“Room and Board…”

Well I have been here a week and some of you may be wondering where I am living and what I am eating.

Well let me introduce you to my friend Renee. Before I begin, let me first say that it is very difficult to find a place to live in Tamale. Actually it wouldn’t be that difficult if you had lots of money (and were not concerned about integration and a bunch of other issues). When I say lots of money I really mean around 200,000 Cedis/night (about $27 Canadian) would get you an air-conditioned room with a full bath, breakfast in the morning, a caretaker to do your laundry and ironing and you would be within a compound with 24 hour security. It really is not that expensive but then again you are not really getting into the community. Most of the development workers around spend their several hundred dollar a day stipend on exotic living arrangements and fancy meals. EWB takes care of this decision for us volunteers by giving us a $10/day stipend in which to find a place to live, eat, get to and from work, get water and any other necessities we may need. So therefore we typically need to find a family to live with. Also most houses are built to accommodate the family that lives in it. That is they build to suit their needs, not to have 3 extra bed rooms. So it makes it a bit difficult to find a place to live. Well now enter Renee. I was introduced to Renee through a colleague at work. I have been living with him since Saturday afternoon. So as I write this it has only been about 24 hours. I think he is about 40 years old, about 5’7” and must weigh no more than 110lbs. He also has a really thin mustache which I think is kind of funny. Renee is really nice and tries very hard to make me feel welcome. He is a true ambassador of Ghanaian hospitality. He has had several expatriates live with him before. I believe that I am the fifth volunteer to spend my time in Ghana at his house. He has had 2 French, 1 Canadian and a German stay with him over the years. He is also a “Proud Rotarian” and brings it up often which is nice because he understands volunteerism. We live on the outskirts of Tamale. In an area referred to as SNNIT Flats, which I believe are government subsidized housing units, for those of you who know the city. It is nice to live out of the town centre as it is much quieter. The place is kind of like a Canadian town-house complex with many adjoining units. It is a single level building and much cooler than my previous residence. The house has two bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchen. Of course it has the usual bathroom situation: one room with a toilet, one room with a shower and a sink in the hall. The total apartment is probably 30’ x 30’, just big enough. Renee has plenty of people over and they are all real friendly. The location is great as there are a lot of families around in the neighborhood so I get to interact with people of all ages. The kids are the best and like to follow me around and play. I went for a run this evening and had a group of 11 year olds join in. Others just call out “Siminga! Siminga!” which means “white man! white man!” in Dagbani. Usually I just stop and look around really quickly behind me until I “figure out” that I am the Siminga and point at myself. The kids usually laugh and come up and ask my name and if they can be my friend. They are really pretty cute. Another cool thing is that one of the neighbours has a pet monkey named Joe. He is in a cage at their house and is real cute and small. Joe has a small mustache too I kind of think he looks like Renee but won’t bring that up just yet. Renee has also given me my first piece of Ghanaian attire a nice shirt that I plan to wear next Sunday. He says that is will help me blend in a bit. Overall, the living arrangement is quite comfortable thus far however we will see how things develop. Next week I will be out in the field visiting villages so I won’t be in Tamale.

As for food it has been a pretty interesting experience overall. Once again if you wanted and had the money you could easily practically eat the same diet that you do back home in Canada. There are plenty of restaurants catering to ex-pats and they serve the typical “westerner” food (i.e. pizza, pasta, sandwiches, etc.). Our supervisor at the office suggested that we go to get lunch at a place near work the first day. Upon arrival I realized that this was a “westerner” stop and was one way out of my price range and not what I was looking for. If I want to experience a pizza or club sandwich I can wait till I get beck home. I definitely will not be going back there. After that experience, I Now typically eat where the local workers eat which is usually a street vendor of sorts, common reffered to as a “chop bar”. The street vendors are women who set up a both along the side of the road and prepare their specialty on site.

My favourite meal thus far is “watchee” which is a mixture of rice and beans. I usually have it with garri, a hardboiled egg and either meat sauce or a tomatoe based sauce or both. Gari is made from fresh cassava, which is grated and the excess liquid is then squeezed out. The remaining cassava is then fried with over an open fire, on a broad metal pan that has been greased with a little oil, could be palm oil or other vegetable fat. The result product is crisp and crunchy to taste and adds a nice texture to the watche. The key ingredient is the meat or tomatoe based sauce and this is really what adds the flavour I think. It is pretty spicy and tastes great. I think that I could eat watche for every meal while here. One interesting by product is that practically every bowl I have had thus far is more accurately watchee and stones. That is there is typically a small additition of rocks mixed in with the rice so while eating one must take care not to bite down too aggressively. I am used to the stones though and overall it is my favourite dish. All this is a pretty big meal and at first I couldn’t finish even the smallest portion but my appetite is growing. I still only get the smallest amount and spend less than a dollar on breakfast. One note on the “meat”, basically meat means that it at one point was part of an animal not necessarily a recognizable part but every part is used. I have had skin, intestine, and a jaw bone thus far in the stew portion. The best idea is to just put it in and start chewing and not really think of what part it is.

Right up there with watchee is Tuo Zafi (T-Zed) in my opinion. It is a millet or maize based porridge that I think. It is similar to fufu in that it is a bit doey and comes in a ball and is served with a soup/stew. It is eaten with the hands and what you do is pull of a chunk that you can easily swallow dip it into the stew a bit more and swallow it whole. It is really quite good. I also really enjoy banku which is similar to TZ in that it is a fermented maize meal and is served in a similar stew and eaten with the hands. The funny thing about all the meals here is they are heavily starched based and nearly everything kind of reminds me of mashed potatoes. So much for the not liking potatoe thing.
It is also mangoe season right now. So I try and get a few mangoes to satisfy my sweet tooth. They are much smaller than the mangoes available in Canada but I think they are much more flavourful. I also usually get a few oranges during the day to suck out the juice. During the evening there are street vendors that peel the oranges and slice off the top for you to suck the juice through. There are also plenty of vendors serving fried plantains or yam chips. The yam chips are similar to French fries. The fried plantains are also a nice snack every once in a while. So far I have been pretty lucky with all the street food IU have eaten and have yet to get sick from anything. My rule of thumb is just to watch with vendors have the best traffic and stick to one that I have had good luck with before. I think that is all for now in the food department.

Take care and God Bless,
Jason