Rice & Antimalarials

As I mentioned in my Farewell Kumasi! post, I got tested for malaria before I left Kumasi.  Sadly, I found out in Kof-town that I tested positive for the parasite.  It was very, very slight.. just enough to keep me achy and tired, but the treatment is some STRONG medication that kept me in bed hallucinating during my last few days in Ghana.  I am now 100% malaria free and feeling fine!  Before I was bedridden (and thinking that birds were flying around my room), I was able to spend some of my money at the bead market (every Thursday in Koforidua) and visit Boti Falls.

Oops.

Don't worry I made it out alive though!  

I am now back in NJ and during my trip, I had the pleasure of making lots of cultural mistakes.  Just in case you want to avoid my confusion, this is my list of dos and don'ts in Ghana.   

Do accept a drink of water.  If you are visiting someone in Ghana, one of the first things they may do is offer you a glass of water after your long, hot journey.  If you say no to the water they will worry that their offering was not good enough and will feel obligated to go out and get you bottled water.  

Don't blow your nose in public.  During my first week in Ghana I came down with a cold and when I blew my nose in front of a group, people looked at me in shock. 

Don't use your left hand.  Ghanaians don't use their left hand to eat, drink, accept a gift, point, greet others or do anything else.

Do give an individual greeting to everyone and don't rush the greeting. This one took me a little to get used to but when I didn't do it in the beginning, the response was not good.

Do eat when invited to eat. Otherwise others won't feel comfortable eating and may sneak off for a bite. 

Don't worry about tipping much. I observed that Ghanaians only tip around 1 cedi even for expensive dinners.

Don't expect anything to start on time. But still don't be late.

As I mentioned in my Obruni guide to dining out in Ghana, sometimes (100% of the time) it takes upwards of an hour to get food at a restaurant and it's even worse at most hotels.  Because of frequent power outages and the fact that people don't frequently eat out, restaurants rarely keep most items in stock.  Luckily, there's plenty of street food for quick, cheap eating!  I have to be honest, I haven't braved most of the bites that they sell on the street but I have tried a few.  You will see that at the better stands there are actually crowds of people, so go for those.  And as this post's title infers, pretty much every type of food is thrown in a plastic bag.  Food that is not by unit is ordered by cost not serving.  For example, 1 ear of corn may cost 25 pesoas but anything like soup or rice you order by how many cedis worth of it you want.  So, I would order 1 cedi of beans or 50 pesoas of rice.  

Breakfast   

This grey-colored delight is porridge in a bag!  Porridge is made out of fermented corn or grains so it’s SOUR and definitely needs sugar to be even remotely palatable.  “Carolyn, how in the world do you eat this!?!” you ask?  Well, the porridge has the consistency of a thick liquid so all you have to do is nibble a little hole in the corner of the bag and just suck it right out.  Mmmmm!

If fermented corn porridge slurped through a plastic bag isn’t your thing, these lil fried balls all like a Ghanaian donut.  They aren’t too sweet and they almost remind me of funnel cake without the sugar. 

When we asked our Ghanaian friend what they’re called, we could have sworn he said “ball food” which we thought was an awesome name.  Sadly, they’re actually called bofrot.  Luckily, we still call them ball food and haven’t experienced a bit of confusion.   

Lunch

The main reason I haven't tried most of the lunch on the street is because I was pretty into these beans.

To get this, I ordered 1 cedi of beans and you can add palm oil (making it red red) and gari (cassava flour).  You can also add an egg, some avocado, rice, or plantains which all just get thrown right in there.  Despite the appearance, this bean bag was delicious. 

The similar looking bag of food below is waakye (pronounced wa-chee), a very popular dish made of rice and beans.   

I am not the biggest fan of waakye and I was definitely even less of a fan of this street version.

I had a lovely last weekend in Kumasi before heading to Koforidua today.  Laura and I spent most of last week organizing our research for the presentation of our preliminary research findings on Friday.  We had sun showers during the week and a pretty rainbow!

   We had seen most of what we wanted to see in Kumasi except the central market so we checked that out yesterday.  It was a lot like most markets I've been to traveling - loud, with lots of pushy people and extremely overwhelming.  The market is arranged so that each kind of good is in a different area and it is huge and confusing.  You definitely need to go with someone who knows their way around or your likely to get lost in the middle and never find your way out.  I was interested in buying fabrics so I spent most of my time in the fabric section.

   The amount of choices made it almost impossible for me to pick but I finally ended up with a few that I liked.  The prices are definitely negotiable and I was happy to be with some Ghanaian friends to make sure I wasn't getting tooo badly cheated.  Though the market offers lots of choices if you have shopping to do, I wouldn't recommend the market for purely sightseeing purposes.  I was honestly too busy trying to dodge all the people running around with goods on their heads that I couldn't spend much time observing.

After, market time I went to the lab to get tested for malaria (recommended for precautionary measures because if a little shows up in the test, it's easier to treat it while here).  I only share this because I was highly amused by the room that reception pointed me toward to get my blood taken.

WEIRD.  

We spent our last evening having a celebratory/birthday at the restaurant at the Golden Tulip, which I hear is only the poshesttt hotel in Kumasi.  

The Golden Tulip provided me with a delicious dinner, some lovely outdoor seating, a lil live music, an excuse to wear mascara and even the opportunity to borrow another baby ;).  

First, I must say happy 4th!  July 4th is my FAVORITE holiday of all time and this is my second year spending it out of the country - definitely not the same.  It was also a holiday weekend in Ghana because their Republic Day is on July 1 but I was feeling a little under the weather so I didn't join in Monday's festivities.  

I did get the chance to see Jerry and Jossy joined in holy matrimony!  No, I have not a clue who neither Jerry not Jossy is but I was pushy enough my Ghanaian friend, Rosemond, was nice enough to let my join her in attending her friends' wedding.  I was immediately informed that the wedding colors were hot pink and bright green.  The colors play a similar role to the wedding theme colors in the U.S. except guests are invited to wear the colors as well.  Sadly, 2 people in my group got malaria this week, so I wasn't able to dress like a watermelon join in the color-wearing fun.  Checking out the apparel of the ladies AND gentlemen that adhered to the theme was quite the treat.

The ceremony was definitely the main event.  It was part dance party (check out those handkerchiefs being swung around like lassos),

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNRHmKoL-nE&feature=youtu.be 

part graduation,

and part high school football halftime.  

  All in all, the ceremony was high energy and tons of fun.  I guess the ceremony usually tires people out, because the reception was short and sweet.  Just enough time to collect the gifts, have a non-alcoholic champagne toast,

make the first cut in the cake (that was not eaten),

and send us on our merry way with a goody bag filled with a can of coke, a hotdog, a corn muffin and a piece of fish.

After a lovely dinner at the home of Joshua and his wife the other night, we walked a few blocks and hailed a cab on the main road to take us back to our lodgings in Ahodwo (pronounced uh-ho-jo).  After the 30 minute cab ride, we asked the driver to drop us off a few blocks from our hotel (a safety precaution).  I clumsily dropped the 5 cedis to pay the cab driver and searched for it while the other 3 ladies waited for me outside the cab.  Feeling bad to make both the driver and the girls wait, I hopped out of the cab as soon as I found the money.  To my dismay, I realized that I left my camera in the cab.  If this happened back home, I would have tried to take control of the situation by calling the cab dispatcher, posting on craigslist lost and found, etc.  Sadly, the situation in Ghana was out of my control.  And if you know me, you know that there are not many things that I don't like but I'm definitely not a fan of things being out of my control.  I'm also not a fan of girls that have hair that stays pretty and sweat-free at the gym. But anyway..

After lots of "I have a good feeling it'll show up" and sorries, I returned to my room to keep myself up all night replaying the situation in my head.  The next morning, I was dragged to the hotel that the cab left us by to ask if a camera was dropped off.  I was not a bit surprised to hear that it wasn't.  I beat myself up all day thinking about not being able to capture photos of the next 3 weeks in Ghana.  By dinner, I came to terms with the fact that I had to get over it.  On the way to dinner we stopped by the hotel to say hi to the teacher research group that was dining there.  I didn't bother to stop and ask about the camera.  To my surprise I got a pat on my shoulder from the man at the reception desk that morning, telling me that the cab driver came by with a camera but only wanted to give it to me personally!  I was extremely surprised and ecstatic!  An hour later Sam came by to return a camera to a VERY happy girl.       

Since my arrival in Ghana, I've had to ask reception for toilet paper because of the cleaners' failure to automatically replenish the stock in our rooms.  So yesterday I decided to leave the empty roll in the bathroom to ensure they noticed when cleaning my room.  To my dismay, the empty roll was thrown out but not replaced with a new roll.  But today as I paged through the Daily Graphic while waiting for my ride, I came across the article that explained it all - "The Ghanaian culture and toilets."

Besides mentioning the fact that 69% of houses in the capital of Ghana don't have toilets, the article goes on to call toilet paper a status symbol.  The writer even mentioned that the Ghanaian Embassy in New York failed to have toilet paper each of the seven times he visited, causing him to make a submission in the suggestion box.  "In my suggestion, I pointed out that the worshipping of toilet roll has become a dirty part of our culture.  When in Rome, we have to do what the Romans do.  I argued that in America, every bathroom easily had toilet papers.  So we should do the same... asking if the absence of toilet paper in the bathroom was a deliberate attempt to show a piece of Ghana to the prospective visitor."

On our ride to school this morning, Laura and I asked our driver, Patrick, why people were calling out "Akua" (pronounced ah-kwee-uh) to us on the street. He told us that it means Wednesday born and after much confusion he said it's also a name that Ghanaian men call out to white women and we should ignore (he may have left some details of this out). However, this spurred the conversation about our Ghanaian names and their meanings.

During my first trip to Ghana, we were immediately asked the day of the week we were each born and were told that Ghanaians frequently use names that correspond with the day.  Day names are the first name that Ghanaian children are given and are also known as "soul names" because they are the names offered by the soul. We also found out that traditionally these names represent a certain behavior and fate. The names and their corresponding meanings are as follows (there are different variations of the names):

Monday: Adwoa (female), Kojo (male) - the peacemaker, calm and cool, satisfied when doing things to help others, rarely bored

Tuesday: Abena (f), Kwabena (m) - full of fire and determination, inspirer, risk-taker, will go through a period of uncertainty that will lead to change

Wednesday: Akua (f), Kwaku (m) - Loving, able to bring people together, don't prioritize work over people

Thursday: Yaa (f), Yaw (m) - a strong-willed and powerful leader, engages in social and political resistance

Friday: Afua (f), Kofi (m) - An adventurous wanderer, full of growth, creative, will find purpose in an accidental situation

Saturday: Ama (f), Kwame (m) - Wise, gentle, happy, able to bring peace in troublesome situations, reinvigorated by spiritual experiences and will become involved in a major cause

Sunday: Akosua (f), Kwasi (m) - A born leader in bringing people together,  protective of friends and family

Though my second weekend in Kumasi was pretty uneventful, I did get to check out the Itallian Il Florilegio Circus which is doing a 6-month tour of Ghana. It's been years since I've been to a circus and I had quite a lovely time watching people fly through the air.

Besides entertaining us for 2 hours, the circus also got us out of the torrential downpour that we would have experienced at the Cultural Centre if we decided against attending. Rain usually lasts less than an hour and the heat dries everything up pretty quickly, but we got some serious rain today.

With my time in Kumasi flying by, I decided on my official goals for the rest of my stay.

1. Attend a wedding wearing a traditional Ghanaian attire. I will also accept a funeral if I can't make a wedding happen because they're also big social events.

2. Hang out with monkeys.

3. Get a little dance lesson to work on my Azonto moves.

4. And still learn how to tie a baby to my back.

So, a little flood in my room drowned my laptop charger and spotty electricity has kept me offline for a few days, but I have a loaner laptop so now I’m back! I’ve gotten some requests for Ghana travel advice so I’m going to dedicate some posts to travel tips throughout my time here.  Today I will share my wisdom on packing.

Clothes: Will I be happy with this while drenched in sweat? I know that I’m usually spoiled by San Diego whether but I think most would agree that it’s prettyyy hot in Ghana and even when it’s not hot it’s still super humid.  Pack largely based on this. Having Ex-Officio underwear, tanks for layering and pants has saved me - you’ll be hand washing clothes and these will in less than half the time of regular clothes. Keeping up with hand washing is tough, so a travel clothesline is nice to have so you don’t have wet clothes everywhere. Make sure all clothing is lightweight. You won’t see people in shorts or short skirts here, so you’re better off in lightweight pants or long skirts. Make sure to bring long sleeve shirts and pants to sleep to avoid bug bites and also bring an insect repellent for clothes.

Food: How long can I live on rice and chicken without going crazy? I’m in the city and my food selection is still very limited at restaurants and grocery stores.  Protein bars and granola bars are very useful here and if spending multiple months, a little variety will definitely be a treat. With the lack of variety (and vegetables), I’d also recommend stocking up on vitamins.

Medicine: 30% of drugs imported into Africa are fake.. do I wanna risk it? You should probably bring meds with you! Talk to your doc about prescribing you some pre-cautionary medications for if you have problems with the food or get an infection and remember a probiotic. Bring any types of medicated creams as well but you shouldn’t have a hard time finding a pharmacy.  

*Update: Bring a thermometer! The frequency of malaria is absurd and as a paranoid traveler, you'll worry you have it as soon as you have a hint of any sickness.  Bring a thermometer so you can check if your paranoia is justified.

Toiletries: You’ll be able to get the basics like soap, tissues, laundry detergent etc. but my friend had a terrible time finding contact solution here, so remember such necessities. Don’t forget your sunscreen and insect repellent (I use Ultrathon)! Remember hair products and makeup will melt right off of you, so be selective with what you bring.  

*Update: Bring glasses! Apparently the dust is really rough on eyes and you shouldn't wear contacts here!  My friend that was wearing hers got an ulcer in her eye from the contacts so she had to switch to glasses.

I’m very happy I brought.. A yoga mat, a jump rope, resistance bands and Insanity DVDs. I like to attempt to stay active when traveling and between the heat, dust, crazy drivers and bumpy mountainous roads, running isn’t the best option here.  

We still haven’t been able to find.. playing cards or a can opener.. so that mission continues.

Don't bother bringing.. much rain gear (it only rains a little bit of the the day so its easy to avoid), blow dryer/straightener/curling iron (you won't be able to use them), a global phone (a pay as you go local phone is around $30 and people are always selling credit to talk/text on the street. Calling the U.S. is really cheap too),

Sadly, a pounding headache kept me in bed most of the weekend so I don't have any fun updates about my first weekend in town.  However, it did give me time to catch up on organizing the research we began.  The research is focused on resources and practices that create value at low-cost private schools, so we will be visiting 10 schools and collecting information that will hopefully result in a published paper (fingers crossed).  Because there is some confusion about what these schools are that leads to some controversy, I'll give a quick overview.  

These schools usually emerge within a community that can't afford or access education.  The school proprietor is many times an educator that lives within the community.  In the case of the school we visited last week, the proprietor Dennis, started the school with 10 children and through word of mouth about its quality of education, the school now has over 500 children.  Unlike the image that "private school" brings to mind, these schools are many times in slum areas with meager resources and charge very low fees.  Because struggling parents are paying to send their kids to these schools, there is a large amount of accountability that is many times absent from government schools.  

With the number of these schools growing and studies finding that they are outperforming public schools, there has been increased focus on their role in educating kids in developing countries.  

So, for the past few days I've heard the word "tro tro" being tossed around and finally when yesterday I agreed hop a tro tro back to Kumasi, I figured it was time I asked about it. I learned that a tro tro is a shared van that I realized I've seen plenty of in Ghana.  So after my first day of research (which I will share more about tomorrow), I headed out of the school and got ready to board my first tro tro!  

So how many people can you fit in that van?

Because dining out in Ghana is a truly unique experience, I thought I'd put together a little guide in case any one decides to venture out here!

1) Seat yourself: You will most likely be the only one in the restaurant.. unless you picked a tourist hotspot.

2) Don't bother reading the menu: Yes the menu will be as thick as a book, but instead of wasting your time reading the menu, just ask them what they have.  Most likely it will be 4 to 5 things.

3) Don't ask clarifying questions: The fish is just fish and the meat is just meat.

4) Expect your food to come out in 40 minutes to an hour: Food takes a while, no matter what it is.  Pre-order if possible.

5) Don't try to modify or combine menu items: This is not acceptable and you most likely will get something completely different or only one of the items.  And of course when you ask for the other item you ordered it will take another 40 minutes to an hour to arrive.

6) Do not try to order some type of American food: You're in Ghana fool.

7) I guess I can tell you what Ghanaian food you'll see: 

Red Red: A bean dish made of black-eyed peas (pictured above)

Banku: A ball of fermented corn

Fufu: A gooey mound of boiled cassava that you dip in soup or sauce

Jollof Rice: Rice cooked in a tomato-based sauce

And avoid grasscutter.  That is all I figured out so far, but I'll keep updating on my food finds.

So during the boredom of one of my late night/early morning jet lagged wake ups, I googled Kumasi attractions to find out the scoop on my new city. The description of the zoo caught my attention - "Picture caged chimps toying with broken beer bottles. Watch your step, as crocodiles and porcupines roam freely." So clearly I knew I needed to visit the zoo.  With today being the first day of digging into research, my colleague, Laura, and I decided to start bright and early and head to the zoo before our call at 5.  After much difficulty getting a cab, we headed to the cultural center and found the zoo.  Because I went to the San Diego Zoo when my family was in town last week, I was able to have a very clear picture of the differences.   

Being at the SD Zoo with my 10-year old brother, it was obvious that kids want to get as close and personal with all the animals as possible.  If a child tried to do that at the Kumasi Zoo, he or she would most likely die.  All the animals were in rusty cages or gated in by garden fences that didn't seem very secure.  I had the capability to touch any animal and get as close as possible after an encounter with an angry gorilla that seemed to want to break out of it's tiny cage, I was a little freaked out.  After encountering lots of animals roaming free and open gates on animal cages I was anxious to see how they kept the lion. To much disappointment, the lion was nowhere in sight.. However, plenty of signs were posted to reassure me that these animals are not tamed, would not make good pets and may eat you, so go near their cages at your own risk. COOL.  I made it out alive, took some pretty cool pictures, and got closer to monkeys than I've ever been before. Definitely worth my 5 cedi.