A blog about life and food

Wow, I haven’t written anything in a while.  Now the prospect of writing a blog is a bit overwhelming, since so much has happened since my last blog post.  Here’s a brief overview of my past few weeks: trip to Cape Coast, weekend home-stay, trip to Togo, trip to Kumasi, and I have successfully had two lattes since arriving in Ghana (I am thoroughly New York-sick for things like lattes).

Drinking Palm Wine out of coconut shells

Walking on the beach at sunrise in Cape Coast

A view of Cape Coast

Canopy Walk

            Cape Coast was an amazing trip a few hours away from Accra.  It is in the central region of Ghana.  We stayed at the Coconut Grove Beach Resort, where I tasted my first sip of palm wine.  I wish I could bring a bottle of this wine back, but it is not manufactured and is only made in small villages and bottled in old soda bottles.  The process of making palm wine (from my understanding) includes draining a palm tree of liquid and then it will ferment within the next couple days.  Then it is tradition to drink it out of coconut shells.  We had a huge bonfire on the beach while sipping the palm wine out of the coconut shells.  A lot of people didn’t like the unfamiliar taste of the palm wine, but I thought it was pretty good.  It tasted nothing like real wine of course, but it had a nice sour punch to it.  We also went to Kakum National Park where we did a canopy walk, which was quite scary but also a wonderful experience.

And a trip to Cape Coast wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Elmina Slave Castle.  The Portuguese built Elmina Slave Castle in 1482, and it was an essential stopping point in the Atlantic Slave Trade.  Needless to say, this was an emotional part of our trip.  I equate this to a visit to a Jewish concentration camp.  We saw the female and male slave dungeons, holding cells where people suffered and were put to death, and we even saw ‘the room of no return’ where the slaves would step out onto the ships destined for the Americas.  I feel like this trip gave me an understanding of American history from a different perspective.  Elmina Slave Castle is now a tribute and a reminder of the African diaspora throughout the Americas.

Elmina Slave Castle

The next weekend after my trip to Cape Coast, I was paired up with a Ghanaian family for a weekend home-stay.  After talking with other NYUers about their weekend, it was apparent that some people had really amazing experiences and some people had horrible experiences.  But I guess that’s just how home-stays usually are.  I happened to have a wonderful experience, and I am so grateful for how much I learned about Ghanaian culture in this one weekend!  A lot of us were really nervous before our home-stay experience began.  In Accra, you will never be able to predict a living situation of a family; whereas, in America if you know that someone lives in a suburb, you have a pretty good idea of what that suburb will look like.  Some people were worried about the foods their host family would make.  Of course there are lots of yummy Ghanaian foods, but then there are also just some things that don’t settle well (like giant snails) or are too spicy to eat.

However, my home-stay experience was amazing.  The only problem was when I was served too much food, and I couldn’t eat it all.  My host mom, Mary, was a wonderful cook, but she always seemed disappointed when I couldn’t finish my fufu or groundnut soup.  But really, I’d like to call this a GOOD problem to have.   I did have to get used to the lack of running water, but it was really entertaining for Angela (my host sister) to watch me carry in buckets of water to flush the toilet!  Haha.

My first night there I was served the sweetest mango I have ever tasted in my life.  The texture was extremely soft, and the flavor was so potent, I thought I was drinking pure juice.  Then I was given a mountainous portion of rice with a spicy beef stew, and I cleaned my plate of every last grain of rice.  For breakfast, my host father, Isaac, had gotten me some creamed millet and fried bean balls.  The millet was almost like porridge, but instead of being bland, it was (all at once) sweet, spicy, creamy, and tangy.  I asked how it was made, and it is just pure ground up millet mixed with hot water.  The bean balls were like a savory doughnut with just a hint of bean flavor.  After breakfast, my host father took me to a wedding!!  Yep, no invitation needed.  It was a beautiful wedding, but also extremely relaxed.  I just tagged along wearing one of the nice dresses I got made here.  I also found out that each couple has two weddings.  There is the more Westernized wedding where the bride walks down the isle and wears white, which is what I saw.  And then there is the traditional wedding, where traditional clothes are worn and the man’s family presents a dowry to the wife’s family.

For lunch that day, Isaac, made me kelewele.  He ground up onion, ginger, and green pepper in an asanka, and then tossed the paste with cut up plantains.   Then he fried these to a crisp. 

Isaac making kelewele

Frying up the plantains

For dinner I saw fufu made for the first time!  This is the national dish of Ghana.  It is made with a really large mortar and pestle.  First you boil cassava and cocoa yams (or plantains), then you pound them with some water until the starches come together to form a ball of dough.  There is a whole rhythm to this process, where one person will pound while another person reaches into the mortar to move around the dough and sprinkle it with water.  Several times, I was scared my host mom would loose her hand, while my host brother, Doughlas, pounded with all his might.  Fufu is eaten in light soup, a spicy soup made out of tomatoes, peppers, and garden eggs (egg plant).  The ball of fufu is placed in a bowl and covered with soup and then eaten with hands.  Mary refused to let me use a spoon.

The next afternoon I ate groundnut soup with rice balls.  Groundnut soup has the same base as light soup but with the addition of groundnut paste (peanut butter).  I had some practice at making rice balls.  Basically you cook the rice until extremely soft, and then smash it up into a paste, and then form the hot rice paste into a ball.  This is one of my favorite Ghanaian dishes.

The finished fufu in light soup

The next weekend I went on a trip to Togo, the country to the east of Ghana.  It is about a five-hour tro tro ride, and it only cost 8 cedi to get there!  It was nice to see more of the countryside on this trip.  We stayed in the capital of Lomé, immediately across the boarder.  What I instantly noticed about Togo is the difference in culture.  As a former French colony (Ghana was a British colony), the people in Togo speak French and their local language of Ewe.  It was a lot harder to communicate to some people, but luckily my friend Nikki spoke some French.  Togo also had baguettes, which was an amazing plus to the trip!  We went to the market in Lomé, where I mostly bought inexpensive fabrics and some dried ground red pepper I’ve really come to love.  We also briefly visited a fettish/Voodoo market, something you would never find in Ghana.  But Togo and Benin are known for keeping some practices of old traditional religions.

We also had to be extremely careful of petty theft when traveling to Togo.  I’ve gotten the impression that there is a lot more petty crime along the beach in Lomé.  At one point, my friends and I bought some avocado sandwiches.  We decided to carry our sandwiches back to our hotel to eat, and so I held the bag of all our sandwiches as we walked along the beach.  A 12 or 13-year old boy started following us and calling out to us.  We ignored him for a while and tried to tell him to stop following us.  But then he ran up to me and tried to snatch the bag right out of my hands, but luckily I had a tight grip on the bag.  This experience helped me to be much more aware of my surroundings while traveling.

And finally, last weekend I went on a trip to Kumasi in the Ashanti region of Ghana.  Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana after Accra.  Kumasi is the last kingdom in Ghana.  We visited the palace museum while there.  Kumasi is also where a lot of batik cloth is made, so we got the chance to make our own cloth!  We chose a colored fabric, and then we stamped the cloth with wax.  The stamps we used were mostly Adinkra symbols, which are cultural symbols of the Asante people imbued with different meanings.  Once we stamped the cloth, we dyed it in another color.  I dyed my blue cloth in green for a nice turquoise color.  The cloth is then washed in hot water, and the parts of the cloth that were stamped are left blue.  We also went to the market in Kumasi, the largest market in West Africa.

There is a lot more I feel like I could talk about, but I think this blog post is long enough! :)

A Cooking Lesson!

Plantains, local peppers, and tiger nut powder

It came to my attention that Americans don’t really have a clear understanding of Africa and Ghana, which is fine but I guess there is something I should explain.  This was made apparent to me last week when I told my mom about the cooking class our wonderful Ghanaian RAs gave us on local dishes.  Mom promptly asked, “So, did you cook it on a stove or over a fire?”  I think I just burst into laughter when she said this, but I guess it’s my fault for not entirely explaining the living conditions in Ghana.

First of all, and this is important, Ghana has suburbs just like America.  It’s as if ordinary suburban scenes is a taboo subject when it comes to Africa.  In fact, there are many huge houses in my neighborhood of Labone.  I think, all too often, people see Africa as one big rural underdeveloped area.  The truth that I have found since being here is that Africa, like America, has a lot of economic disparity.  There are parts of this city that are obviously wealthy with big ocean side mansions, and then there are also the impoverished areas.

So to answer my mom’s question: yes, I did cook over a stove.  If I walk down the street I might see a woman selling plantains roasted over a fire, but I have yet to do this myself (though I’d love to try).  And I have seen a few casual restaurants cooking food over a fire.  But for the purposes of my daily cooking, we have a huge kitchen in our house with three stoves.

Anyways, I took good notes on the recipes we made with the RAs, though there is a lot of estimating in these recipes—no measurements!  But that makes it more fun and tailored to your personal tastes.

Red Red

Preparing Red Red

Soak black-eyed peas in water overnight to soften.  Drain well.  Cook it on medium heat (on your stove) for about 2 hours until softened.  Meanwhile, chop up 3 onion, a hunk of fresh ginger, maybe about 6 garlic cloves, papushto (local little green peppers, use green bell peppers to substitute) and a few pounds of tomatoes.

Cook the onion in a few glugs of palm oil (this is a lovely red oil).  Use more than you think you’ll need.  All the onions should be fully immersed in the oil.  I’m sure other oils can be used but palm oil is part of what gives this dish a nice red color.  An optional ingredient is smoked salmon.  Add chunks of smoked salmon to the onion mixture to cook. 

Palm Oil

Smoked Salmon

Blend together the tomato, garlic, ginger, peppers, and a bit of water in a blender until smooth.  Add the tomato juice mixture to the onions and cook down a bit.  Add the drained cooked beans (do not get rid of the bean water) to the tomato mixture.  Add some of the bean water to lighten.  Add chopped carrots and green beans to taste (optional).  Cook for about another 20 minutes until all is heated through and the carrots are tender.

Fried Plantains (traditionally always served with Red Red)

Cut plantains diagonally.  Sprinkle with salt.  Heat about an inch of vegetable oil in a pan.  Do not let the oil smoke.  Fry the plantains until crisp, then flip over and fry the other side.  They should turn very brown and slightly black.  They will be crispy and chewy on the outside while tender and sweet on the inside.

Nanama teaching us how to fry plantains

Tiger Nut Pudding

In a pan mix together about 1 cup of Tiger Nut powder (from the tiger nut fruit and ground into powder form) with sugar to taste and mix in a liter of full cream milk.  Add one tin sweetened condensed milk and nutmeg to taste.  Heat over medium heat.  Stir occasionally until thickened, making sure milk does not scorch on the bottom of the pan.  When thickened, put in the refrigerator to chill.

Tiger Nut Pudding

Making Pineapple Ginger Juice

Pineapple Ginger Juice

Cut up the freshest, sweetest pineapple you can find.  Add to a blender and blend until smooth.  Then strain the pineapple through a sieve to get pure pineapple juice.  For a thinner juice simply crush the pineapple with your hands in a strainer set over a bowl.  Peel and chop ginger and puree the ginger in the blender.  Add ginger to taste to your pineapple juice.  With the pineapple pulp you can add some cream or milk and put in the freezer for an ice cream type dessert.

The finished meal!

How to Hitchhike in Ghana

At a restaurant on the beach

On our trip to Kokrobite Beach!

Sometimes you can delve into and learn about a culture in the most unexpected and inconceivable ways, as is what happened to me last weekend.  I am convinced that it was some divine miracle of God, even if it was a bit scary at first.  But I think this was one of my first big blatant lessons in trusting God.  Though I had heard a lot about the friendly Ghanaians with their generous warmth and hospitality, it didn’t really hit me until this incident last weekend:

Since I’ve been here, the beach has been so wonderful to me!  I have already gone many times.  Our usual spot is Labodi Beach, because it is a 5 minute taxi ride away.  This is a great beach full of entertainers, fishermen, and artists.  Wednesday night is also Reggae Night at the beach where we dance around a bonfire and step into the ocean!

Last weekend a bunch of us decided to get out of Accra for a bit.  So we took a taxi to Kokrobite Beach about an hour outside Accra, a 25 cedi ride.  The beach, of course, was amazing!  It felt more “authentic” than most beaches I’ve been to, probably because the beauty of the beach wasn’t interrupted by mega hotels and stores.  We just stayed at a small resort made up of two bars, a restaurant, a stage for the reggae band, and houses to rent out.  The house ended up costing us each only 9 cedi and 33 pesewa a night.

So the next day, Anna and I need to catch a cab home.  We only have a total of 3 cedi on us.  I guess we figured that we would catch a cab to take us home and then we would run inside to get more cash to pay the driver.  Unfortunately, catching a cab proves to be a challenge as we are in a pretty rural area.  So we walk from the resort and through a small town without seeing any sign of a cab.  Pretty soon it becomes desolate as the first town fades away, and we see the next one on the horizon.

But then a man stops us.  “You don’t want to keep on walking.  In the next town, the people are hungry.  They will rob you.” (Good thing I didn’t have anything valuable on me).  So we stop on this empty road and watch as a car drives by every once in a while.  The man keeps a careful eye on us, and then flags down a car driving by.  The man in the car is going to the Accra airport, just a few minutes away from where we live.

We get in the car, where the man is warm and welcoming. He even insists on putting out his cigarette immediately.  We talk about Ghanaians, church and religion in Ghana, America and the times he lived in America, and he kept giving us clear instructions about where he was going and where he would drop us off.  He dropped us off in Osu, a part of Accra that’s only a five-minute car ride away.  He told us that it should only be a 3 cedi taxi ride home from there!  Anna and I stepped out of the man’s car, laughing at our good fortune of finding a ride home for only 3 cedi total!  It was an amazing experience.  That is something that I probably wouldn’t do in America, but because I knew a bit about the friendly Ghanaian culture, I felt safe accepting the ride back to Accra.

Baboon at Shai Hill Reserve

Anna Shaw at Shai Hills

Adventures for this weekend included going to Shai Hill Reserve to see baboons and hike up a mountain.  Then we took a tro tro home.  A tro tro is a sort of bus system, but they are really just big vans stuffed with people.  That was an interesting experience.  Today our RAs gave us a cooking lesson in Ghanaian foods, so I’ll be sure to blog about that soon!

Eat Some Fufu and Red Red

A picture of my neighborhood, Labone

A lady carrying fish on her head!

A menu at a local restaurant called Didi Pa

Banku at Didi Pa

My first lunch in Ghana.  My favorite was the groundnut soup with chicken and a rice ball (left).

I have arrived in Accra, Ghana and my first week has consisted entirely of orientation.  My first week here has brought many new experiences, and I admit that I have been exceedingly lazy about writing an update on my blog.  But with hardly any internet, it is easy to forget to stay connected all the time.
First, I need to explain the name of this blog.  Akwaaba means “welcome” in Twi, and it was the first thing I heard when I came to Ghana.  This is my favorite word in Twi, because I believe that it really captures the hospitality of the country and its people.  Indeed, the people here are extremely friendly and welcoming.  The NYU guards already know all our names (there are about 42 of us total in the program), and they are always helping us brush up on simple phrases in Twi:
εte sεn? How are you?
εyε  I’m good!

On day one of orientation it began to hit me that I am in an extremely new environment:  There are huge tropical trees around me, and it is constantly hot out.  Even at night I feel like I need to grab a coat or jacket to go out until I realize that I will be hot even in my light, breezy dress.  Everyone keeps warning us that this is actually their “winter” season, and that February and March is actually their hottest season. 
One day Anna (my roommate) and I found a lizard running around our room (I think we got it out though…I haven’t seen it for a few days anyways).  Mosquito repellent is a must, which I learned after being bitten up one night.  I’m proud to say that I haven’t had a bite for a while now.  We also need to be very conscious of how much electricity we use.  If I am not in my room, the air conditioning should not be on and my lamps and computer charger should be unplugged.  Why be wasteful when so many don’t have access to these things?
Anyways, I learned a lot about the foods here during my first few days.  First of all, beer is cheaper than soda, though the only brand of beer that you can really find is STAR, a decent local brew.  I tried a Diet Coke here, but it looked like it was from some Arab country and it tasted terrible (I can still find Coca-Cola light).  Though peanut butter seems really American to me, I was pleasantly surprised to find it in any grocery store, but it’s called groundnut paste.  I think it tastes way better than normal American peanut butter!
As far as the cuisine here goes, rice and plantains (usually fried) are staples.  So far, I have had rice with almost every meal.  They have special rice called Jollof rice that is heavily spiced and usually red in color from tomatoes.  For the first lunch I had during orientation we were served groundnut soup with chicken and a rice ball.  This was one of my favorite dishes I’ve had so far during my whole stay.  I need to learn how to cook this.  Luckily, our Ghanaian CRAs are going to have a cooking class for all of us next week!  Other local dishes include Red Red, a bean stew served with plantains (another favorite of mine), FuFu, cassava and plantains pounded together into a dough and dipped in a stew, Banku, cornmeal made into a ball of dough and dipped in a spicy sort of beef stew, and palmnut soup.  Unfortunately, I haven’t tried all of these yet.  I found out quickly that I couldn’t just eat only Ghanaian foods because they tend to be spicy and heavy.  People that are newer to the cuisine may find themselves getting what is termed Ghana Gut (I don’t think I’ll explain any further), so it is important to eat it intermittently with other more familiar foods.
Ghana also has some of the best fruit I have ever tasted.  There is the “Pineapple Lady” close to our academic center who has a little fruit stand.  She sells the best pineapples and will even slice it up for you right there.  The pineapples are strangely white, but are so sweet and flavorful!  She also sells wonderful bananas and avocados.

Leaving today!

I'm leaving today for Accra, Ghana!  I'm getting kind of nervous and my mom's blood pressure is rising, but soon I'll be in Africa, a continent that I could never fully grasp.  Wish me luck in my adventures!