fufu at the indian consulate.

fufu!

My first night day in Ghana was quite an experience. Well, you know how I mentioned before that I did not get my Indian visa because the visa agency we went through messed up, but that we could deal with that later? Well, the later is now. For the past 3 weeks, the Institute for Shipboard Education back at the University of Virginia has been working its butt off to get the 66 of us Indian visas. They have tried everything. They even almost gave up and told us there was a very slim chance we were getting off the boat while we are in India. In a final act of desperation, all 66 of us who had not received and Indian visa were bussed to the Indian consulate in Accra, Ghana to plead for our visas. I knew that I was sailing around the world and who knows where I may end up, right? But, I have to say that this one surprised me. It really did. This is one place I would have never guessed I would go to.
I had visions of us rolling up, 66 Americans, with a huge American flag, AK47s strapped to our sides, Rocky music playing in the background, and demanding they give us our visas. I really want to go to India so if someone had done that I would not have complained. But, that didn't happen. The entire process was a little less spectacular. In fact, we didn't even need to get off the busses. The dean and a couple other people went in as our representatives and, after 2 hours, everything had been sorted out and we all had our Indian visas. 

12 of us had coordinated a homestay for that night. Luckily one of the girls doing the homestay had not received her Indian visa as well and, like me, had to meet up with everyone else once we were done.  We were picked up from the Indian consulate, just as the Semester at Sea buses were pulling away, in a car that had obviously been in an accident and the 2 right doors would not open. It was blaring Ghanaian rap with a police officer in the passenger seat. I guess this was normal for Ghana. We were taken to our homestay house where we met Elizabeth, the mother, and learned that the police officer, Benne, was her son. The rest of the group met us there a half an hour later and we went to the market to get all the ingredients we needed to make fufu, "a traditional Ghanaian dish."

One image from the market that will never leave my mind is of the woman we bought chicken from preparing it for us. In Ghana, it is very rare that you will see a woman pushing a baby in a stroller or sitting in a high chair. Most often, they will be tied to their mother’s backs. Ghanaian woman take a large piece of fabric, swaddle the child inside, place the baby on their back and tightly wrap the fabric around themselves so the baby just kind of hangs out there. Well, the woman that sold us the chicken had a baby on her back. When we told her what we wanted, she went into this large cooler, grab out a chicken and starting cutting it into pieces with a large knife, swinging it backwards towards the little guy on her back over and over again. Every time she pulled her hand back, all of us winced, just waiting for her to nick that little guy! But, the little guy just snoozed as his mom hacked away at this chicken. Casual.

Once we had everything we needed, we returned home and began to prepare the fufu for dinner. Fufu is a mixture of boiled cassava and plantains that are mashed up, rolled into a big gooey ball and put in soup with different vegetables and is usually made with fish or goat. Ours was a little less traditional in that sense since it was made with chicken. It takes a really long time to make and once it was done our home stay mother brought it out in a basin type thing, which resembled those basins you  wash babies in a little too much,  placed it on the floor in front of us and told us to dig in. Ok. So, Fufu Eating 101. You pick off a little piece of the gooey cassava, plantain ball with your hands, dip it in the soup and stuff it in your mouth, with about 7 people to a basin. Not the most sanitary thing in the world. Personally, I do not think I would say fufu would be my first choice of meal. But, hey, it works.

at the market!