The good, the bad and the menu

I feel like I'm so close to the end of my time here. I finished my last day of work on Friday, have 2 weeks of traveling ahead of me, and then home! Crazy how time flies.. It is for this reason that I thought now was an appropriate time for this kind of post – the good, the bad and the menu. It's basically a summary of my time here, grouped into likes, dislikes and food. And it's really long. Enjoy.


The good

The tro-tros – trotros have been a major source of entertainment during my time here. I manage to get at least one hilarious/amusing/confusing/irritating/frustrating story from the tro-tros every day. They've proven a great way to experience the Ghanaian culture.

Tro-tro stations – possibly even more amusing than the tro-tros themselves. I've found the stations bring together the best and worst parts of Ghana into one confusing and bustling place – the sights (the mud, the urination, the mates, the tro-tros, the women selling from their heads), the sounds (hissing, Fanmilk guys honking their horns, kissing sounds, the mates calling out their direction – "Lapaz, Lapaz, Lapaz", tro-tros firing up, popping water sachets as tro-tros drive over them, the women and children selling – "pure water" "yes plantain chips, plantain"), the smells (exhaust fumes, garbage, urine) and, most of all, the utter chaos. Love it.

Bargaining – it's so much fun knowing that you can get most everything from the street for half the price they want. Such a feeling of accomplishment.

Champs Sports Bar – Champs has become such a part of my life here. Thursday night quiz nights kick ass, especially because we've come 3rd twice, winning 100,000 cedis, and even came 2nd last week, winning 200,000! I go there for the hilarious British guy who runs the quiz and reads out funny answers that people give, the chocolate brownies and apple crumble, the chance of winning the tequila or beer round (I won the beer round for my team on St Pat's by carving a naked woman out of a potato!! Woo free green beer!), and the great company of obronis.

Fanmilk – when you hear the honking clown horn, you know good times are coming. Not quite that exciting, but these Fanmilk guys are everywhere selling Fanice (vanilla icecream), Fanchoco (frozen chocolate milk), Fanyogo (frozen strawberry yoghurt) and Tampico (frozen citrus juice), all for about 35cents each.

Smoothy's – smoothies are refreshing at any time, but in Ghana especially so. We have chilled out at Smoothy's many a time, trying the different varieties of smoothies. Sometimes we buy chocolate from the Koala Market and some freshly cut pineapple, mango or papaya from the street and eat that while we while away the hours…

Dancing – Ghanaians love to dance, and seem to do so at every opportunity. Music is everywhere, so people walking past, even women with loads on their heads will do a little jig as they walk by.

Hiplife – Ghana's own musical creation – sort of like American hip-hop done in African language with some beats behind it, including drumming. Pretty cool, which is lucky because it seems to be one of only 4 styles of music played here – hiplife, highlife (for adults, I've been told), reggae and power ballads (bring on Celine Dion!)

Fruit – never in my life have I been tempted with such delicious fruit! Mangoes, pineapples, bananas, papaya, oranges… It's actually strange because it seems that fruit doesn't make it into the Ghanaian diet very often, yet they could have some of the best fruit here on the planet! I'm grateful that you can go up to a woman selling pineapple and she will stop, cut the skin off, cut it into bite-sized pieces, put it in a plastic bag and give you little pieces of wood to eat it with. Still amazes me.

Koala and Max Mart – 2 supermarkets here that are exactly like home. We go there to dream about foods that we're going to eat as soon as we get to our respective homes. We also go there to buy pastries like chocolate croissants and doughnuts, chocolate and jam to put on our morning bread. And they're air-conditioned! And the fact that one is called Koala Market is awesome, especially the picture of the Koala on the wall.

You can never be late – the good side to 'Ghana time', which I will explain soon. Minerals – soft drink/pop/soda or whatever you choose to call them, minerals are cool. They are all in glass bottles, and the stores demand the bottle back immediately. This means you have to skol it while you stand there, or they put it into a plastic bag for you to take away. Did anyone know that Fanta had a cocktail flavour? Well it's the best.

Plantain chips - another thing to buy from the top of a woman's head, plantain chips are made from ripe and un-ripe plantain. They are sliced thinly and then fried, served in plastic bags. The dark brown ones are made from the ripe plantain and they're sweet!

Chop bars - small food bars selling local food, every one of these places has almost the same menu, have no service skills, but are incredibly cheap and have some character. Jollof rice with chicken and coleslaw, with a mineral costs about 20000 cedis, or less than $3!

Spots - small drink bars that sell alcohol and play music. Not much else to them really..

Weekend trips - there are so many cool places to visit that are reasonably close to Accra, as you have seen from my past blogs, and trips out of the hustle and bustle of Accra are the best - they give your lungs a chance to recover from the pollution!

Children - the children everywhere are always the most happy to see us obronis. The little ones will often shout 'obroni' over and over and over until you either wave at them or get so far away they can't see you anymore. The way they dance is cute, their school uniforms are cute, their smiles are cute and their enthusiasm is contagious.

The Alhaji song - just one of the many hip-life songs we hear over and over and it always manages to bring a smile to our faces with its catchy tune. Apparently Alhaji means 'one who has returned from Mecca' or something similar, which doesn't fit the tune of the song, but it's great!

Cheap stuff - at 7300 cedis to the AUD, it's a lot of fun buying each other presents of food and generally having a lot of money!


The bad

The A.M.A. - Accra Metropolitan Authority - these are the people who control a lot of things in Accra - the parking, the newstands, the markets, the taxis, etc. The other day Kevin and I were at the market and we saw an AMA guy walk up to a woman and take the mangoes from her head that she was selling. She tried to get them back from him, so he tipped them all over the muddy ground, before whipping out a cane and lashing her. I saw another AMA guy run up with his cane held high and I turned away with tears in my eyes. I told my host family about it and they said those people the AMA target don't pay their taxes. I said that's no reason to cane them, and they said they're being stubborn so they deserve it. Sure thing.

Lack of utilities - the power cutting off for 12 hours every 2 days isn't cool for so many reasons, and having water that doesn't always run is even worse for hygiene reasons...

Pollution - if this gives you any indication of how bad it is, Amanda works in the children's ward at the hospital here and she said the top 3 things children come in with are malaria, typhoid and respiratory problems, caused by the pollution. You have to be careful of when you choose to have a huge yawn because you might be gulping in some fresh black smoke from the back of that truck in front of you..

Beggars from Niger - I feel sorry for these little kids, but you seriously can't give everyone money everytime you get asked. The little ones from Niger silently put their hand to their mouth and then some go so far as to grab your hand/elbow/skirt or even hug you as you walk along. It breaks my heart.

Rubbish - it costs money to get your rubbish picked up by the authorities, which many people here can't afford. Rubbish lines the streets, and is found in piles everywhere being burnt. The other day Amanda went with her hosts to the place they go to dump their rubbish. They walked for about 2km, and when they got there the big bin was full. They turned around and dumped it straight into a river.

Rain - I love rain usually, but here it makes time stop. Half the trotros and taxis stop operating, the stations and roads turn to mud, the power usually cuts off, people don't come to work, clothes on the line get saturated, and, if you're unlucky enough to leave your windows open like I did the other week, entire rooms get soaked.

Hissing/kissing - I'm sort of used to people hissing and kissing at me to get my attention but it still pisses me off, especially if I'm having a bad Ghana day.

Hawkers - I don't know how many times you have to say no to the people selling shit, but it's hard to get away from them sometimes..

Water sachets - at first I loved the water sachets like crazy. Now, it seems that every one tastes different, which has concerned us since I heard on the news that there is currently no authority that regulates the water sachet industry - meaning possible health issues. They are also a major contributor to the rubbish in the streets.

Being constantly dirty - this is self-explanatory, but basically I sweat as soon as I turn off my fan in the morning after my shower and I don't stop getting covered in sweat and dirt until my shower the next morning.

Unmetered taxis - you have to bargain with each taxi driver before you get in the taxi. They often tell us prices that are way higher than they should be, just because we're obronis. Also, if there's traffic or it has been raining, the prices go up dramatically. The only times I've taken taxis here is when I've been sick and needed to get home ASAP, and bargaining at that time is ultra frustrating.

Open sewers - the smell, the rubbish, the fact that you could trip over them/fall into the disgusting water, just like our friend Mac did the other week. There's not much goodness about open sewers.

Urination - the other day, I saw a guy urinating on the balcony of the 2nd storey of a building. It's just gross.

Ghana time - as an example, we had arranged for a micro-finance company to come and do loan applications with our patients at the clinic. They were to come at 10am sharp. They turned up at 12:45pm.

The menu - see this in more detail below.



The menu

Ingredients

Fish (fried, smoked)
Chicken (fried)
Beef
Pork
Plantain (roasted, fried, boiled) – sort of weird banana
Cassava – sort of like…yam
Yam (roasted, fried, boiled) – sort of like potato
Corn maize
Red palm oil
Groundnuts – like peanuts
Okro – some type of green vegetable, which is sticky
Egg (boiled, fried)
Rice
Beans
Gari – powder which is mixed with hot water to create mush
Bread (tea, wheat, sugar, corn, butter)

The menu

Fufu with light soup – fufu = ground up plantain and cassava, served in a ball in soup Fufu with groundnut soup
Banku with okro stew – banku = cooked corn maize, served in a ball in soup
Banku with okro soup
Chicken stew with rice
Beef and egg stew with rice
Fish stew with rice
Stew with gari
Jollof rice with chicken/fish – jollof rice is chicken with spicy sauce mixed through it
Plain rice with chicken/fish
Fried rice with chicken/fish
Wakye - beans with rice
Omo tuo – rice balls in soup, only served on Sundays
Kenke with stew – kenke = banku, wrapped in leaves and re-boiled so it's hard
Plantain with groundnuts
Yam with pepper – pepper = red sauce made from smoked shrimps, chilli peppers and spices
Yam with stew
Bread with margarine

This is honestly it. I swear. I spend so much money on obroni food and fruit just because all my food makes me feel like I'm full of carbs, starch and oil. I don't know how Ghanaians survive.

Hope you're still awake after that one! So now I'm headed to Togo and Benin, and then to the north of Ghana to see mud mosques, elephants and hippos! Not sure how much I'll be blogging in the next 2 weeks, but you can be sure that once I'm home I'll finish all my blogging business, including photos, and I'll put all my photos on Picasa web and send out the link to everyone. All my love.

1. The door of our tro fell off while we were going along
2. Lapaz station after a rain
3. Champs! The whole roof is covered in flags and guernseys
4. Me with a Fanmilk guy
5. Smoothy's is even on 3rd Lane! How lucky am I?
6. The gang, chillin on the wicker chairs with smoothies
7. Fruit stand in Osu
8. Koala
9. MaxMart is also attached to the Chicken/Pizza Inn - handy for getting a small dessert after 2-4-1 pizza on Tuesday!
10. A chop bar we ate breakfast at one time
11. I came home one night and this group of kids were in the area running around screaming. One of them came up and touched me and ran off so I chased them
12. Buckets in our hotel bathroom, ready for bathing and cleaning the toilet since there was no running water
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15. One of the cutest sights Aman and I saw in Ghana one day in the rain
16. Our water sachet remains after filling our water bottles on one of our trips
17. Small schoolgirl jumping a drain
18. If a wall doesn't say 'do not urinate here', it's probably being urinated on right now
19. You thought I was lying about the menu didn't you?
20. Smoked fish. This stuff I couldn't handle
21. The girls making fufu
22. Banku and soup
23. Fried plantain and nuts