Sorry, I though I had posted this one weeks ago, but apparently not!
August 18, 2011
We got to travel this week into the Ghana Accra Mission field. Our first stop was at Kofiridua where we met the Bakers who are the senior couple in this region. They took us to their missionaries weekly zone meeting. They have 6 missionaries in this area. We talked to them for a bit about malaria and other things and then got to watch as they had their meeting. They pulled out the white board and a couple of missionaries got up and starting writing names on the board, these were the names of those who are committed to baptism and are finishing up their discussions and setting dates. They wrote about 10-12 names on the board then proceeded to talk about each one and their problems and challenges and they had a great discussion on how best to meet their needs. We were very impressed that with only 6 missionaries they had that many people awaiting baptism! Then they sat down and 2 more missionaries got up, erased the board and started writing another long list of names! The first list was only for that companionship! The other companionships had at least that many people waiting for baptism as well! The field here is truly white and ready to harvest!
The Bakers took us to a couple of their hospitals and we did our evaluations on them, they have a couple of fairly decent hospitals in this area which is always a relief. Afterward, they took us to their market area which is completely different what what we have in Accra. They have shop after shop of clothes, both used and new and I was in heaven! I could have spent hours there, but still managed to buy a couple of new shirts, which is sooo nice! With a very limited wardrobe I was getting so tired of the same old things. Shopping is something that I just love to do anyway, it makes me happy. So this was a very happy day for me! I told Todd we will probably need to come every month or so, just to feed my shoppers heart!
The next day we got to go into the ‘bush’ so to speak, to visit a little village called Abomisu. This is the village that had all the flooding a few weeks ago and we wanted to go check things out and make sure our missionaries were ok in this area. We met the Daltons, who are the senior couple in this area. We actually got to fly into Africa with the Daltons, so it was great to see them again! They have a much tougher mission call then we do! They really live in the wilds of Africa, we get to live in the city. We saw a lot of small mud homes that just got demolished with the flood waters. They will tear them down and just start over. Which I think in the long run, would just be easier then what the good people of Minot are up against. They will just make more mud bricks and start from scratch. A few of their crops were completely destroyed, but they have all just pulled together as a community and shared with their neighbors.
We did a fireside with one of the wards that evening, they had a great turn-out and Elder Fife did a great job reinforcing the basics of sanitation and staying healthy. We had to have an interpreter, because they mostly speak Twi. It was kind of funny, Todd would speak for like 60 seconds, then this good brother would speak for like 5 minutes, with lots of hand signals and the crowd would laugh at things when Todd hadn’t said anything that was in anyway funny. I would have been nice to hear what he actually translated, because I think it was totally different then what Todd said! Afterward he did mini-consults for quite a few of the members, it was a great time. We usually don’t get to meet with the members, it was a nice change of pace.
The next day we got to see the local health clinic. It was small and in passable condition, but very busy. Lots of people needing help and amazing people who have given up their personal lives to give it! They give the best help they can with the very basics. The ‘Dr.’ there is a PA who basically has a stethoscope. He would love to have an otoscope so he could check kids ears and maybe a blood-glucose monitor so he could check a blood sugar occasionally. Right now, he does the best he can. We are going to see about getting those for him. He can run 2 labs, he can check for malaria or pregnancy and his pharmacy is very limited as well. This is truly bush medicine but it is very inspiring. They also have a mid-wife who works round the clock with no breaks- ever! She was amazing as well.
In the afternoon, we got to go to another village that was close by and see some members. There is a sister over there that Elder Dalton wanted Todd to see. She has a large goiter on her neck and it embarrasses her, she doesn’t like to come to church because she is sure everybody is staring at her. What a sweet lady, and she was watching her little granddaughter who so totally adorable! I got to hold her while the ‘adults’ conversed. Her goiter could be removed, but it would be an expensive and risky surgery here in Africa. And because it won’t hurt her, Todd strongly recommended that she do nothing but learn to live with it. He and Elder Dalton did some more counseling with her and hopefully it will help. That’s pretty tough, poor thing!
We then visited another family who has a cocoa farm. Cocoa is the only ‘cash’ crop here in Ghana, which means they raise and process the cocoa, and the government pays them cash for the beans. So lots of people do cocoa. But I have never seen them process it which I found totally fascinating! They take the cocoa beans from the shell, which looks like a white, slimey brain and they make a big pile inside a bunch of banana leaves. Then they let it sit in the sun for weeks. As it ferments and rots (yes, the smell was rather strong!) the white slime breaks down and turns black. They then spread it out on reed mats and using a rake, break it up and let it dry some more in the sun. Eventually, they are mostly down to the cocoa beans with bits of dried black stuff on the outside which they pick off by hand and viola! Cocoa beans! Pretty cool.
Later that night we got to go over to the Dalton’s neighbors, a very nice family and branch member. She showed us how to make fofo. She already had the cassavas and plantains boiled and mashed, then she takes a clump of each and puts it in her fofo bowl, a large wooden bowl which was very pretty in its own right! Her son then takes the fofo stick, a 6 foot stick with the flatten end, and he starts pounding the clumps. She gets her hands wet, then between his pounds, she snakes in the turns the dough. It’s a fast process and a little nerve racking to watch for the first few pounds! But eventually you get the rhythm and see the intricate dance between pounds and flips. I even got brave enough to give it a try, it was actually a lot of fun! I suppose it loses it’s ‘funness’ rather quickly, but I had a great time! And I didn’t get my fingers smashed once! He pounded at a little slower rhythm for me though- thank you! Todd even took a turn at the pounding. Though they didn’t offer to let me flip while Todd pounded, which was probably a good thing! Haha
The husband was going to try to catch a grass-cutter for us, but he couldn’t find one that day. Which was a little bit disappointing and a little bit of a relief! I want to try the grass-cutter- I have heard over and over it’s by far the best meat in Ghana. But on the other hand, it is just a really big rat! They sell them on the road side, but I am not a big enough person to take the whole thing home with me, gut it, skin it, butcher it and then cook it. I grew up on a farm yes, but this is more than I can do right now. Give me a few more months in Africa and maybe? Probably not! Anyway, they made us goat soup instead. So we got to eat fofo with goat soup at the neighbors- how cool is that, huh? We did get our own bowls, which I was thankful for, usually they just eat out of a large communal bowl. Which wouldn’t be so bad, but utensils are not part of the Ghanian culture! It’s all about becoming one with the food and that means nothing but fingers!
So this is how you eat fofo. First you wash your hands (good!) then you twist off a small piece fofo with your fingers, swish it in the soup, then pop it in your mouth. No chewing is allowed, you swallow it whole. Which, I have to tell you, takes a bit of getting used to! I’m not used to swallowing a large chunk of dough and I tend to be a gagger. The goat chunks are floating in your soup, so those you just pick up and break off chunks of meat from the bones (real Ghanians eat the bones too, but I’m not that hungry yet J ). It was actually very good, and the soup was tomato based and she was very careful to keep the ‘pepe’ small-small. It was still pretty spicey! It was a very fun evening and it was great to try some real Ghanian food. But I’m glad it’s not what we are eating every day!
