Ghana – Chapter 8

Accra, March 1, 2005

 

"Hello, akwaaba, you are welcome"

 

 

Hello.  Akwaaba.  You are welcome (here).

 

I just realized that I didn’t send you guys this week’s weather update for Accra.  So here goes…

 

Today

Tomorrow

Thu

Fri

Sat

sky: scattered thunderstorms

 

Scattered Thunderstorms

 

High: 92°
Low: 80°

sky: scattered thunderstorms

 

Scattered Thunderstorms

 

High: 92°
Low: 80°

sky: scattered thunderstorms

 

Scattered Thunderstorms

 

High: 94°
Low: 77°

sky: scattered thunderstorms

 

Scattered Thunderstorms

 

High: 91°
Low: 77°

sky: scattered thunderstorms

 

Scattered Thunderstorms

 

High: 93°
Low: 79°

 

Exciting, huh?  No I didn’t make a mistake and just reproduce last week’s weather.  You’ll notice that the evenings have cooled off (a degree or two).

 

Well, on to more exciting things.  But there’s less to write about this week.  I’ve been pretty busy with work and haven’t had much time to get in trouble or anything.  So let’s talk about food.

 

Ceviche

 

Saturday I went back to Tema with my Lebanese friend, Jean, who owns the La Magellan Restaurant.  As I think I’ve told you, Tema is a port city about 30 miles east of Accra.  It is also the location of the closest large fishing fleet.  People go there to buy fresh fish.

 

Jean goes nearly every day to buy supplies for his restaurant (lobsters, shrimp, squid, and a large variety of fish fillets).  I like to go and look around, talk to the market ladies (the whole market is run by women – some of whom own the fishing boats). 

 

Jean bought 5 large lobsters (about 5 pounds each) and around 100 small ones (2 or 3 to the pound – the tail is about the size of a large shrimp, but tastier).  These are “rock” lobsters or “spiny” lobsters, a warm water species that doesn’t have big claws like the New England variety, but the meat is sweet.  He bought about 20 pounds of fresh squid (to make calamari rings), four large grouper (about 6-7 pounds each) which he had filleted, and four small barracuda (about 2.5 – 3 feet long, which he also had filleted.  I saw a lot of fish that I couldn’t name.  They have some varieties of sole and flounder that looked pretty good, as well as red snapper and sea bass.  He didn’t buy any shrimp this time, but they had some really good looking small ones (60-70 count), plus some good looking large ones (2-3 per pound).

 

I had been telling Jean about ceviche, so I bought four small snapper (about 2 pounds each) and had them filleted (typically, a fillet is about 40% - 50% of the weight of the total fish).  So I wound up with 3 ½ - 4 pounds of fresh fillets.  Before we left Accra, Jean had put one of his cooks to work squeezing limes, so we had about a quart of fresh lime juice waiting for us when we got back to the restaurant.  I cleaned the fillets, chopped them up (roughly ½ inch cubes), and put the raw fish in the lime juice.  Then we chopped up two onions and added that. We put in about a tablespoon of salt and I chopped up 6 or 7 hot red peppers and added them.  Then we covered it and put it in the refrigerator.  Ceviche needs to marinate about 5 or 6 hours before eating.

 

I had been invited out to dinner by some friends – a good Ivorian restaurant.  Karen Ryder works for the Centers for Disease Control (based in Atlanta).  She had been based in Abidjan working on public health projects until things fell apart last year (The Ivorian army bombed a French military based killing 10 French soldiers and an American – a mistake they claimed.  The French were camped too close to the rebel lines and the Ivorian army couldn’t tell the difference?!?.  The French then bombed and destroyed the Ivorian air force.  Mobs took the street in Abidjan and the French got worried.  French helicopters and tanks started patrolling the streets of Abidjan and apparently began to fire indiscriminately on unarmed Ivorian protesters.  In the end, all US and European dependents were evacuated).  Karen and her 2 year old daughter have been living in a hotel in Accra for about 8 months.  Her husband, Antoine, is Ivorian.  He’s head of communications and publications for the Ministry of Education, and is also a film maker.  He had continued working in Abidjan and flies to Accra every few weeks to see his family.  Antoine has helped me locate and get in touch with some of Dominique and Michelle’s relatives living in Abidjan – people we had lost touch with.

 

We ate at an Ivorian restaurant not far from my house (“not far” means walking distance).  I had a “kedjenou” made from guinea fowl.  Kedjenou is an Ivorian hunter’s dish.  They put some meat and vegetables in a clay pot and bury it in some coals before they go off hunting.  It’s done when they come back – cooks really slowly and the meat falls off the bones.  It was accompanied with some “attieke”.  Attieke is made from manioc (cassava).  You grate the manioc like parmesan cheese and then let it ferment for a few hours (manioc contains cyanide and ferments on its own).  It tastes a little like rice with a mild vinegar on it.  The dinner was good. 

 

We finished around 10 pm, when I judged that the ceviche should be done, so we went to Jean’s restaurant to try it.  It was really good.  We had ceviche and cold beer (it’s served as an appetizer in most of Central and South America in bars and restaurants).  Jean liked it and began handing out samples to some of his customers who were dining.  I guess it’s going on his menu as “Ceviche a la Gregoire”.  Next time we’re going to make it from shrimp.

 

Christmas

 

A great care package arrived today from Aunt Susan (aka SFO Toonce).  It contained some really nifty work gloves and garden pruning shears for Sylvanus.  I’ll report back on their success (hopefully with photos) in a future mailing.  Sylvanus has been “pruning” everything with a really dull machete (kind of like chopping at things with a hammer).  Basically, he just has been kind of beating the bushes into submission until the branch gives up and dies.

 

OK ya’ll.  Got to go back to work.

 

Write.

 

Greg

 

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