Thoughts on living abroad

It has now been just over two weeks since I left Boston and I am now entering that territory of missing things, craving random foods and realizing how much convenience is a part of my normal life. When Mike left for Boston and I was alone in LA, I had a plan of things I wanted to do now that I had so much time to myself. Run the marathon, take some classes, spend more time with friends, volunteer, etc. While I am living alone once again, there is no way to plan for those things that fill your free time outside of work. I am not spending 5 hours a night watching TV, and even if that were tolerable, there are only 4 channels here. I thought about working out outside, but there are no sidewalks and it gets dark, very dark here by 7pm. I can’t search the web for adult ed classes in French and I am already working for free, so volunteering seems redundant. We have it good in the US because everything is so convenient.

My life is decidedly inconvenient right now and I don’t think this is true of life in general here in Ghana. If I had a car and a tremendous amount of courage to drive around, I would be all set. The lack of stops signs and regular use of the horn would be no problem. In my situation though, I need to take taxis everywhere and the cost of the cabs here rivals those in New York. I also have to barter every time I want a ride and I am sure the cab driver sees my look of desperation to get to the grocery store or the bank or to get a smoothie. My last two cab rides have involved 1) the cab driver getting backed into and then the woman getting out of her car to yell at the taxi driver, followed by the cab driver yelling at me for taking too long and insisting I pay him more and then getting lost on the way back to the hostel – somehow I was able to navigate us back while looking through a window that was so dirty everything looked psychedelically distorted and into headlights that were barely functioning; then 2) no seatbelts. The no seatbelt thing wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t experienced ride #1 and if they had not been intentionally removed from the vehicle. At least #2 was friendly and provided some conversation; he is a Chelsea fan and encouraged me to eat only Ghanaian food while I am here.

I want to preface this next part with the fact that I really do enjoy experiencing life here and am so happy to get the opportunity to live in Ghana for three and a half months, but it is somewhat ironic that I have found myself in the land that really exposes my two eccentric issues – snails and chewing. One I love the other I loathe. So, the snail thing first… I can’t explain it, but I definitely think it has become a phobia. I know they don’t move quickly and are basically harmless but I can’t look at them and it makes me uncomfortable to even think of them. Ghana has the world’s largest snail. It is called the Giant Tiger Snail. While, I didn’t see this one breed in particular, I saw a garden variety snail and the thing was enormous. The shell alone was probably the size of my fist. They think of me as funny in other not so odd ways, so I decided to open up about the snail thing and now one is very excited to take me somewhere where they cook them.

I guess that leads me to the chewing thing. I am a definitely a chewer. I love to spend lots of time masticating every single bite to make sure the pieces are nice and small. I tried the local dish fufu over the weekend. It can be described as a bowl of spicy tomato stew with large pieces of fish, goat, beef, and probably other meats that has a small mound of pounded cassava and plantain dough in the middle. It looks like mashed potatoes but has a sticky consistency almost like bread dough. The idea is to pinch a piece of the dough off, form it into a small scoop, scoop up some of the broth, pop it in your mouth and then swallow. No chewing. The more you chew, the stickier it gets. This was just not easy for me. Tawiah had generously invited me over to her house to watch some American TV, hang out with her 8 month old son, Nana, and eat fufu. I noticed the bites that little Nana was eating were quite similar in size to mine and he seemed to be able to swallow. It took me two bowls of broth to eat most of the fufu and I took bites every time. The curious thing about this whole thing is how much people laugh when I tell them that I chewed the fufu. They laugh and laugh and tell me that I just need to swallow it whole. Maybe next time, but it is doubtful. Besides the whole chewing issue, I really did like the flavor of the soup. Things are very well seasoned here and after spending a few days in London, the flavors of the foods here are glorious in comparison.

With that being said though, I have had some random cravings for things. The heat here reminds me a bit of training for the marathon. Often when I would go for my long runs on the weekends, I would spend a considerable amount of time planning what I would eat after running for 3 hours. Usually, it was which smoothie I would get from Jamba Juice, what popsicle flavor would I choose, which fruits, etc. I am craving a lot of those as well and am starting to go through in my mind what food I will eat first when I get home. One of my good friends was a Peace Corps volunteer and she talked about how her group would sit around and fantasized about what they would eat if there were med-evaced to DC. I am starting to get a sense of that. I realize though that I am at the point where most people are done with their vacations and ready to return home. They had enough change and escape from the ordinary and are ready to return to routine. A vacation this is not. Again, not like it is boot camp or anything… they feed me well and don’t make me wake up early. It is just somewhere in between making a new home in a foreign country and a vacation from convenience.