August 2nd con't - first adventurous meal

Well, I didn’t have to wait long to get my wish of authentic cuisine here in Ghana. For dinner we had goat with this brownish sauce served with fried rice, chicken (also fried) and a paste/dough thing called “fufu”. It is about the color and look of polenta, but the consistency more like raw dough. One is to pick gobs of it up with their hands, roll it into a ball, and then dip it into the bowl of the goat and sauce. Very interesting. The goat had a definite “gamey” taste, but I really liked the fufu- it was interesting and didn’t taste all that bad! We also had a red tomato salsa/puree type dish that was REALLY hot called pepe (pronounced like the soccer player Pele, but with 2 p’s). That was great- until I realized that they use fresh tomatoes in the salsa puree…. Hopefully my stomach agrees with that dish and I don’t need to use my meds since they wash the veggies in the same water we are supposed to avoid due to high bacteria counts… The piece de resistance though was the ice cream; not only was it cold, but it tasted like cake batter- YUM.

After dinner we proceeded to head to the rooftop deck to see the lights of the city. Accra is HUGE population wise, but I was still surprised to see all the lights (as many areas shut down at dark b/c there is no electricity). It was beautiful many different colored lights, and the breeze off of the ocean was amazing- it was so peaceful up there looking out at the lights of the city below. We headed in to bed around 12am as we have a long day the next day at the mission- sorting all of the supplies into general surgery, anesthesia, vascular,orthopedic, drugs, etc.. and then sorting out those groups into what goes to which location- Kumasi or Daboase.