Food of the week update

One more quick note:)

I have changed Food of the Week - no more hen gizzard! it's time for Stuffed Egg.

Description:
Boiled egg, cut in a half, stuffed with spicy paprica sauce with onions.

Price:
2000 Cedi

Tips: buy bag of water before you eat it!

I have also added gallery of Food of the Week - you can check all previous meals in large pics + large pic of current one.

Rain and Electricity

Every one knows what rain is, also every one knows its meaning to nature and humans. Its meaning in Africa is even bigger. Here in Ghana rain falls only during rain seasons – there are two during each year – first around March/April and second around July/September (I don’t know exact dates since we are to short here to find out and while I’m writing this note there is no one I could ask;) ).

Why rain and electricity? Answer is simple. Ghana has (from what I know) only water plants – located on Volta Lake. So when water level goes down (in dry seasons for example) power supply is low. What does it mean? Well as a result of that once each 3 days we have no power for 12 hours. One time it’s from 6am till 6pm, other time it’s from 6pm till 6am. Since we don’t have power generator – this means no lights, no internet and no air condition;/ (good news for us is that we are already searching for proper power generator and hopefully we will get one soon, so no more problems with electricity!).

Side note: some ppl say that lack of power comes also from to high contracts Ghanaian government signed which obligates Ghana to provide fixed amount of power to its neighbors.

Anyway rains here in Africa are usually really strong and sudden. One moment sun is shining and than out of nothing you get clouds everywhere on the sky, rains follows shortly. It’s worth mentioning that when rain falls plants start to grow rapidly and everything looks much cleaner!

When we came to Ghana it was ending of rain season, till now it rains one or two times per week, but it’s much hotter than it was at the beginning (from 25-28 degrees to 30-35 now). Thanks to that I was able to take few pictures of how it looks when it’s raining here:)

Water

When we were coming to Africa I was not sure what to think about water here. Africa always was imagined in my mind as place where water is a problem, not only because of its lack, but also pollution and accessibility. Several things turned out to be quite different than I expected.

First of all water is still a big problem in Ghana – except biggest cities there are places where you have to walk couple of hours to closest source of fresh water. Than local sources are often polluted not only with garbage but many kinds of bacteria (which means running water can not be used to drink or clean teeth, at least by Obroni – white ppl;) ). Other problem with running water is that it’s often not available – many ppl install water tanks at their parcels and store water even when they have running water. Accra has pipes installed in most of its parts but they got broken often and there is no one who would care to fix them (we have pipes at our place too, but they don’t provide water for at least 10 months now). Because of that ppl developed different ways of managing water problem.

If you are not the lucky owner of running water;) you can do one of following things:

1. Pay quite a few money and dig a well at your parcel. We have such well at our place. It provides water which we can use for washing (except teeth), watering garden and cleaning – I think I wrote about that earlier too;). For drinking, cooking and brushing teeth we use mineral water we buy. Anyway many ppl gets well for themselves and buys poly-tanks to store water in case running water goes off or they don’t have running water at all.

I heard that some of the water you get from well can be polluted too – you can examine it at med center, but it costs a lot and they usually tell you that your water is not clean and offer you specifics that you can add to water to clean it naturally for additional amount of cash;).

2. There are many places here where you can buy water. Even on our street there is such place – they have 2 big water tanks and sell water. It’s hard for someone like to me to believe such things can exist in XXI century, but here they are… Anyway some ppl have to buy water because they don’t have any other source of it, sad but true.

There is one more thing worth mentioning about water here in Ghana. Everywhere: in shops, markets, streets you can buy water in plastic bags. Such bag consists 0,5 l of mineral water (one sold on the streets is always cold) – one bag costs 300-500 Cedi. Every one here uses them, they are sold everywhere and we got used to them quite fast. Now we drink mostly water from bags. There are many producers of water bags in Ghana – taste of water varies, most is ok, but I have encountered also awful ones;/

Side note: when buying bag of water, check if it has certificate of health ministry. It’s safe to buy and drink water bags with such certificate).

Side note2: naturally there are many kinds of bottled mineral water too, but who would bother buying them when we have water bags!

Certificate is this small mark in the top left corner of bag.

Food

Food in Ghana is really good. This simple sentence could describe what I and Ana think about food we eat here. Since I have tried different food during my stay in Finland, UK or Singapore I was generally not optimistic towards African food, but here we both were surprised. Our schedule is quite busy so we generally stick to two big meals (breakfast and dinner), sometimes when we are hungry in between we grab some snacks, which we usually buy in Tema. They come in different kinds and size but it’s always nice to explore local food (we usually buy snacks from wandering ladies caring them on their heads).

Since almost every week we encounter something new I’m introducing “Food of the week”. You find it on right sidebar (it will include photo of food, short description and price). I have already 3 proposals but let’s start from something nice, which I really enjoy. Hen gizzard-on-a-stick. As you can see it’s made from first cooked, than fired gizzards, with some onion and pepper, it’s really spicy and good! Gizzard-on-a-stick comes in quantity of 3 for 5000 Cedi, quite good deal I must admit.

Anyway back to topic. As I wrote we eat breakfast and dinner. Our first meal is mostly European like, so there is not much to write about. Many ppl here eat Kenke for breakfast, but we don’t like it, so we stay with our European one (Kenke is made from fermented corn, can’t tell exactly how it is made and what’s in it. For us it’s too sour). I think it’s worth mentioning that yellow cheese is quite expensive here and not popular I guess, same about smoked meats and meat other than chicken, goat and fish.

As for dinner, here we always eat local food. I won’t list or name all we eat (this will anyway sooner or later go to “Food of the week” section). I’ll write that local food consists mainly of rice or yam potatoes (Sometimes we also get boiled green bananas – they taste like normal potatoes and can’t be eaten raw) with different kind of spicy sauce with smashed vegetables and meat or fish in it. Generally if you like spicy food – Ghana is the place. Be ready for lots of bones or fish bones in your meal (this includes fish head and flippers).

What do we drink? Besides tea or coffee we drink here cocoa (Ghana is, one of the biggest exporters of cocoa in the world); cocoa is a bit different here – maybe because it’s 100% cocoa in cocoa (I’ve been told that in other places they mix it wit some stuff). Anyway it’s really good and worth trying. There is also instant drink based on cocoa – it’s called Milo, also nice and tasty. Add to this fruit juice (all exotic favours) and water.

Since I’m a predator I don’t eat fruits, I only stick to juices;). On the other hand Ana loves fruits here and eats lots of them (this includes oranges, bananas, water melons, etc.). You can see how different oranges look here in Ghana. I assure you they are better in taste than what you can buy in Poland (at least that’s what Ana says).

Ok as usual enjoy pics:) I’ll try to put descriptions to them so you can see what’s what. Stay tuned for incoming notes – I plan to write about water, rain and electricity.

That's fufu - national meal of Ghana:) (made from maniok and green bananas, with spicy soup with chicken/goat/gizzard meat inside)
YOU EAT IT WITH YOUR HANDS! NO FORKS OR SPOONS FOLKS!
























Here we have starting from left - maniok, kenke and green bananas (when you enlarge pic you will see my cool paint markers), than oranges and on the right yam potato.