A quest for food

Phew--orientation is finally over! Not....

The past week was a whirlwind of acclimating our minds, bodies, and lives to the city of Accra, the country of Ghana, and the continent of Africa. As we spent about 6 complete days doing so, one would expect us to have somewhat of an idea of what the next four months have in store for us, right?

That would be too easy.

Being the tired old person that I am, I have found that I am definitely the home body of the group. While all of these 18-20 year olds are ready to party hardy every night, I, in my decrepit old age of 21, am asleep by about...11:30. I am also the first to wake up--any where from 5am to 7am to practice yoga before the day begins. The one day I slept in until 7:30 and couldn't practice I had the misfortune to have the worst caffeine headache of my life. I was grumpy to the extreme and warned everyone I met that I was not pleasant. Bad things coming in pairs, that also happened to be the day that we had to make an emergency trip to the University of Ghana to register for classes, skipping lunch.

Yes, JS skipping lunch. I think you know me well enough to know that that hunger and lack of coffee+J is lethal.

When we were finally able to come home for a 15 minute pit stop before our trip to the US Ambassador's house I used that time to brew up a nice, delicious, hot cuppa Joe. I used a napkin and a strainer. Talk about resourceful! My mood changed considerably as my headache dissapated, and after chowing down on some digestive cookies (so good!) we headed over to the Ambassador's house where we, all 41 of us, devoured the "refreshments" that had been provided.

One of the CRAs (resident assistants), Julia, has already deemed me the foodie of the group. The University of Ghana had an introduction dinner, the Durbar, involving a free meal--the minute I heard food and free I was there. Julia tried to ban me from coming, but I snuck my way onto the bus and into the front of the food line :) Last night I tried to find my way over to the other housing facility using a "map" and my memory...another girl and I got a little lost, but finally on our last attempt before dark we found it. Once at Solomon's Lodge, Naa (another CRA) taught us how to make jolof and kelliwelli. Jolof is a rice dish containing various degrees of chilis, pepper, vegetables, tomatoes, ginger, and garlic--amazing! Kelliwelli is a dish of plantains, ginger, and red pepper powder, fried in a pan. Eating that meal made the entire trip worth it! When I get back to the States, I'll have to attempt to make it.

I have a feeling that the hardest thing to get used to in this country (slash the developing world) is shopping for groceries. There is a grocery store in Osu, but I haven't dared to step foot in it. Cereal is 12 bucks, laundry detergent in the 20s, and everything pretty much out of my realm, budget wise. The places to go here are open markets and street vendors. On Saturday we went to the open air market called Kaneshie. There are three levels (think a parking garage), each containing a different genre of supplies.

The outside and first floor is the area for food. These areas are FILLED with people selling various varieties of okra, garden eggs, eggs, ginger, garlic, chilis, etc. There is fresh ground nut paste (peanut butter) and different varieties of fruits. Oranges, tangerines, avocados, and grapefruits are green, even when ripe. I feel like a complete idiot, but I have no idea what any thing is. The fruit in the country is amazing. The mangos, papayas, pineapples (better than Hawaii), and watermelon are so incredible. So far I haven't had any allergic reactions--I can even eat apples here with skin!!

The second floor is filled with house supplies--shampoos, lotions, soap, detergent, etc. I'm not so sure about how much I like my shampoo or conditioner, nor do I think that it works. For future travel: bring your own shampoo and conditioner! Since the Ghanaian women have their hair braided, there is really no need for any of that nonsense. But for us white folk, brunis...hair braids would just look silly.

The top floor is (I think) for fabric, but I didn't venture up there on the last trip. I had my hands full of detergent, shampoo, and fruit.

Up the main road there is a place called Labone Coffee Shop. I don't think they serve real coffee (everything is Nescafe here!). But up the "coffee shop road" a ways there are some street vendors. I took a little trip up there with some people that I dragged along--I bought tomatoes, chilis, ginger, garlic, okra, garden eggs, chicken, oatmeal, soy sauce, and rice. I figure that I can throw it all together some how. While they may have charged me more than the locals, I purchased an entire bag of the vegetable items for 1cedi 20pesoe (the exchange rate is equivalent to the US...go Dollar!)--a pretty good deal in my opinion. Buying the chicken was quite interesting....it was 3c for a kilo. The girls selling the chicken couldn't have been older than 10--to cut a piece, she grabbed a machete and started hacking away. In the end, the chicken I bought was frozen so I'm not too worried. I'll definitely be cooking every thing thoroughly.

To clean vegetables, fruits, etc, you let them soak in water with a bit of salt for about five minutes. Who knew?

In the end, the grocery shopping trips to be made will sort them selves out. It's a good thing I shopped in Chinatown!

Classes begin today. So far I will be taking Community Psychology and the Internship Seminar at NYU, and Urban Sociology at Legon. I'm planning to audit Medical Geography at Legon also (it meets at 8:30am and I'd be leaving my home at about 7:45...doable, but it would have to be a very interesting course). I expect to intern for 15-20 hours for the West African Aids Foundation...things are still being sorted out as my professor did not arrive in the country until today. C'est la vie. I am trying to upload photos, but a) I'm a slacker at taking photos and b) our internet isn't ever around long enough to upload them. All in good time.