Food: Delicious. I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be crazy about it but I've been pleasantly surprised! My favorites by far are fried plantain, fried rice (notice a theme?), red-red (which is beans and plantains), mm, basically anything with plantains. I've also tried some Ghanaian staples like fufu, banku and kenke (sp?). Fufu is pounded plantain and cassava, and looks and feels like a bread dough. You eat all these dishes with your hands, and fufu is served with soup. Banku is similar, is made from corn, although you would never guess it (at least I didn't). It is also pounded into a starchy blob and then wrapped in leaves of some sort and boiled, served with sauces of various kinds. Finally, we have kenke.... I don't know what it is.... But it's mushy and rancid. Clearly not my favorite.
As for snack food (maybe I should just make this a food blog)... There is this stuff called Fan Ice that I'm obsessed with (at only 790 calories a pack!). It's vanilla ice cream, but much creamier and incredibly flavorful. They also have these little balls of dough that taste almost like doughnuts and finally they have plantain chips. You can get all these things for 50 peswas or less (which is less than 50 cents American). They're wonderful.
The atmosphere overall is... busy! I live in East Legon which is near the capital, Accra. I wouldn't call it a suburb exactly, because that would give you a very different picture. I'm staying with a host family (two parents, two kids, and relative who helps around the house). We're in a neighborhood, although there are lots of little markets set up all around. The road is a dirt road (as many of them are), but it's all red dirt, because it's West Africa. There are occassional power outages, but mostly it's a pretty plush life in this house, compared to many of the Ghanaian houses. Our host dad blames the unpaved roads and power outages on the political party that's now in power, saying that this area is not perceived as voting for that party and they're therefore ignored. There's a huge presidential election going on here which people are very excited about. Although they seem almost equally excited about our election!! Everyone asks me who I'm voting for and I can proudly say Barack, and thank god because I think they would kick me out if I said McCain (I might not be allowed back in Vermont either, but we needn't worry about that).
The program I'm doing is pretty good so far, although it's awfully hard to concentrate on work.... But I guess that's true at home too. The kids on my program are all cool, and all Canadian. It's been interesting being the only American. In the beginning I almost felt like I was doing a double exchange, Canada and Ghana! Though after the first two weeks, which is how long they say it normally takes to adjust to a place, I'm finding myself to be a lot more comfortable here and in general! I had no physical issues adjusting to the environment and life here (because I eat an entirely carb filled diet at home too), with the exception of the heat. It is supposed to be their colder season right now, but it's also very humid, so looking sweaty is pretty much my job.
In the miscellaneous category, I guess I'll mention that I'm buying a drum (a medium sized djembe), which will have my name and an elephant carved into it! I'm pretty excited. I've also been scouting out fabrics and gifts for people at home! But I have plenty of time for all that so I'm trying not to rush it. Oh and finally, if you're not jealous about anything else, you can be jealous that I eat fresh pineapple every single day. Delicious. But you have doughnuts and breakfast sandwiches and all the maple you could dream of... So I guess the feeling is mutual. Anyways, it is just about bedtime here. Everyone here wakes up ridiculously early, and it's kind of rubbing off on us. Plus we have a 10 o clock curfew (because most of the houses are gated in, or walled in and they don't want to stay up late waiting to let you in), so we've developed an early bed time. But living situations may change next month, so I'll keep you updated. Also, I hope to upload some pictures before too long, so I'll let you know how and when you can see those as well.
This was not brief at all. My apologies. Lots of love from Ghana!!
Posted by lib at September 15, 2008 06:42 PM