FOOD

Its been days since I was last able to connect to the internet and we’ve covered almost the entire length of Ghana since then.   Rather than give a chronological, day-by-day account of all that’s happened and has been seen, I thought I would start with the most important.

Food seems always to be utmost in our minds.    Since we left the city we have mostly traveled dirt roads and see only the occasional mud and thatched-roof village, our only lifeline to the outside world.   There are no restaurants en route to our next destination so we do our own food shopping and cooking.   What can I say but, “oy vey”!

My 4-person cook group is “on” for breakfast, lunch and dinner once every 4-5 days.   We plan the menu for all 18 of us and, to put it mildly, the menu is quite limited:   We dream of truffle pasta, lamb stew, chicken, or fish, but alas, we make do with what is available:   pasta with margarine, vegetable stew and lots of white bread and, the Breakfast of Champions:   cocoa puffs, boxes of which were bought way back in Accra.  

Our  food shopping expedition for tonight’s dinner was done two days ago when we came upon the last large village between here and the Burkina Faso border, which we will cross tomorrow.

The village was large, a main trading center for the region, and  the sole dirt road passing through it was lined with “stalls” of vendors selling their goods – a sort of Famers’ Market without the expensive wine or home-made pies. The stalls were made using two upright tree trunks, connected by a wood shelf and a make-shift roof of plastic bags to shield the vendor from the 100 degree heat and torturous sun.

At one end were the ubiquitous used shoe salesmen, the previously-owned small appliance magnates, and various second-hand retail outlets- the detritus of the developed world, repaired, recycled, and repackaged for sale to the third world as luxury items.  At the other end, were the food sellers – family farmers selling their crops and women hawking their freshly made (white only) bread.    And that was about it.   The cassava, an African staple which looks like a potato but is about 4-5 feet long, was bountiful, as were pineapple and papaya, both of which we bought  - $1.30 bought us as much as we could eat.  But all we could find for dinner was tomatoes, (sold at only 2 of the stalls) and one small basket of teeney, tiny green peppers.   We cornered the market on the peppers and tried to buy the only few avocadoes in the entire market but the woman, for reasons beyond our comprehension, would not sell them to us.   We begged her, but she just kept saying, “No!”  (“No avocado for you!”)   We nicknamed her the “Avocado Nazi,”  and walked away dejected and dismayed by our inadequacy.  How will we tell the group that   tonight’s menu is pasta vegetable medley, (the medley being the freshly bought tomatoes and green peppers, together with a can of mushrooms in the group’s private tin stash bought back in Accra)?  The only good news is that there will be plenty of fruit for dessert. 

Protein is at a premium here.

Things are only slightly better in the city.

No matter what we order they don’t have it:  the smoothie bar has no smoothies, the gift shop can’t make change of a 5 for a 2.50 ice cream, there is no orange juice for the “orange Julius,” and the pizza took 2 ½ hours from order to delivery, tableside. The “African” restaurant has no African food (only pizza), the chocolate milk shake is just that:  chocolate milk shaken, by hand, and served with ice. The best meal I’ve had since New York was Indian.   Dreaming of a steak (and I’m a vegetarian!).

BUSH CAMPING

Bush camping, I’ve learned, is very different from your regular, run of the mill camping.   In a regular camp here in Africa, there is (usually) something that passes for a shower, and “drop toilets.”   Bush camps, on the other hand, have no amenities to offer but the open field and night sky.  Death can come to those without a flashlight!

Last night we bush camped beside a gorgeous waterfall where we bathed as best we could in the rushing water and brushed our teeth with the bottled water we closely guard.  But why is it that at home, with the comfort of a modern bathroom only steps away, I never have to pee in the middle of the night?  But here, of course, I seem to wake up every night around 2:30 a.m., desperate to urinate. My flashlight is always at my sleeping bag’s side, right beside my head, to be grabbed for the mid-night bathroom run, or any emergency that might arise.

The flashlight is of course, no match for the pair of shining eyes that stare at me from only a few feet away.   Stop in my tracks or make a run for the tent?   I chose the latter and survived to tell the tale.  

Last night we camped in a regular camp ground in Ghana’s largest animal preserve.   One of my traveling companions proclaimed that we had the good fortune of falling upon Africa’s most fabulous toilet – shiny white, spotlessly clean, and odor-free.   Although the shower had no hot water faucet, the water was heated as it flowed through pipes warmed by an outside temperature that exceeds 100 degrees.  AND, there’s a swimming pool.   We are in heaven. 

Until we discover the baboons and warthog family, with 4 babies in tow, rummaging through our stuff.  A threw strategically thrown rocks is enough to get them on their way.

We had an early morning 3-hour walk through the bush of the preserve, looking for animals.   We only saw some antelope, various birds and a lone elephant, which we stalked to get a better look.    Its way too hot for even the wildlife to emerge from the shade and strut their stuff.   Oh well.   There’s always tomorrow.


n.b.     The elephant we followed earlier today got his revenge overnight.   He came into our campsite in the middle of the night and woke us up with his stomping and chomping.    He finally left just before dawn.