Enjoying Working Overtime

Am working on a coupla projects I hope to finish before I head back home, so I will be extending my stay for another coupla months, roughly until Feb.

Which means I'm doubling my dose of feelgooding in Africa :)

But also missing out on Christmas & New Years with family and friends in Lebanon :(

Everything comes at a price, right?

Edible Wood

Q: What do you get when you cross a cherimoya/ashta fruit with shredded wood shavings?

A: Salleh.

Never seen or tasted anything like this before. The shell feels like velvety wood and you crack it open. The inside really looks like wood shavings.

You break off a piece like you do with ashta and each piece has a seed. So you suck on it as it melts in your mouth and then you spit the seed out. It's difficult to describe the taste, but it's a bit sour. I think.

La Vie Africaine En Rose

Let me guess... this is probably what you have in mind when you think of a typical African sunset... flaming orangy hues, right?

But from what I've seen so far, it feels like I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses instead!

N.B. Things aren't always so rosy though!!!!

Eeny Meeny Mighty Mo

Yes, she got me. Can you spot the mosquito in the picture? Happy hunting! *

Danger! Sleeping blissfully under a mosquito net but failing to spot the eeny-meeny-mighty mosquito already inside the net has dire consequences. Don't ever try this at home in Africa, especially when scantily dressed due to the heat. And especially when you've forgotten to take your malaria pill for the week. Be prepared for many sleepless nights to come.

Ok, ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But consider yourself warned if ever you follow in my footsteps: please don't!

This is undoubtedly a picture from my early days as evidenced by the fact that I was still wearing PJs to bed, ha!

* It's just a trick question btw :) 

A Taste of Ghana

ACT I - SCENE I: GARI

Characters:

Dima

Philemon

The stage is set in a schoolyard, as the students rush out of class for break on Monday. Philemon spots the fair-skinned lady and runs over to her.

Philemon: Madame Dima! How are you? I didn’t see you yesterday.

Dima: Hi! I’m good! Well where were you during dinner? I passed by the boarding house at night.

Philemon: Oh I don’t eat dinner.

Dima: What? Why???

Philemon: Two reasons. Firstly, I was told that when you eat too much, your body becomes lazy or heavy. Since I want to work hard to achieve my goals of becoming a footballer or President one day, and the Bible says we should all take care of our bodies, I want to take good care of mine. So I don’t want to overeat.  I eat Gari directly after school instead of a night meal.

Dima: [In disbelief] So you sleep on an empty stomach? And you don’t have breakfast, and you’re so physically active during the day doing all the boarding chores and you love to play football… So how do you last until lunch? As a 24 year-old man, doesn’t your body need more than 1 ½ meal a day? If anyone needs the most food around here, it would be you!

Philemon: I’m used to it.

Dima: Don’t you get tired of eating Gari everyday anyway?

Philemon: No, it’s my favorite.

Dima: Ok, so what’s your second reason? [as she secretly hoped he had a stronger, or at least healthier, one]

Philemon: Well, it’s my parents who pay for my schooling and meals, and so if I’m used to eating a lot and I lose my parents, then it will be a problem for me in the future. It would be very difficult.

Dima: [Wide-eyed, in greater disbelief] Huh? I don’t understand! You’re thinking of your parents’ death and living your life in anticipation of that potential “difficulty”?

Philemon: Well, here, many parents die young. And I depend on mine right now. So I don’t want to be heavy in life. I want to stay light, in body and spirit.

[Dima’s face fell as a wave of sadness washed over her L She couldn’t help but give him a piece of her mind! Even if the average life expectancy of a Ghanaian is roughly 57 - that's no way to live your life!]

APPENDIX:

The cassava plant

Suicide Watch: When eaten raw, the human digestive system will convert this to cyanide poison!

 Gari is made from fresh cassava, which is grated and the excess liquid is then squeezed out. The remaining cassava is then fried over an open fire, on a broad metal pan that has been greased with a little oil, could be palm oil or other vegetable fat. The resulting product is crisp and crunchy to taste, and is stored easily and can be eaten with stew or soup or shito and fish. In schools, it can be soaked with water, milk and sugar and consumed cold (as seen here). Sometimes people add peanuts. It's a truly versatile food and affordable too. 

Dima's attempt at stomaching it:

sniffitysniffsniff

she... er... slightly... hesitates, eyeing it with caution

she braces herself for impact

but much to her relief, she realizes she wasn't poisoned to death!

Your stomach really does take a beating by the way! 

I was thankfully warned so I was cautious not to consume a problematic quantity.

It tasted, er, quite herby/wheaty/nutty.

I know some of you have been asking for videos and this woulda been a good one to share, 

but these screenshots are the best I could do given the internet speed here.

My Sistas & Brodas

(This goes out to Yara, my one and only sista by blood, who just so happens to be obsessed with names and family trees)

My opposite in every way, luvyaloadz yaryour :)

Imagine this...

Incident 1: You're called into a room to take pictures of a guy and his "sister". But from just one look at the pair, you know instantly that there's either some sorta incestuous thingy going on or they're simply NOT brother and sister! You later learn the latter is true.

Theophilus & Philemon

Incident 2: Philemon wants to introduce you to his brother, who happens to be Theophilus, another one of your lovable students. But you smell something fishy because one told you his father is a farmer and the other told you separately that his father is a driver. So you assume they're trying to pull your leg, but they refer you to their "sister" who can supposedly corroborate their blood tie. She in turn tells you her father is a carpenter, ha! You later learn that they are indeed brothers with a father who has 2 jobs. But their sister's parents are their parents' brothers and sisters, which basically makes her their cousin, not sister.

Incident 3: You hear a man, oh about 28 years old, call out to his "ma", who I would say is about 35 years old. Hm... you wonder, surely she couldn't have been a mother at 7! You later learn she's really his sister.

Akos & Nanaama

Incident 4: You're told that Akos & Nana-Ama's father passed away and that they are now under the patronage of their "uncle" Godwin. Ah, ok, makes sense, right? But wait... You later learn that he is really their dad's cousin, not uncle. And in fact, they were cared for by their "father" before him, AFTER their real father passed away. Huh? Did you get that? Because I sure didn't!You later learn that their second father was actually the uncle.


The point is, it's been truly confusing trying to figure out who one's REAL brothers and sisters are. Which brings to mind a paragraph I came across in the book I'm reading:

"My mother presided over three huts at Qunu which, as I remember, were always filled with babies and children of my relations. In fact, I hardly recall any occasion as a child when I was alone. In African culture, the sons and daughters of one's aunts or uncles are considered brothers and sisters, not cousins. We do not make the same distinctions among relations practiced by whites. We have no half-brothers or half-sisters. My mother's sister is my mother; my uncle's son is my brother; my brother's child is my son, my daughter".

Now that "sista Dima" is one more title I can add to the list of names bestowed upon me, let me put names and faces to my newly adopted brothers and sisters. Here's what I have to date in my continuously growing African family album:

Godwin, aka. Nasrallah in Arabic (and quite the strategist just like him, ha!)

Emanuella/Akos, reminds me of me when I was 8

Nana-Ama, hyperactively full of life (that's her levitating in the background above)

Student Ezekiel by day

DJ Rampage by night

Issaka, the impossibly eternal optimist

Jacob, baby Kevin's daddy ("Bingo" to me though, because he 's stuck on the word!)

Michael, my Ka-ki name-giver

Ka-ti himself

Stronggy, my savvy IT consultant

Stephen, my other half in English class

With Harry who completes the English love triangle (notice my typically African skirt)

Adela, my latest prey

I'm convinced he's a good bad boy

Rasheed, aka. The Manager

Maybel, everyone's sweetheart

Justice, I call the "Corrections" Officer since I always see him correcting papers

Philemon, my hero and black knight in shining armor

Michael, my mototaxi

and (parents please look away) mototeach

Dede, the food provider (notice the tribal facial marks)

Naomi, my market companion

As you may have noticed, most of the names are NOT African. This too Mandela talks about:


"On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture and British institutions were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture.
Africans of my generation - and even today - generally have both a Western and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson."

Roof Over Their Heads

It's been a long journey from destruction to reconstruction, but we've made it! Three weeks to the day, we were able to put a roof over their heads. (See Gone With the Wind if you don't know what I'm talking about)

Many many thanks to you who have been oh so very generous - we were all touched by the overwhelming support the school has received over the past month. And speaking of overwhelming support, a certain Jessica has been particularly feelgooding with me, also in words:

"They own nothing, yet their smiles in those pictures convince you that they own the world. 

We own everything yet we are never happy nor satisfied. 

If I have the chance to tell them one thing, it would be "a HUGE thank you" for showing me, and many others, that the key to happiness lies in the little things and that life is what YOU make of it. 

They deserve all that is good."

Jessica? Though you don't "know" me in person, please know your help and kind words have gone a loooooooooooong way! Friends and Familia? You've been awesome! Please see here all the gooood you've had a hand in...

BEFORE & AFTER

From the outside

From the inside

The move of "my preciousss"

Bed shotgun!

Uplifted spirits (and Olivia's spirit still with us, far left)

Yes, celebrate we sure did!

Sprite never tasted so good :)

But the boarding house roof isn't the only one we were working night and day to put up! Also thanks to you, the new SHS students have a roof over their heads too (though they'll be studying in a wall-less room for the time being. At least there's no chance of anyone feeling claustrophobic, huh?)

Hmm... It's been a tough few weeks. Finally, we can wake up from the nightmare. Ironically though, it's now that we can finally sleep after all those sleepless nights!