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).
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| Drinking Palm Wine out of coconut shells |
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| Walking on the beach at sunrise in Cape Coast |
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| A view of Cape Coast |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Isaac making kelewele |
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| 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.
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| 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! :)
