Fooooooood

Our first taste of full on Ghanain food (we opted for the most American items on the menu our first few days here!0 was fufu- a dish consisting of pounded yams (which forms a doughey food), tilapia or goat meat, all served in a ground nut soup. It was super spicey, and Lucas the librarian got a good laugh at our inability to eat fufu without coughing/ chugging water.

Ghanaian food is extremely heavy, and often consists of just one food type- for expanle, we often have a huge portion of rice for lunch or TZ (pronounced tizette) which is a goey dough made out of millet that is broken off into pieces and then dipped in some sort of soup. And when I say a huge portion- I mean painfully HUGE. Every time Christi and I eat its a marathon to finish everything- but we figure it makes us stronger mentally and phyiscally, as long as we don't get sick. Our mother, "Vick" , a construction worker at the Women's Center, said that if we eat enough TZ we'll be strong enough to beat up any girl in the U.S. I guess thats how the women here are so strong! As I write this, I can see women carrying 50 lb bags of cement on their heads like their feathers!

The best thing about Ghanaian food is that we eat everything with our hands, and as you might imagine, I am having so much fun with that! (eating with my hands however can't mask my messy eating habits though and the librarians get a good laugh out of that- sorry mom and dad)
Every now and them, we are treated with guinea fowl eggs (guinea fowls look like kind of like a cross between a turkey/ chicken) and they are so flavorful we eat them hardboiled without any kind of seasoning. But my favorite food of all has to be the fried plantains. Lucas brough us a burner and pots so we've been cooking on our own lately , and last night we fired plantains in palm oil- so sweet and they kind of tasted like bananas.

For the most part, Christi and I have been trying to stay vegetarian, which has been a little tricky because in addition to the starchy foods, they eat a good amount of meat here. Yesterday, we were served rice balls in a soup with strings of goat fat and intestines- no thanks!Luckily, Darius was kind enough to eat the meat parts for us. But the other day, we tried goat skewers with onions- of course it tasted just like chicken! It was actually quite flavorful and tasty, a little chewier thank chicken, but tasty.

In general though, we figure it is best for our health to avoid some of the meats. I had a really interesting conversation with Lucas about vegetarianism the second night we were here. He said that he would like to be a vegetarian but it would not be possible with the way Ghanaian culture works . In Ghana, people often share food out of the same pot, especially families, and if he were not to eat meat it would be taken as a sign of disrespect and superiority. That was really striking to me because even the way the food is eaten heredemonstrates how Ghanaian culture is so much more focused on the community than on the individual, which has prompted alot of reflection in me being that I come from a culture that emphasizes individualism. I love the communal eating though- there is something very intimate about washing eachothers hands before we eat and then eating the same food out of the same pot. Eating here is a very engaging experience and I don't know that I'll ever want to go back to my grab a snack and go eating habits!