The guide books tell you to get over yourself already and eat local Ghanian food, not the lupsup they serve at the hotel restaurants. It's part of understanding a country, y'know.
Fufu is the obvious natural dish to try. So one day I did.
I was standing outside the National Museum, debating whether or not to go in. It was a Sunday, and next to the museum a group of Ghanians were rocking out for Jesus, and keeping a pretty good beat with tamborines, bass, drums, piano. Bored children snuck out of the service to look at me. After about fifteen minutes of leaning against a clapboard fence—close enough to hear, far enough away that I didn’t like some damn ethnographer—I turned back toward the museum, then hesitated. The West African sun still seemed glorious then, and the museum sounded less than adventurous.
As if sensing my indecision, Afiya materialized. She was fifty years old, or maybe a tough African forty, and the picture of matronly warmth. She broked off from the group she’d come with—well dressed men I guesses to be Christian elders of some seriousness and import—and buttonholed me. “Welcome to Ghana,” she beamed, squeezing my hand. “Is this your first time in Ghana?”
“Yes. I am John.” Tarzanspeak helps people understand you.
The whites of her eyes swelled, and she pulled me close to her. “Your first time, welcome welcome! Do you like Ghana?”
“I like it very much.” I gave the Nairobi sux/Ghana rulez monologue.
"I will give you a Ghanian name. What day were you born?"
"March 18." A lie.
"No, what day of the week?"
"I have no idea." This doesn't slow her down.
"If you do not know then I will call you XXX." (I forgot the name immedietly. Sorry, reader. Sorry, Afiya. “Have you eaten?”
“No.” Trepidation at this, even though The Rough Guide mentions Ghanians inviting you everywhere. She urges me to come with her and eat with the old men and women of God at a table behind the clapboard fence.
But when we arrive, discussion follows between her and the elder guys. I consider retreat: polite lunch could take over an hour, and I wanted to do stuff that day. Again, as if sensing that I'm wriggling off the hook, Afiya changes tactics. “Have you had fufu?”
"No." But I remember reading about it. She is aghast, and says we must go get some. "How much does it cost?"
She is wounded by this. "You don't worry, I get gufu for us both." I'll be happy to stick with that. If I see her pay anything for it, I'll promptly pay her back. So we hop in a taxi--which she promises to pay for--and we cruise North to slummytown. When the car pulls up at Afiya's mudwall home, she gets in a big argument with the driver. It could be genuine, or she could merely be telling the driver to yell at her one more time: that will tug on whitey's heartstrings. Eventually Afiya asks me for the equivalent of $1.20 and I hand it to the driver. If this is the extent of the shakedown, I'll be fine.
Outside on the slum streets I am ignored by some, condescended to by others, stared at a bit, but mostly offered hospitality. Inside Afiya introduces me to mom, grandma, aunt, son, nephew (more hooks?). A young girl scrapes dough in a bucket together in a ball, and a young man crushes the ball with a 6-inch diameter cylinder of wood. He stabs downward, and she moved her hand just before impact. He lifts, she gathers more dough, he stabs, she dodges again.
The product of all this work is fufu: a ball of maize or flour dough dropped into a red broth with bits of fish or meat floating around. After I've been introduced to everyone, Afiya instructs me on how to eat fufu: you sit on a sideways on a bench, using the rest of the bench as a table. No silverware. You just tear off dough, dunk it, swallow it.
So clearly not so sanitary, especially since many people share a dish. Also clearly eating soup the way an American two-year-old would. I wonder for a second how the hell I ended up eating slumchum instead of walking to the beach, then tear off a shred and dunk it. Here goes. I dodge the fish.
The dough tastes like dough. No problem. But the broth triggered my gag reflex.
Spit it out? Unwise. Swallow and risk minor vomit eruption? No. Stick it in the corner of my mouth and wait for saliva to dilute it? Yeppers.
"Do you like it?"
"No."
"You don't like it?" She's aghast, but I'm pretty firm on this.
"Maybe you need to get a piece with the fish."
"Oh, no. Thanks." Time to go. If you're going to try and close the deal, you better go for it, lady. After saying goodbye to everyone, she walks me out. I meet buttoncute kids, and I tell her I have to go do some work (lie). She walks me toward a main street and points me in the proper direction. She asks me for money for her family. I tell her I don't have it (lie), and walk away. She reminds me of my Ghanian name, and waves goodbye, smiling.
In hindsight I think she really was a genuinely hospitable Ghanian/outgoing Christian, and that everything she offered was offered out of generosity. But I think that she also made a hell of a lot of sense to be friendly with a guy who might give you a month's pay in a moment of charity. It may seem churlish to have not handed over a measly $5, but it's a tougher decision to make when you're the white guy in the slum, and taking out your wallet will mean showing anyone--not least of all Afiya--who wants to watch how much you've got and which pocket you keep it in. Today I'd be more giving. But my instincts then were strictly duck and cover.
Anyway, I thought of this whole vignette just now when I walked out to the Hotel Brittania's courtyard to get a Guinness. Everyone was sitting around the TV in the exact same positions they'd been in an hour ago, when I'd walked out to buy a Coke. I walked past the TV, people said hi, the bartendress got up and handed me my beer, and then I disappeared into my room to pound computer keys and read books.
No real conclusion today. Just the facts.
