Food

Its time for a brief overview of Ghana food. Essentially there are two parts to a meal - the carbohydrate substance side and the stew/soup part. Fiber rich foods such as yam, plantain, cocoyam, rice, and cassava (lots and lots of cassava). These carbs provide a ton of calories and fiber, and the empy carb calories vectors are either boiled or fried. Majority of space and calories come from these semi-nutritionless plants. This fiber-intensity is a mixed bag however, because it takes a while for your stomach to fully process that enough food is actually in your stomach: it seems to take about 15 minutes, after the carbohydrate concoction expands in your stomach, for your body to realize it has enough calories and there is no more space to cram more food in. Unfortunately, this feeling comes about 15 minutes too late, so my strategy to eat some and then stop BEFORE I feel even close to full. Even so, there have still been some close calls where I feel absolutely terrible and roll into a food coma where I cant talk and just want to find the closest bed or similar non-dirty surface to lay down on and wait for the agony to pass. Even though I seem to have figured this out fairly soon, I have seen some Ghanaians that try and eat as much as possible now and deal with the consequences of food inundation later. I imagine it feels like a hot air balloon inside you filling up with air.
Okay, let's move onto the stew and soup part. This is where the protein and fat in my diet come from. For stews, they first make a paste by hand mashing onions, garlic, tomatoes, and hot peppers together in a bowl. Then they heat up some red oil (palm oil), put the paste in, and either serve over rice or next to sliced yam, cocoyam, etc. For the soups, Ghanaians first make the paste then dump everything into a large pot with titanic quantities of oil or groundnut (peanut) paste to simmer.
Fufu, besides being a fun word to say, is actually mashed plantains and cassava served with groundnut soup. I dont know where I stand with fufu. It comes in a big dough ball in the middle of a sea of soup and you rip off a piece - then, contrary to all natural instincts and probably because of the sliminess quality of fufu, you swallow it whole. No chewing, no deciding if you like it or not, no spitting out fish bones. Overall, an efficient way of eating - I can sense I need to stop (because it will expand inside) after less than one minute of actual dining time. Preperation, not included in eating time, is about 2 hours. Consequently, adults frequently get their children to do most of the hard work for them (pounding fufu with a person-sized battering ram, grinding veggies in a bowl, and other things). But, the fufu pounding makes so much noise that for seemingly hours on end a constant boom, boom, boom is ringing in your ears.
Also, food here is spicy. Good news is that it tastes good and keeps you regular. Bad news is there is no milk to negate these effects.
Updates on my life: I start teaching in about 10 days and will probably teach math and ICT. Ive been to a few football matches and its crazy - there are the people who watch the game and the people who are just there to dance and drum. I also got my first taste of Ghana ceremonies - a guy I met while here from the US was enstooled (made a subchief) on Tuesday, so I went to check out his ceremony... I should have brought my video camera.