Two good things on Thursday

NO TERMITES! I'm back to a regular bed again:)

 

We had a ladies movie night
Cricket Parry, Sherri Despain, Lisa Luke
me, Kristi Evans, and Jeralie Hymas hosting

Jeralie invited a bunch of women (I think at the last minute or at least some of us got it late) and six of us showed up bringing different munchies. We watched "Queen of Katwe" which is a really excellent movie on many accounts. One just being in Africa we can see so many familiar things. It is really a good movie.

Plain Rice and Kontobre Stew

 Rice - Juliet brought Jasmine Rice, Jeffrey and I tried the stew with brown rice and loved it.
Chicken
Garlic cloves

Ginger root

Salt and pepper

chicken cubes

Red palm oil

Soybean oil

Crushed red pepper

purple onions

Tomatoes

Carko (small pieces of fish for flavoring)

Melo

Smoked Salmon

Juliet cutting up tomatoes

Juliet told me this was a simple Ghanaian style stew. She is from Nigeria and says that the food there has more complications which I think meant more details and things added.

1. Put the water and salt on to boil for the rice - add rice and cover. Juliet had no measurements and no timing, so just cook the rice until it is done. She had so much in the pot that later she transferred a third to another pot and put plastic wrap over the top under both lids to help rice finish cooking.

2. Wash the chicken, then place it in pot 

3. Peel garlic cloves and ginger then shred them on the smallest grater part.

4. Rub salt, ginger, garlic, and a chicken cube over chicken, add chopped onions, water and set chicken to boil.

5. Cut up a big pile of tomatoes. She called them fancy, I see them as Roma tomatoes.

6. Peel and cut up a pile of purple onions.

7. Blend tomatoes and some onions in the blender. Blend a another bunch of onions.

Meanwhile take the chicken off and pour off the water. Add a fair amount of soybean oil to tall fry pan and add the chicken and  some chopped onions to fry. 

8. Juliet splashed in a puddle of palm oil and added chopped onions to that, sautéed just a bit.

9. The blended tomatoes and onion were put in the oil and heated up to a roiling simmer.

10. The Kontobre was washed and put on to boil in a separate pot.

11. The blended onions had a little water added and the melo. 

12. Chicken was turned, finished frying and taken out and drained. (Delicious!)

13. The onions and melo were added to the simmering tomatoes. She added red pepper.

14. The smoked salmon was washed, skin peeled, opened and the major bones taken out, then flaked into the simmering stew.

15. The kontobre was drained and squished to push out the water.

16. Somewhere in there the Carko small chunks of fish were added.

17. The Kontobre was added last and made the stew look more green.

18. Juliet mixed it all up and added some salt, pepper, and some red pepper. 

19. Juliet added the chicken into the stew at the last minute. I kept ours out as I wanted to eat my chicken by itself.

Maybe because it was simmering for so long, but the stew wasn't really soupy but much thicker than I'd thought it would be. Actually Juliet called it a soup, but it is more of a stew of things.

We divvied up the rice, stew and chicken. It was lots of fun for me!

Smoked Salmon from market. After it is washed, skin peeled and the bones taken out, Juliet gave me a taste - wonderful!! It is mildly fishy and has great flavor.

sack full of onions fresh from the market

Blended with onions

Juliet never used a chopping board, she was very quick in chopping up tomatoes and onions in her hands

Boiled the rice, boiled the chicken with spices

Added soybean oil to the fry pan

Fried up the drained chicken

Kontobre, or Coco leaves, or Kontomire - it very loosely resembles spinach but never gets slimy when boiled like spinach would

Added palm oil to the pan, cook the leafy green kontobre by itself, extra rice from the first pot

Washed and peeled skin off the smoked salmon.

Tomatoes simmering with small fish flavoring - Carko pieces

this red pepper is VERY hot

Simmering and adding all the pieces

Squishing out the water from the kontobre after boiling

Adding Kontobre to  stew the onions and melo that were added next

Added all the parts to simmer

Finished stew with vegetable and fish - I didn't add the fried chicken to mine

So yummy!

We boxed it up and called Brother Dumevi to come get his dinners and take Juliet to her home.

Jeffrey and I had the Stew over rice that night and it was great! It was spicy but when added over plain rice it was delicious. We even had it over some left over brown rice. I liked it just as well, there is no diminishing of flavor.

Cooking with Juliet - or rather watching Juliet cook

 I had the idea one day to do some Ghanaian cooking. I met Juliet our first Sunday in December and she told me she'd bring me some peanuts. Juliet supplies all the peanuts and peanut butter I need. But there is only so much I can eat myself as Jeffrey doesn't eat nuts. My great idea was to have Juliet show me how to cook Ghanaian food.

Today was the day!

Juliet cooking in my kitchen while I took pictures and wrote notes.

We met at the area office where I gave her an envelope with money and sent her off with Brother Dumevi a member of our ward who is a tour guide. He supplies taxis, directions, and sometimes gets things to deliver at my apartment. He is a ward leader and very helpful. Because of COVID he felt it wouldn't be good for me to go to the market, so I walked home (buying plantain chips on the way), while he took Juliet to the market.

First I have to tell you a little story. This is the first time I have walked home from the Area Office, it is not far away just a few blocks. But, there is one tricky corner with a long ditch and not much room for cars turning and pedestrians walking. So as I approached the corner I prayed I would be safe getting around the corner. Two men who were walking faster than I pulled ahead of me and I walked directly in their footsteps and sure enough a car comes whizzing around the corner and we are all safe. 

I thanked the gentleman in front of me for going in front and he didn't turn but gave a grunt. The man in front of him turned around and said, "Good morning Sister Adams." With a name tag everyone knows who I am. He came back and walked with me and told me he was a teacher at the MTC. He has been around since the missionaries were learning at the MTC and now learning remotely. It was a nice walk.

 After he dropped off to go in the back of the Temple grounds I passed a security guard for the bank that I'd said hello to on my way to the Office and he asked where my car was and I told him it was at the office for my husband. I noted that he remember me, he remembered my car and knew I wasn't in it. Then I bought bananas and apples from Patience at her fruit stand, and arrived home just 10 minutes before Juliet and Brother Dumevi arrived with bags of groceries.

This is not the ditch or corner, I had been watching too closely to take a photo, but it is like it on another street closer to my apartment - when I could think again.

Juliet immediately puts my largest pot on to boil to make rice.

She washes the chicken

Then then we are off and running! It was so much fun. There seemed to be so many running parts, but when it was all done, there was basically a stew to put over rice. I had told Brother Dumevi that he would be taking home a dinner and some banana bread and asked if he would rather have peanut butter cookies. He said he hadn't tried peanut butter cookies so I told him I'd give him the banana bread and a few cookies to try. There was four dinners made: us, Juliet and family, Dumevi's family and whomever the driver turned out to be. After waiting for the stew to cool we put it in ziplock bags along side of the rice containers. My note to self is to find liquid containers and get more carrying containers because this was so much fun. 

In my quest to "do good things", I'm hoping that learning a new skill and providing a few meals will count. 

Boxes with Kontobre stew and rice, I'd already given the banana bread and cookies

Brother Dumevi reported later that the cookies were "nice', very nice. Juliet hadn't had peanut butter cookies and she liked them when she tried them out too. I told her the missionaries who come study with Jeffrey on Saturday nights  like them too. I guess cookies are an American thing. So we are sharing cultures with each other. Stew and cookies:)

Road Trip - Tidbits of Interest

 On the way down the coast I saw an interesting sight and made a vow to photograph it on the way back. The day was waning but I still got my pictures.

Every platform sold the same blue cubes - I found out later they are Shea - butter, nuts, portions - I'm not sure as I didn't buy one. Shea is used in cosmetics, face moisturizer, and cooking.

Every stand sold the same thing and would women, sometimes men put their hand out like this woman and wave you down

The only difference I could see were the names under each platform, though this person in the middle sold something different - but that could be shea nuts on top.

Often if a small village sold watermelons, then all the stands sold watermelons, or bananas, shea packages, etc.

Bread and soda were the primary things sold in this village

Some structures were not made of cement. It looks like they are made out of mud. I don't know if they made mud bricks and then made the building or if they shaped it as they went along. It looks like there are wooden poles between the layers. We didn't stop, so I could only see at a glance. One village seemed to be entirely made up of this kind of mud bricks.

Since I did not have permission to take their picture (driving past) I blurred out their faces so they aren't recognizable. I am fascinated by the ability of these women to carry a baby on their back and a large load on their head, while walking an uneven path. How do they do it? Is it perfect posture? Practice since they are born? Expectation?

Momma's everywhere have hands free - to hold another child's hand

Burning takes care of garbage and clearing a field. One smells much better.

On our way back from Cape Three Points, Brent stopped by the side of the road and showed us a rubber plantation. 

Large tract of trees with a 'stripe' down the bark where the sap would drip into a bucket

One new ridge was just below an old ridge that had "healed" up

This is the pile of sap that will be vulcanized and made into rubber

Where "canoes" are made. Rumor has it that the bottom of the boats are made from one tree so they are whole. Then other layers are added.

Great conversations in the car and fascinating moving bits as we traveled along.

Road Trip - Going In and Going Out

 

The blue sign indicates a speed bump. When you slow down you can buy something offered. The speed bumps were almost 10 inches up with a flat surface and another 10 inch dip down. Very effective.

Our trip along the coast was to visit some historical and some fun places. The road trip all by itself was an adventure. For one thing, people set up stands with produce and goods that sometimes spill into the streets. Cars must be careful of the people walking around the wooden stands and stalls. The roads are bumpy and are narrow. 

In the big cities like Accra there are two or four lanes across but all the towns and villages we visited outside of the city had one road with two-way traffic. 

That means when there is a big truck that is slow, the driver inches over to see if he can zoom around the truck before the other car from the opposite way runs him over. The biggest excitement comes when a car wants to pass four cars or trucks in a row. Then added to that fun is the fact that people, animals and motorcycles like to cross at anytime, anywhere. 

Four way intersection with no lights

Then another added factor is the speed bumps. These speed bumps can bottom out a car and can send people flying in the back seat if the driver does not cross carefully. Several times a driver would speed up and pass a car or truck and then they slam on the brakes to go over a speed bump – or not hit a pedestrian.

I quickly learned to watch for these red signs
that warned of a speed bump ahead

For your added enjoyment, every 10 to 15 kilometers are police checks with a barrier across a third of the road for the cars to drive around. They make sure everyone is wearing a mask in the car – because it is a public place – even if the people on the sides of the roads are not wearing them. They sometimes wave cars on and sometimes indicate us to pull over. If they find something amiss, they threaten you to come to court – or just pay them off right there. As missionaries and especially missionary lawyers it would not be appropriate to pay any bribes as it would set up future missionaries as targets. I noted one set of people got stopped at every police barrier. They had matching clothes and were obviously all together. So, every stop they had a “little bite” taken. I am not sure why they were a target, but they were.

The people were fascinating, the countryside was fascinating, and watching them all go by was very interesting! Nathan who is about 13 years-old, but almost six foot likes to watch birds. He can identify birds from all over the place and has very sharp eyes. Every once in awhile he’d want us to stop so he could take a picture. He had binoculars and could see green birds in green trees. It was amazing when he pointed them out. Mostly he would zoom in with his camera.

All villages and towns have places to buy - everything!

The jungle has been carved out for farming

The most interesting road on the whole trip was the dirt road out to Cape Three Points. It was bumpy, hilly and sometimes narrow. I am so glad it was not made of mud. The reason we came at this time of year is because we wanted to miss the mud that former trips evidently had. 

I sat in the very back seat without a seatbelt as I couldn't find a place to click it in. I went airborne twice but never hit the ceiling. I felt like a dice that is shaken in a little box.

Dust from our cars and others coated everything

It was a long 8 kilometers in and a long trip back

Sister Dick rode in the very back on the way back and understood the nature of the getting thrown around the seat. She had a quilting project that I think was impossible to do back there. She worked on it nicely in the middle seat.

I loved this whole adventure!