This was an unusual week of outreaches with Crystal. Our first day we went far into the Eastern region and split off into two groups because 9 volunteers were scheduled with the clinic for outreaches! My group went to Akoase and spent a really long day seeing only a handful of patients. With only one staff member with us who was able to perform examinations, the day moved pretty slowly. After a long day, the rest of the group joined us and we headed back to Telecentre, but not without stopping at a rest stop for some jollof rice. I don’t think I’ve discussed jollof yet, but it’s a really delicious version of rice that’s made with a sort of spiced tomato base. Jollof is probably one of the few foods from here that I will attempt to make for myself when I return home.
The following day was one of the only clinic days that many volunteers would be able to attend, so those of us not going into clinic technically had a day off…but Jamison, Lindsay, Casey, and I went on the outreach anyway. The outreach was in a huge, newly renovated Catholic church and moved very efficiently with a good-sized clinic staff and a great corps of volunteers. After the outreach, we were invited over to the priest’s house to eat fufu with tilapia stew. I don’t think I’ll ever really come to enjoy banku or fufu, but as Jeffrey Steingarten explains in The Man Who Ate Everything, trying any food 8-10 times will make that food enjoyable. Maybe by the end of the summer I’ll be craving fufu!
Wednesday and Thursday were interesting because many volunteers left Wednesday night. Our outreach team was pretty small, because new volunteers weren’t arriving until Friday! Heavy rain led to pretty dismal community member attendance on Wednesday, so we weren’t too swamped. A few other volunteers and I had a new experience Wednesday night for dinner…Indian food in Ghana! We ate at Heritage Indian restaurant in Osu (a neighborhood in Accra with a ton of not-totally-Ghanaian restaurants and bars). I couldn’t believe how great cheese naan and chicken tikka masala tasted…it was unusual to actually enjoy the amount of spice in a meal and not just have my throat burned by pepe. That meal satisfied cravings I didn’t even know I had.
Thursday was another slow day, this time for inexplicable reasons, but with just Ernest (the optometrist), John (a driver), and two volunteers (Casey and me), it was probably for the best that we weren’t overloaded. The community organizer treated us to fufu before we left. 3/10 tries down…only 7 to go before I’m a fan!
On Friday, a whole bunch of new volunteers arrived and Thursday night there were 22 volunteers staying at Telecentre! That figure is ridiculous, considering there were only 10 of us during our first 10 days! For one day (Matt and Laura, who had been in Kumasi for 2 weeks, would return the following day) , I was officially the most veteran volunteer at Telecentre and it was crazy to think that 3 weeks in Ghana had made me knowledgeable enough to teach others about what I’d learned and experienced.
lol I was just eating fufu. It's definitely an acquired taste but how it tastes also depends on what soup you eat it with. Never had tilapia stew and it doesn't sound good. If you haven't already, try nkatenkwan (peanut soup), it's my favorite.
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