For Bread Alone

For my birthday last year, recognizing my preoccupation with all things related to my stomach, my ever-so-thoughtful roommate Jenny gave me a book about the joys of cooking and eating. Featuring essays from a selection of well-known authors about why they enjoyed eating well, it was entitled "Not for Bread Alone."

I'm afraid, however, that it was indeed for bread alone that I made my first trip outside of Ghana. With the excuse of having a visitor from the States, my fellow Fulbrighter Jen, her cousin and I hopped on the overnight bus to Togo - or, more properly, the Ghanaian border town of Aflao, where we went through the people-chute that is customs and arrived excitedly on the other side of the big "Akwaaba!" sign to find that Togo looked disappointingly similar to Ghana.*

Except for one key difference. Instead of the white, fluffy tasteless foam that Ghanaian bread-sellers carry around on their heads and offer to slather with questionable margarine, Togolese porters were instead carrying basins of crusty loaves paired with avocado, onion, and tomatoes. The first thing I did upon arrival was to buy a loaf. (The second thing was to buy another loaf.)

Don't get me wrong: Ghanaian bread is good for some very particular things, such as stopping a runny tummy or serving as an impromptu pillow when staying at a cheap guesthouse. But the French did the Togolese a service (amongst many disservices, clearly) when they introduced French-style bread. The culinary differences don't stop there: in response to Ghana's neighborhood chop bars, the Togolese offer the maquis, which line the wide boulevards of central Lome. We chose to eat lunch at one, where I enjoyed another loaf of French bread and a street-side salad with beets and carrots - another novelty for us Ghana residents.

Despite my tone so far, however - and in contrast to many Obruni visitors - I don't dislike Ghanaian food. In fact, it's refreshing to eat in Ghana, where you can often see the tree where your plantains originated and where the links between farm and plate (or plastic bag) are still clearly visible. Sometimes these connections are less appetizing than you would like (do you know where your chicken has been?) but you can be sure that nearly everything you consume will be locally-sourced and relatively fresh, or as fresh as it can be in a tropical climate with little refrigeration. (The soups are so thoroughly boiled that they kill off any bacteria anyway.)

When "locally raised" loses its appeal: in the gutter in front of our house

Since I've been meaning to write a post on Ghanaian food, I thought I'd introduce some of my favorites. There are much more comprehensive and articulate sites on Ghanaian cuisine, but I'll give you the quick-and-tasty. Most Ghanaian dishes feature a soup or stew paired with a starch - rice, beans, fermented corn, plantain, yam, or cassava. Many dishes combine several of the starches, such as plantain and cassava in fufu, a glutinous ball of dough especially popular in the Ashanti Region. The soups combine tomatoes with garlic, onions, and local vegetables (cocoyam leaves, eggplants, or okra) and peanut paste or palm oil. They are inevitably spicy, but vary along a spectrum from mildly piquant to empty-your-water-sachet-in-one-gulp hot.

My favorite combination is nkatenkwan, or peanut soup, with emu tuo, or mashed rice balls.

My favorite non-soup dish is waakye. Although only a seemingly simple combination of brown rice and beans, it is delicious when paired with the traditional accompaniments: shito, a spicy paste made of dried fish, ginger, and garlic; gari, or grated cassava; and tomato stew.

The picture below doesn't really do it justice, but another favorite is etoo, a combination of roasted, mashed sweet plantain, hot pepper, and ground peanuts, usually eaten with avocado and freshly roasted peanuts. My host family makes fun of me for eating it so often because it's considered a "village food," suitable mostly for farmers who want to fill their stomach in the morning before they go off to the fields for the day.

Another non-soup and also "non-native" food - so called because the main ingredient, refined white rice, is not produced in Ghana - is jollof rice, a spicy tomato dish mixed with pieces of meat and vegetables. It's usually accompanied by salad and served as an "occasional food" (because it's so expensive) at special festivities like my Auntie's New Year's party (although not exclusively: it's also available at many roadside eateries).

Where do I eat all these delicious-looking meals? I am lucky enough to live with an Auntie who's an excellent cook; I often enjoy the leftovers from her on-the-side catering business. But when I can't make it home for lunchtime, I do as most Ghanaians do, and visit a local food kioask, or "chop bar." Scattered (sometimes seemingly indiscriminately) around every town and ranging from single-dish plywood booths to full-service restaurants, these eateries serve local staples in the portion size of your choice, measured by how much you want to pay. You depart with your food wrapped handily in a series of plastic bags, like a set of polythene Russian dolls that serve as insurance against any soupy accidents. If I'm lucky enough, however, lunch even comes to me, via head porters who carry around particular foods - etoo, steamed corn, fried rice, and various fruits and nuts - in giant aluminum bowls balanced precariously on their noggins. At first their mysterious offerings were a source of great curiosity for me, but as I've gradually learned to distinguish between different forms (and quality) of street food, I've become a more discerning customer.

Finally, because it's a low-hanging fruit and I couldn't resist, you can try Pee Cola if you ever find yourself in Ghana's Brong-Ahafo Region. (I've only seen this soda once, and I owe it to Lucy for priming me to be on the lookout...)

Bon moire!

P.S. In case you distrust my characterization of Ghanaian food as delicious, you can cross-check with my father. Frustrated by my lack of posting, he took matters into his own hands last week and came to visit me in Ghana. (Travel and See!) You can find his pictures (none of the many meals we ate, alas) on facebook.

*The Ghana-Togo border runs through the former area of Togoland, a German protectorate that encompassed much of the traditional area of the closely-related Ewe and Mina tribes. Officially separated since a referendum in 1956, residents of Togo and Ghana's Volta Region continue to speak similar languages and share customs. I'll spare you the discussion on the impacts of culinary colonialism and the simultaneous determinism and triviality of borders...

Fake n' Shake

Lately I’ve had several people ask me if I’m still in Ghana, which leads me to conclude that I need to update my blog. And what better proof that I’m still here than more commentary on (relatively) recent news?

I’m not talking about the loss of Ghana’s Black Stars soccer team to the Egyptian Pharohs in the final of the African Cup of Nations, as unfortunate as that was, but another event from last month, one that was perhaps less likely to end up on the global news feed.

On Sunday, January 17th, several days after the big earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince, Ghanaians had an earthquake scare of their own. It was, however, literally only a scare – there was no earthquake involved. How does one have an earthquake scare without any tremors, you might ask? Many Ghanaians asked themselves that very question, but not before they fled their homes and took to the open streets in the middle of the night in response to a text message that mysteriously circulated around the country.

The message apparently read, “Today’s night 12:30 to 3:30 am, COSMIC RAYS entering Earth from Mars. Switch off your mobiles today’s night. NASA, BBC news, plz pass to all your friends.”

And Ghanaians did just that, visiting and phoning friends, family, and neighbors across the country to warn them. One reporter wrote that “love for fellow human beings manifested when some volunteers took it upon themselves to move from house to house to alert occupants to come out of their rooms to avert danger.” Somehow the message morphed into a warning about an impending earthquake, and before major radio stations and government officials began clarifying that the message was a hoax early Monday morning, hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians around the country had left their homes to stand outside.

In Kumasi, “horror-stricken residents… left the comfort of their rooms, spending the night outside in freezing weather conditions…” (It was 60 degrees.) Not everyone left in a hurry – “while some people rushed out of their rooms leaving behind their belongings, many were seen with their valuable assets, including TV sets, furniture, mattresses, cooking utensils and computers.”

In Accra, where I was staying with a fellow Fulbrighter at the University of Ghana, we both slept through her flatmate’s repeated attempts to wake us up. For better or worse, we missed the early-morning social that commenced on the lawn of the student hostel as students rushed blearily from their dorms and gathered outside. (Perhaps a sign that we are working too hard?) I didn’t hear about the event until the next morning, and then from more in-depth nationwide coverage in Tuesday’s papers, from which these quotes are culled.

From a sociological standpoint, it was fascinating, illustrating the penetration of Ghana’s mobile networks and showing how quickly information – and misinformation – spreads via social networks and mobile phones. It also has some bearing on my project, since I’m partly interested in whether mobile phones enable information about irregular immigration routes to spread more quickly. One prominent blogger, Ethan Zuckerman, wondered whether bad information spreads more quickly via mobiles than official clarifications from government leaders.

Aside from sleepy faces and general sheepishness on Monday morning, however, little was lost by the the great Fake n’ Shake of 2010. As is common in Ghana, the situation quickly turned into cause for community socializing. Many Ghanaians gathered in churches to pray, while the seaside city of Cape Coast’s Ecobrigade team thoughtfully cleaned the beaches so people could sit and lay down their sleeping mats more comfortably. One newspaper noted that “although the whole thing turned out to be a hoax, it showed the Ghanaian camaraderie and sense of belongingness.”

It is indeed comforting to know that you live in a place where your neighbors will wake you up when there’s danger – even if you sleep through it.

P.S. For the record, I’m here until the end of July.

New year, new blog (in name, at least)

Ghanaians are incredibly hospitable. Enter into any home and you'll be “invited,” or asked to take part in a meal. Even when not intended to be taken literally, it's a thoughtful gesture to welcome visitors.

Ghanaians are equally considerate of visitors in another regard – their transportation signs. I don't refer to signs by the side of the road, but rather the phrases printed on the actual vehicles themselves. The mottoes stamped on the back of taxis, trucks, and tro-tros are clearly meant to alleviate travelers’ confusion and address visitors' vexing and urgent questions. “Travel and See,” for example, answers such vital questions as “Will we get there in time?” “Does this bus actually go to Accra?” “Will the bottom fall off mid-trip?” and “Will I arrive in one piece?” More resignedly, but no less optimistic, is “Still, we travel,” which encompasses the ethos of travel in Ghana like no guidebook can. Other signs are more proclamations or warnings than answers: “Observers are worried” thoughtfully reminds anyone standing close enough to a certain blue truck that its heavy load of yams is poorly secured and its steering capacity probably suspect. (Alas, I did not take a picture of that particular vehicle, or you can be sure it would have been the header for my blog by now.)

These mottoes provide the added benefit of absorbing bored or restless travelers’ attention while waiting for a car, which may stretch for several hours, as they ponder the philosophical meaning of the often opaque phrases. After significant time spent waiting in lorry parks and jostled on rickety buses in the past month, traversing remote areas to interview returned migrants and their family members, I think I’ve cracked the code.

As I’ve interviewed people around Ghana, I’m struck by how often people cite their desire to “travel and see” what others talked about as a key factor in their decision to leave the country. Migrants’ family members, for example, want to know if the stories they’ve heard from their relatives about snow, skyscrapers, and salaries are as exciting in person as in emails, and irregular migrants say they want to “travel and see” for themselves whether it’s difficult to find a job as a low-skilled worker in Europe, despite warnings from friends that it is. But it’s more than an urge to confirm what others have told you – it’s the desire to explore and learn, to broaden your experiences in a way only a journey outside your familiar domain can. Rather than just a motto on the back of a tro-tro – fitting as that placement is – “travel and see” is shorthand for a universally shared curiosity about people, places, and ideas beyond your own experience, with the implication that encountering those differences enriches you.

The phrase extends well enough into the popular imagination to inspire youth literature; I found this book in the supermarket the other day on the “school fiction” shelf, sharing space with “Kwame goes to the market” and “Basic Design and Technology for Form Three.” (Although I initially couldn’t justify spending GH 5 on it, the cashier at the market accidentally overcharged me and told me to take GH 5 worth of store credit, since he couldn’t change the receipt, so I got a copy guilt-free.)



The book is about two boys’ first family vacations, one to the town of Cape Coast and one to the town of Wa in the Upper West region. Awed by finally seeing everything they’d read about in school, from the Cape Coast castle to the animals (hippos!) along their trip, they write all their observations down, the better to regale their friends with stories. They return from their trips with appetites whetted for more travel – budding young migrants, perhaps?

After what feels like constant trips between different Ghanaian cities, I’m no longer quite as excited as the two boys in the book for long drives. I share their curiosity, however; the desire both to explore and to confirm what others have said about migrants' motivations drives me to trek around on the back of motorbikes and pleasantly harass unsuspecting friends of my host families for interviews.

And so the new year brings a new blog title. Not that the old one was bad – thanks Meagan! – but I find this one so suitable for my project and my experiences that I must rename it. I hope a new title will invigorate my lethargic posting – one of my New Year’s resolutions was to update my blog more frequently. I intended to post this entry on Jan. 2nd, however, so you can see already how successful I’ve been at keeping it. Hey, I'm just setting the bar low to measure my progress over the year...

Green Card or Bust

Last month, as Black Friday (try explaining that term to Ghanaians) commenced and the Christmas shopping season began, another season drew to a close. I’m not referring to Ramadan, although that also ended on Friday with the festival of Eid al-Fitar, a national holiday in Ghana and most Muslim countries. I’m instead referring to the end of the 2009 US Diversity Visa lottery registration window. A little-known program of the US State Department, the visa lottery allows citizens from countries that are “underrepresented” in US immigration totals to register online for a visa “drawing.” It’s the only lottery I know of where applicants pay only after they win. Instead of applying directly to the US embassy in Accra, people fill out their basic information online, which is sent to an electronic processing center in Kentucky. (I guess they wanted to make it as reminiscent of the American heartland as possible.) Some shadowy and mysterious computer selects 100,000 – 110,000 names from over 16 million applicants each spring. The “chosen ones” are automatically granted visa interviews if they can pay the visa application fee (a steep $750 USD) and complete the required medical forms (another $300 USD or so). From those who interview, the ever-vigilant visa counselors whittle down the list to 55,000 or so recipients, who receive US green cards for anywhere from 6 months to 5 years.

It is a self-consciously named process, transforming what feels like a lottery for many applicants into a literal one. Most of the Ghanaians I’ve interviewed on the subject feel the normal US visa application process is slow, opaque and confusing. After filling out the official forms and soliciting invitation letters, Ghanaians might be called to sign up for an interview, which is usually available only several weeks in advance. Ever sought-after, visa interviews are scarce, especially for those who live outside of Accra. Many applicants are left frustrated by their inability to even receive an interview, believing the US collects application fees in order to fund its aid programs in Ghana. “We’re paying for our own roads,” one internet café owner remarked to me.

With its promise of an anonymous lottery, the DV process seems (perhaps only marginally) fairer and more certain to most Ghanaians, and they sign up accordingly. Last year Ghana had the highest number of DV recipients of any country in the world – over 8,000 citizens managed to secure green cards.

With such demand for visas, it’s inevitable that local entrepreneurs would find some way to capitalize on Ghanaians’ high hopes for an American green card and their generally low level of information about how to get it. “Migration connectors,” operating at cafes and as private individuals, charge people a small fee to register for the lottery, educating those who don’t know much about the process, taking regulation-size photos, and entering applicants’ information into the internet portal.

Their signs and banners adorn balconies, walls, street lamps and taxi cabs around town, some professionally produced and draped decorously between two buildings, others printed on crumpled office paper and taped to doorways. During “the season,” as many call it (the program ran from Oct. 3rd to Nov. 30th this year), it’s hard to amble down a street without a DV announcement, so ubiquitous they seem. I’ve collected a couple of choice examples for you.

Hanging in front of the largest internet café in downtown Kumasi, this sign was as good as it gets - large, prominent, and professionally printed:


This one, alas, was not so: the printer clearly ran out of enthusiasm before he could manage to capitalize "Take part and be a winner!":


The owner of this cafe, apparently wanting to dodge all those pesky questions from customers about how many passport pictures they needed for the application, took the straightforward route with his notice:


My favorite, however, is this one at the Ghana post office headquarters in Kumasi:


It reads with a faintly adversarial tone if you put the emphasis on the right word, as if to say “It's ON, US visa lottery! You just try to turn me away!”

Some signs of the season are particularly unmissable, the initiative of several entrepreneurs whose sole business during October and November is registering people for the DV lottery. The employees have the process down to an art, streamlined to churn people's applications through the system like industrially-produced butter. You can't read it very well in this photo, but rest assured that the legs of the tent below read "Visa Lottery," and that the people inside have been waiting for an hour to send their information forth to Kentucky:


There are even competing tent factions, with drama befitting any epic tale of profit, greed, dreams of the future and trans-Atlantic journeys. One operator alleges that another stole his tent idea and choice set-up location, cutting his customer base in half this year.

Not all of the banners are so visible. Others are more muted, and more insidious. “Call for visa help, 020____” read one handwritten note stapled to a light post at my local tro-tro stop. Some use the lottery process as a front to capture the identities - and the cedis - of would-be Americans, holding their personal data hostage or extorting applicants. Unscrupulous operators will help clients apply for free, but direct the announcement packets to their own addresses if the applicants win, refusing to turn over the documents necessary for the interview until they receive several thousand dollars. According to one widespread rumor, someone took this approach with the entire National Youth Employment database (a registry of recent graduates looking for work), entering their data into the system without their knowledge and extracting money from the unsuspecting visa winners. Despite general enthusiasm for the DV season, it's these stories which make people understandably suspicious of “people going around with their creepy little cameras,” as one person described it.

Lest you wonder why I, too, have been going around with my "creepy little camera" for these pictures, a disclaimer: I centered the first part of my Fulbright research on the DV process in Ghana, since it's one primary connection between the internet and migration. (That is, if you'll remember aaaaaall the way back to my first post, the topic I'm allegedly here to study...) Now that the application window has ended for the year, I'm almost done with the first part of my research, save for analyzing the remainder of the internet cafe user surveys I distributed and conducting interviews with a couple of officials at the embassy. I find I miss the spirit of the period, however. It had a vaguely carnivalesque feel – advertisements in the newspaper, on the radio, at various cafes and more unexpected places (the back of a tro-tro seat?) warning passerby “not to miss this opportunity,” as if invisible hawkers were selling tickets for dubious games with ridiculously large prizes. Luckily for me, Christmas season is now in full swing and has a similarly festive vibe, with the substitution of colorful tinsel for banners and Boney M. 70s-era Christmas CDs for radio advertisements. Even for those hoping to go abroad, there are, after all, many things to celebrate at home.

In honor of Thanksgiving...

...I thought I would introduce two additional members of the Boampong family, whom I insensitively overlooked in my first post.

This lovely lady is Julie. The Boampongs name all their cats Julie, so she's actually more like Julie IV. She's not as peaceful as her picture suggests - she dislikes human touch, and runs from anything that approaches her. Her distrust probably stems from experience, however - sadly, her kitten was killed by the family dog last week.



Squirming in my arms is Julie's sister Julianna, who is much nicer than her wriggling would suggest. She's a cuddlebug and an attention seeker, and if you scratch her beneath her chin she'll be your shadow for the rest of the day.



P.S. For those of you who suspect that this post is intended to provide a brief update to stave off the clamoring masses while I write the next (longer, more legitmate post), you would be 100% correct. Research has kicked into high gear, and I've been a bit preoccupied for the past couple of weeks. I just returned from several days of interviewing in Berekum, a small town in the Western region of Ghana with a high population of migrants. Now I'm in Accra, the capital city, to gather with my American kinfolk to observe the Thanksgiving ritual. But now the postscript is longer than the actual post, so I'll comment more on both trips soon...

Perhaps I typed too soon...

Two weeks ago (it's been awhile, I know) I wrote that things were looking good for Ghana. They still are, with one key exception. If Ghana's football team was on fire, unfortunately so too was its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Last Thursday, the entire 10-story building went up in flames after either 1) a faulty air conditioner wasn't properly fixed or 2) three security guards set the building ablaze. (Which one of the two it was remains under investigation.)

The situation is disheartening for Ghanaians, to say the least; it will cost the government millions of dollars to repair, or more likely rebuild, the Ministry. But it's also personally disheartening, because it destroys my last mental defense against the dark forces of confusion and incompetency. Whenever I encounter some systemic breakdown, whether a near-crash on a tro-tro traversing a major road that has been "under construction" for four years or a shortage of malaria prophylaxis at one of Ghana's biggest hospitals, I comfort myself with the thought that “if it were something really important, it would be dealt with.” Well, I've spent the past week trying to think of things more important than saving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it's a short list.

The whole situation illustrates on a massive and destructive scale the same inconveniences that many Ghanaians deal with on a daily basis, usually related to some sort of government or public service delay, shortage, breakdown, misinformation or outright incompetency.

First of all, the blaze could not be contained because one of Accra's two firetrucks is under repair, and the other – actually located in a smaller city down the coast from Accra – lacks a working extendable spinning ladder, so firefighters were unable to reach the blaze. Second, it was nearly impossible to get enough water to the site to combat the flames. There's a water reservoir next to the Ministry specifically for that purpose but the pump was not working, probably because it was not consistently maintained.

As the flames went up and the building came down, spectators bemoaned two things. First, the loss of valuable office equipment. In most developed countries, office equipment would be an afterthought, the kind of trivial misfortune only insurance accountants would worry about. When you realize how difficult and expensive it probably was for the Ministry to obtain those copiers, printers, and computers, however, the tragedy of it all becomes more apparent. Second, very few of the Ministry's documents were backed up electronically. Thus some 52 years of historical and policy archives have been reduced to ash that will mix with red dust and float across the city, covering some unsuspecting tro-tro passenger who would never imagine that his shoes bore the only remnants of Kwame Nkrumah's notes to foreign dignitaries.

If you'd like to read more, here's the article: http://www.graphicghana.com/news/page.php?news=4831



On Tuesday the Chinese government "offered to help” rebuild the Ministry, just as it has “offered to help” Ghana renovate its regional airports and redo its roads. (How kind of them!) The symbolism of the Chinese rebuilding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is rather striking – could there be better (or more directly observable) evidence of the influence China is trying to exert on Ghana's foreign policy?

I promise that not all news from Ghana is so negative, despite the tone of my post. I spent this weekend in Accra at an interesting and hopeful OpenAccess conference focused on increasing access to ICT infrastructure and research. Since everyone spent much of the conference typing furiously on their computers, I could have written another post already, but you'll have to wait a couple of days nonetheless...

Ghana's Gone Wild

One consequence of waiting so long to update my blog is that my prospective post headings have changed drastically. “Desperately seeking exercise” has morphed into “Bought jump rope; now learn tricks from host sisters.” “Unhappy stomach prevents eating” was exchanged for “Possibly gaining weight due to potato and palm oil consumption.” And – finally! - “Epic search for internet modem” has been replaced by “Found internet modem; immediately became obsessively conscious of data usage.”

The original title for this post has also changed. Last Wednesday marked the one-month anniversary of my arrival in Ghana, and since then I've both settled down and crisscrossed the country literally from one border to the other. I intended to write about the days I spent traveling to Ghana's northern regions, but that deserving topic was eclipsed by the events of last Friday – namely, Ghana beating Brazil in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup.

For those who don't follow soccer (or football, as it is known everywhere else), next year South Africa will host the World Cup. (It seems crazy that anyone wouldn't know this already, but I believe I'm biased by the thousands of commercials and radio advertisements that deafeningly remind listeners every 2.6 seconds.) The Cup, which is being hailed by sportscasters and citizens alike as “Africa's Cup,” brings with it a number of smaller precursor events, such as the Confederations Cup, also held on African soil. The Under-20 Cup (meaning the team is limited to players 20 years or younger) was the last major event before the big show next summer, and some think it serves as a preview for which teams will be successful in the forseeable future, even though only a few of the Under-20 members will play for their countries in 2010.

After a suspenseful and high-scoring run to the finals, Ghana met Brazil for the second time in 20 years. Just before halftime, one of Ghana's players went out on a red card, and so Ghana spent much of the second half deflecting Brazil's shots on goal. They did so successfully, however and the game went to penalty kicks, with Brazil nearly taking the trophy before Ghana's Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu won the game with a low corner shot.

I live next to a “spot,” or bar, so the noise when Agyemang-Badu's ball hit the net was deafening. I probably would have been able to hear the celebrations even if I weren't so close to the action – the street was filled with revelers waving the Ghanaian flag, dancing, drinking, and beating on improvised plastic-tub drums. We faced a near impasse driving home to the house where I sleep, and were able to move through only after the dancers had jostled the car and (jokingly) made sure that I wasn't Brazilian. I think I'll have to buy a Ghanaian jersey to guarantee my safety in the future...

Though things have calmed down considerably since then, any mention of "Ghana vs. Brazil" to taxi drivers, store owners, or water vendors will still spark a huge grin and a reply of "2010!" Ghana's hopes for a rosy football season only add to expectations for an optimistic future; next year will also see the first oil revenues from the recently-discovered Jubilee Field, and potentially other developments like new roads and additional broadband capacity from a new fiber optic internet cable. As one of my favorite Ghana-bloggers, Ethan Zuckerman, put it on Monday morning, "things are looking good for Ghana."