Jasikan

As I mentioned before, I was incommunicado for a few days because I went on an overnight outreach to the village of Jasikan. Getting to Jasikan takes about 5 hours through the pothole-ridden muddy streets of rural Ghana, so in order to see patients in that region, we had to stay there overnight. Just to give you some idea of where everything is that I'm talking about, here's a map of Ghana: http://www.web-translations.com/resources/country_guides/Ghana/map_of_ghana.gif. The primary location were Unite for Sight is stationed is in Accra, where the star is. Then, the Jasikan region is on the far East side, along the border of Togo, and near the indicated mountain. Tomorrow, I am going to go live in Tema, near Accra, for a week. Then, after that I will spend two weeks in Kumasi, which is about 5 hours northwest of Accra.

But I digress. This week, we were in Jasikan. We arrived on Tuesday, worked outreaches on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and drove back to Accra on Saturday night. This meant that we spent a lot of time driving in our van. We mostly tried to sleep, told riddles, read, chatted, or listened to Ghanaian reggae. One girl on the trip, Barclay, had bought a CD of Ghanaian reggae, and most of it was great! Some of it got really angry and political and there were songs about "shame on the politicians," "the great sins against the black man done by Satan's disciples," and "abortions bring FIRE, FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!" When the crazy rasta man started screaming about fire, we were all pretty surprised. Some of the reggae was just laid back and happy, though. We listened to that album on repeat a lot. Plus, sometimes we caught some American music on the radio. We heard some Backstreet Boys, Vanessa Carlton, and Michael Jackson (en memoriam I suppose). We also listened to crazy Ghanaian radio announcers who try to talk above loud music and end up being pretty much unintelligible. It was fun.

During one particularly long drive, I was trying really hard to sleep, but was way too uncomfortable. But then, a miracle was sent. We passed by a pillow vendor! Along the road, a woman was selling pillows she had made for 2 Cedi, so we all bought big pillows. And the best part of all - my pillow is covered in pictures of Pokemon! Everyone else just has pretty patterns, but I have Polywrath. I'd say I win :)

Okay, well the Jasikan region was much more rural than Accra. In Accra, there are gas stations, many cars, tons of people, and a good amount of commercial business. In the Jasikan region, there is almost nothing in terms of technology. No TVs, no internet anywhere, no AC. People live very simply, and everything is very very inexpensive.

We stayed at the local Catholic Diocese of Jasikan for about 4 USD a night per person. Our rooms were full full full of bugs - moths, ants, mosquitos (don't worry, I have malaria medication), geckos, and of course HUGE SPIDERS. Good god. HUGE. FREAKING. SPIDERS. One night, I got up to go use the hole in the ground, and saw a spider about 2 inches in diameter near the sink. Of course, I couldn't squash it, and the other girls were asleep, so I just crawled back into bed. I couldn't sleep a wink that night for fear that that damn thing was just going to leap into bed with me. I never found it again even though we were there for 3 more days. *Shudder*

In Jasikan, much like in Accra, chickens, dogs, and goats are free to roam. Our car has to dodge a number of goats on every drive, and we are woken up by stray roosters every darn morning. I don't know why there seem to be so many stray goats and chickens, because these are valuable animals! I asked someone in Accra how people know who the animals belong to, and he told me that all the animals know to go home at night. They graze around the city by day, but go home to their owners to sleep. I don't know how that could possibly be true, but it's what he said. Meh.

I'm also happy to see that there are a few more traditional Ghanaian dishes other than the classic rice and chicken combo. A few things that are prominent and delicious are banku, fufu, watche, and goat meat kabobs.

The goat meat kabobs don't need much explaining. You can buy a skewer of meat at a street vendor for 50 Gd (about 30 cents). Although, I learned the hard way that you have to ask for "meat" and not "the parts." The first time we had goat meat, it was very tender and delicious, but the second time it was chewy and flavorless. Our driver Bismarck told us that was because we had gotten the lower quality kabobs the second time - they were mostly fat and pieces of organs. Blech! And I had eaten all of it!

Watche is a yummy dish that is only served in the morning, and it's spicy and made of beans and a delicious sauce. You eat it with your hands. Only your right hand, though, to not offend anyone.

Banku is very interesting. The jury is still out on whether I like it or not. It's a two-part dish. One part is like the consistency of silly-puddy and is made of corn meal and cassava leaves. The mixture has been fermented and crushed until it's doughy. Then you dip the fermented dough into a soup made of fish or chicken. The dough is sour from the fermentation. This is another dish you eat with you hands, so you have to be pretty careful not to make a huge mess.

Fufu is very similar to banku, only it is made with crushed plantains and cassava leaves. And it isn't fermented, so the dough isn't sour. I think I like fufu better then banku :)

Okay, this post is getting long, so I'm going to munch on some leftover rice. I'll be back.