a couple of women were cooking and kids were playing. This did not feel like a restaurant, but someone’s living space. Well, it was, but they were willing to serve me, so I asked for $.50 of fufu and $.50 of fish. One of the women started to pound a big ball of white goo (fufu, made of cassava and plantain) with a 3 foot long wooden pole in a bowl, adding water as she went along. She pounded it for about five minutes, then poured an oily red soup over it, tossed a fish in and handed it over to me with a bowl of water. I washed my hands in the water, and started eating. I had to be careful, as the soup was pretty hot and it burnt my fingers as I dipped them into the fufu. I was so excited for this, and I was kinda disappointed. I think it was the slimy texture of the fufu and the fishiness that was so prominent in the soup.
That night on the way to the reggae show, the town lost power. I am not sure if this was due to all the lightning that had just started, but I couldn’t see a thing. Not that the town was well lit at all, but the couple of fluorescent bulbs from shops was enough for me to make my way down the road. Luckily, however, “African Rainbow”, the place where the show was at had a generator, so I could see their light in the distance.
The show opened with the village children performing some traditional dancing and drumming, It was amazing, though it would have been seen as wildly suggestive by western standards. The reggae part was pretty low key, especially as there was an exorbitant $7 cover (a surprise to me), and was therefore not very crowded. I met a lot of other cool travelers though.
Now, I still had not gotten a decent night’s rest in a while, and was also severely jet lagged, so I made it until about 1:00, then headed back in the rain, finding my way by the lightning. I made a stop on the beach where a bunch of the locals had made a fire, so I hung out there for a bit and watched the lightning, then headed on to bed. I slept until about 2 PM. I woke up to the sound of our neighbors pounding their fufu.
I think the best part of Ghana so far is the people. Everyone is so friendly, however, I fear that it could get old fast, with ever person wanting to be friends. I do, however, appreciate the young girl who lives close to me that tells me I am beautiful every time I walk past her. Haha.
The street meat here has proven pretty good. There’s these chicken kebabs that are probably the worst quality pieces of meat, but the spice on them makes it all worth it.. For dinner I tried what looked like tandoori chicken, though I can only assume the color was from red palm oil. The woman gave the two pieces of chicken to me in a bag, then slathered them with a spicy fish sauce. They were to die for. I have also become quite fond of the hard boiled eggs sold on the street that are served with a spicy red pepper. The oranges, at 5 cents each are also quite addictive. They take off about half the width of the peel, then cut off the top of the orange. Then they are perfect for squeezing all the sweet juice into your face.
New Year’s Day in Busua was pretty crazy. I think everyone in the area came there to celebrate. The beach was absolutely packed and everyone was playing soccer and other games. For example, a type of pillow fight, where two guys would square off, blindfolded, with a long bag, with some sort of heavy, soft material. That, in my opinion, was way more entertaining to watch than soccer, or most sports for that matter. Later in the day a huge dance circle broke out. Most of the dancing consisted of pop and locking, acrobatics and throwing sand on each other. Actually most of the people on the beach were covered with sand and did not seem to care much, even if it was all over their face.
Sean’s band, who were all Rastafarians other than Sean, and much more devout than the Rastas I had met in Belize (they don’t drink, eat meat, etc.), was playing again that night. So I headed back over to the African Rainbow. There was an African American guy I had met the night before who played a set with them. He sang some great southern blues stuff which was a great change of pace. I took off at about 1 again, and got some more of that chicken on the way back. I took it back with me and ate it on the porch. Unfortunately it was cold, but I did not want to waste it, so I ate it anyway.
The next day I took a walk to Dixcove, a small town about 15 minutes from Busua. The first thing I saw when I got to Dixcove was women and children getting water from a pump and a nearby well. Busua only has a well. Yes, Dixcove was much bigger than Busua. I took a walk through the main part of town and the calls of “obruni” (white person) were pretty overwhelming. The smell was also pretty intense, as this was a fishing town. It was crowded too, and it was the most out of place I’d felt since India. The biggest building that seemed to loom over the town from a large hill on the water was an old slave fort. It looked more than a little creepy.
On my way out of town a guy getting water from the pump called me over and said he wanted to show me his house. So I followed him up a steep hill, as he carried the ten-gallon tub of water on his head. He and his friend that he lived with are hip-life artists. Hip-life is the Ghanaian equivalent of American Hip-hop. They showed me a bunch of photos of themselves performing and hanging out and photos of their groupies. Then they asked if I could be their manager. They insisted that being a manager in Africa is much easier than it is in America, but I still don’t think I was the right man for the job, so I bid them ado and was on my way.
On the walk back to Busua two young boys with machetes approached me. “We’re going to hunt rats,” they said, and then kept walking. Whoa whoa whoa…that’s not allowed. I called back after them and I asked them where they were going. They pointed into the bush and showed me how they hunt the rats. They had an empty soup can with what looked like a 3 foot long sock attached to it. They said that they put that on one end of the rat’s hole, then make a fire on the other end and force the rats into the sock. I asked if I could go along, but they said they were going pretty far. I said, “too far for me?” They looked at each other and said, “yes”. Lame. They did offer to bring me back a rat, but I don’t think I have the proper cooking equipment to do it justice.
Most of that day, my stomach had been a little bit weird, but I didn’t think much of it. But that night I felt a weird sensation that I hadn’t had in a few days: cold. Yep, a fever. Which was followed by an intense round of vomiting, an awful night of disturbing dreams and constant trips to the bathroom. And today has consisted of me slowly trying to re-hydrate myself, but I’m like a sponge that keeps getting rung out. So maybe that chicken was a poor idea, but with such a good record of eating sketchy food abroad, I didn’t worry too much about it. Maybe I should now. :(
After 3 months of anticipation it was hard to believe when I landed that I was actually in Africa. When I was younger, I always envisioned myself traveling the world, but I never seriously thought it would really happen, especially by the age of 22. I hope I can keep it up.
After 3 nights in a row of little or poor quality sleep, plus 8 hours of jet lag, I landed in Kotoka International Airport in Accra. I was greeted with the now familiar blast of heat and humidity, like a hug welcoming me back to the tropics. I was greeted by Rex, who drove me to the headquarters of the NGO I’d be working with. I met the country director, and then Rex took me to run a couple errands (change money, get a cell phone sim card, etc.) and then he took me to the bus station.
I was on my way to Busua, a small village on the beach where I would be meeting up with Sean. Other than the stifling heat and humidity, the transit was not too bad, and I was glad to find there is a limit to how many people can ride on a bus, unlike, say, India. The whole ride I kept my head hanging out of the window as a means of cooling myself, but also because I was simply mesmerized at everything that I was seeing. Everything was so colorful and vibrant. Music is also fairly constant here, which I love. The amount of poverty was also quite a surprise. Most everything I heard about Ghana was about how developed it was for Africa. It did not take long for me to realize that this is all very relative and that most of the wealth is very concentrated in the capital.
When I got to Busua, the first thing I needed was a decent meal. Sean was busy setting up for his New Year’s Eve reggae concert, so I was on my own. I asked a guy standing on the beach where I could find a “chop bar”, the informal and cheap restaurants I had heard about. He had me follow him through the village, between mud houses and dirt alleys until we came to what seemed like a communal yard area where a couple of women were cooking and kids were playing. This did not feel like a restaurant, but someone’s living space. Well, it was, but they were willing to serve me, so I asked for $.50 of fufu and $.50 of fish. One of the women started to pound a big ball of white goo (fufu, made of cassava and plantain) with a 3 foot long wooden pole in a bowl, adding water as she went along. She pounded it for about five minutes, then poured an oily red soup over it, tossed a fish in and handed it over to me with a bowl of water. I washed my hands in the water, and started eating. I had to be careful, as the soup was pretty hot and it burnt my fingers as I dipped them into the fufu. I was so excited for this, and I was kinda disappointed. I think it was the slimy texture of the fufu and the fishiness that was so prominent in the soup.
That night on the way to the reggae show, the town lost power. I am not sure if this was due to all the lightning that had just started, but I couldn’t see a thing. Not that the town was well lit at all, but the couple of fluorescent bulbs from shops was enough for me to make my way down the road. Luckily, however, “African Rainbow”, the place where the show was at had a generator, so I could see their light in the distance.
The show opened with the village children performing some traditional dancing and drumming, It was amazing, though it would have been seen as wildly suggestive by western standards. The reggae part was pretty low key, especially as there was an exorbitant $7 cover (a surprise to me), and was therefore not very crowded. I met a lot of other cool travelers though.
Now, I still had not gotten a decent night’s rest in a while, and was also severely jet lagged, so I made it until about 1:00, then headed back in the rain, finding my way by the lightning. I made a stop on the beach where a bunch of the locals had made a fire, so I hung out there for a bit and watched the lightning, then headed on to bed. I slept until about 2 PM. I woke up to the sound of our neighbors pounding their fufu.
I think the best part of Ghana so far is the people. Everyone is so friendly, however, I fear that it could get old fast, with ever person wanting to be friends. I do, however, appreciate the young girl who lives close to me that tells me I am beautiful every time I walk past her. Haha.
The street meat here has proven pretty good. There’s these chicken kebabs that are probably the worst quality pieces of meat, but the spice on them makes it all worth it.. For dinner I tried what looked like tandoori chicken, though I can only assume the color was from red palm oil. The woman gave the two pieces of chicken to me in a bag, then slathered them with a spicy fish sauce. They were to die for. I have also become quite fond of the hard boiled eggs sold on the street that are served with a spicy red pepper. The oranges, at 5 cents each are also quite addictive. They take off about half the width of the peel, then cut off the top of the orange. Then they are perfect for squeezing all the sweet juice into your face.
New Year’s Day in Busua was pretty crazy. I think everyone in the area came there to celebrate. The beach was absolutely packed and everyone was playing soccer and other games. For example, a type of pillow fight, where two guys would square off, blindfolded, with a long bag, with some sort of heavy, soft material. That, in my opinion, was way more entertaining to watch than soccer, or most sports for that matter. Later in the day a huge dance circle broke out. Most of the dancing consisted of pop and locking, acrobatics and throwing sand on each other. Actually most of the people on the beach were covered with sand and did not seem to care much, even if it was all over their face.
Sean’s band, who were all Rastafarians other than Sean, and much more devout than the Rastas I had met in Belize (they don’t drink, eat meat, etc.), was playing again that night. So I headed back over to the African Rainbow. There was an African American guy I had met the night before who played a set with them. He sang some great southern blues stuff which was a great change of pace. I took off at about 1 again, and got some more of that chicken on the way back. I took it back with me and ate it on the porch. Unfortunately it was cold, but I did not want to waste it, so I ate it anyway.
The next day I took a walk to Dixcove, a small town about 15 minutes from Busua. The first thing I saw when I got to Dixcove was women and children getting water from a pump and a nearby well. Busua only has a well. Yes, Dixcove was much bigger than Busua. I took a walk through the main part of town and the calls of “obruni” (white person) were pretty overwhelming. The smell was also pretty intense, as this was a fishing town. It was crowded too, and it was the most out of place I’d felt since India. The biggest building that seemed to loom over the town from a large hill on the water was an old slave fort. It looked more than a little creepy.
On my way out of town a guy getting water from the pump called me over and said he wanted to show me his house. So I followed him up a steep hill, as he carried the ten-gallon tub of water on his head. He and his friend that he lived with are hip-life artists. Hip-life is the Ghanaian equivalent of American Hip-hop. They showed me a bunch of photos of themselves performing and hanging out and photos of their groupies. Then they asked if I could be their manager. They insisted that being a manager in Africa is much easier than it is in America, but I still don’t think I was the right man for the job, so I bid them ado and was on my way.
On the walk back to Busua two young boys with machetes approached me. “We’re going to hunt rats,” they said, and then kept walking. Whoa whoa whoa…that’s not allowed. I called back after them and I asked them where they were going. They pointed into the bush and showed me how they hunt the rats. They had an empty soup can with what looked like a 3 foot long sock attached to it. They said that they put that on one end of the rat’s hole, then make a fire on the other end and force the rats into the sock. I asked if I could go along, but they said they were going pretty far. I said, “too far for me?” They looked at each other and said, “yes”. Lame. They did offer to bring me back a rat, but I don’t think I have the proper cooking equipment to do it justice.
Most of that day, my stomach had been a little bit weird, but I didn’t think much of it. But that night I felt a weird sensation that I hadn’t had in a few days: cold. Yep, a fever. Which was followed by an intense round of vomiting, an awful night of disturbing dreams and constant trips to the bathroom. And today has consisted of me slowly trying to re-hydrate myself, but I’m like a sponge that keeps getting rung out. So maybe that chicken was a poor idea, but with such a good record of eating sketchy food abroad, I didn’t worry too much about it. Maybe I should now. :(
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