Ghana was an experience that I’ll begin to discuss here, but I hope everyone is ready to hear about it when I get home. Every day in Ghana was wonderful, but day three is and always will be especially close to my heart. Helen already posted a wonderful blog here about the Cafacayo Children’s Home, but I can’t help but talk about it, too. I hope you’re ready.

Ghana Day One

We pulled into port at the usual time. Though our destination was Accra, the harbor was in Tema, which (in traffic) is a forty-five minute drive from the ship. SAS arranged shuttles for us, which I thought was fine, though some people were annoyed. They ran every hour on the hour throughout most of the day.

The first day we didn’t have plans, so Helen, Emily and I set out to explore. We rushed off the ship and managed to snag seats on the first shuttle leaving Tema. The ride itself was interesting; it gave me time to watch as daily Ghanaian flew by. There were goats everywhere, businesses labeled things like “Jesus is Christ Beauty Salon” based in tiny shacks (think backyard tool shed) and hundreds of bats flying around in broad daylight. At first we thought the bats were birds, but upon further inspection, they revealed themselves to simply be bats that hang out in the daytime. Also, the women in Ghana are incredible. I don’t know how them manage it, but it seems like everyone had a baby or toddler tied to her back and it carrying something huge/heavy on her head. Most men carried things on their heads, too, but without the added weight of a kid on their back. Ghana is the first country we’ve visited where it’s more common than not to see people with something or other balanced on top of their heads.

Hels, Emily and I got money (cedis pronounced CDs) and started exploring. There were long streets packed with vendors. Everyone was selling something whether or not they had a stand set up. There was a good chance that anyone who came up to talk to you was either selling personalized bracelets or beautiful/generic oil on canvas paintings. We walked up and down the street for a little while and then asked a one of the vendors to point us in the direction of an awesome local restaurant. He told us to walk fifteen minutes up the road and eat at the Country Kitchen, which made me laugh because the name made it sound like a Cracker Barrel or something. We took his advice and made the walk.

It was a Sunday and a lot of businesses were closed, but we got to the restaurant just as it was opening for the afternoon. We were the only people there and the waitress looked pretty surprised to see us. It was open-air seating under a thatched roof not too far from the road. There was a picture of Reverend Jesse Jackson hanging on the wall from the time he’d visited years ago and eaten there. We’d been told to try jollof rice with tilapia, so we took the risk and ordered.

We were told that it would take a while, but we weren’t expecting it to be an hour before our food came out. We didn’t really mind though; it’s not like we had anywhere to be that day. We talked and laughed and half watched a Ghanaian soap opera that the waitress was watching on a fuzzy TV. I couldn’t understand any of it, but I’m pretty sure there was an exorcism or two going on. Either way it made me smile and wonder what our waitress would think if she watched General Hospital or All My Children.

The food came out eventually and though I think my jollof rice with chicken tasted the best, Helen’s was certainly the most entertaining. She had ordered the tilapia and it looked like it had probably been alive when we were ordering. It was a whole fish, eyes, tail and all. There was also some sort of a salsa and a ball of dough that reminded me of peach dumpling dough before it’s rolled out. In Ghana, they don’t really use utensils; they’re generally available upon request, but for the most part you just use your hands. The waitress was nice enough to show Helen how to eat her meal and we all tried it at least once.

First you pinch off a piece of the dough, then you swirl it around in the salsa, which was super spicy, and finally you pinch a piece of flesh off of the fish, doing your best to avoid the tiny bones (at one point she simply pulled the entire spine out…) Simply pop the mixture into your mouth and enjoy. We encountered a few problems along the way (ie. the ball of dough was scalding and stuck to your fingers… ouch!) but eventually with Helen’s guidance I managed to try the tilapia. It was amazing. I definitely preferred my own meal, but the fish just staring up at you from the plate definitely made her meal more interesting.

Jollof rice is a common West African dish. It’s flavored rice that looks like it has been packed into a bowl and flipped over onto the plate, leaving it to hold the form of the bowl. It comes with either tilapia or chicken and what I think was coleslaw. Em and Helen both had some of the rice because it was so good. Yes, I know I talk about food a lot, but holy delicious! I love ethnic food, especially when I have something to compare it with at home. Seriously American Chinese food, I love you, but where are the dumplings? I didn’t have a single egg roll in China! American Indian food, you’re a bit more accurate. Good work.

After lunch we were walking back when we ran into a group of little boys who were kicking a ball around. It wasn’t one of those stretchy, soft, gell/rubber-ish balls, but we jumped in and started playing soccer with them. They thought it was hilarious and pretty soon we had a good-sized group of seven or eight year old kids running around. A few adults were watched from their business huts and just waved/smiled and laughed; I’m not very good at soccer, but it was a lot of fun. Some of the kids were wearing flip flops, but some were barefoot and there were definitely broken bottle lying around; I don’t know how they avoided getting hurt. We probably played with them for at least thirty minutes, but then someone’s dad was yelling and we decided that it was probably time to move on. My feet were caked with dirt that I had to scrub off later.

When we got back to the main street we did some more wandering, then set off in search of an Internet café. We knew that afternoon was the only down time we’d have for the rest of our visit, so we took advantage of our relaxed schedule. Emily had some stuff to research and computer updates to download. Helen and I used Skype for an hour. Then we got ice cream and went to another recommended restaurant, Frankie’s, for dinner.

Frankie’s was overrun with SASers and it wasn’t nearly as delicious as Country Kitchen, but it was still pretty good. I wasn’t too hungry, so I got a milkshake. We wanted to catch the 7PM shuttle back to the ship, so we ate pretty quickly, and then ran to a local store to pick up a few school supplies to add to our growing pile of things for the Children’s Home we were visiting on the third day. We made the bus with two minutes to spare and were back to the ship around 8. We all had to be up early, so the three of us watched Apocalypto (that Mel Gibson directed move about Mayan human sacrifice…) then went to bed before midnight. We were exhausted; it was a solid day.

End of Day One!

Love,

Molly