The world according to me

Something less demanding: food. Ghanaian cuisine is not very sophisticated, but special. The dish below is called red-red. Beans, gari powder, palm oil and sweet ripe plantains. Delicious. The first one is rather luxurious; below is the fast food-version. The price is ridiculously low and it keeps you going throughout a long day.

ガーナで注目されていない物？それは食べ物である。事実、ガーナ料理はあまり洗練された類のもではない。しかし、それは実に特別である。下の写真は、通称レッド－レッドと呼ばれる、豆、ガリパウダー(キャッサバ芋の粉)、椰子の実の油を使ったシチュー。甘い完熟したプランテーン(見掛けはバナナに似ているが、味は芋のようである)のフライと食す。うまい。上の写真に写っているのがレストラン版で、下のがファーストフード版である。値段はばかばかしいほど安く、おまけにこれだけで、一日中空腹を感じない。

Palm oil is one of the most typical ingredients of pretty much every dish. The oil is, most surprisingly, taken from the fruits of the oil palm. The berries are red-brown. Quite spectacular.

椰子の実油は、日々の料理の大半に用いられる、ガーナの典型的調味料である。原料は、アブラヤシの実ということである。写真のように、その実は赤茶で、なかなかの壮観である。

The palm that gives palm oil is also used, another surprise, to produce palm wine. I found the chopped tree and the plastic flask when roaming around in the forest around Kibi, the capital of a small local kingdom. It was raining; the air was warm and damp. Ants and bees were trying to get through the bottleneck. The juice is sweet and thick, but becomes alcoholic and acidic throughout the day. People usually try to drink it before midday.

ア ブラヤシの樹液は、何とワインの原料となる。僕が「キビ」という名の小さな王国首都にある森を散策していた時に、横倒しになった椰子の幹の下に、プラス チックのフラスコ瓶が置いてあるのを見かけた。その時は雨がちらついていて、空気はジメジメと生温かかった。そして蟻や蜂が、瓶の口の辺りをたかってい る。樹液は甘くネットリとしている。一日発酵させれば、苦いアルコールと化す。通常は半日前発酵に飲する。

If you want something harder you would probably go for Apeteshi, some sort of local gin that come in all kind of colors and variations. Pretty much every village has its own variation and people, men that is, like it a lot. The stuff on the right is some kind of bitter called Opemu. Like so many things, I tried it once. But the Apeteshi is not bad, especially if you try to digest one of the more traditional dishes like Fufu or Banku.

もしもっと強いのをというなら「アペテシ」がお勧めだ。これはいわゆる地元のジンで、色や味は千差万別である。ほとんどの村々に、その村独特のアペテシがあり、村人、特に男達の大好きな飲み物である。右に位置するのが、ビター(ビール)で、「オペミュ」と呼ばれる。他のガーナ名物と同じように、僕はどれも一度試すに留まった。けれどアペテシはそれほど悪くない。特に、もし「フフ」や「バンクー」といったガーナ伝統料理を消化しよう、と試みる勇気がある場合には。

左のが「バンクーのオクラソース添え」。バンクーとは、発酵させたトウモロコシから作る餅のようなものである。酸っぱくて味の薄い餅のようなものが好きな人には、ガーナはまさしく素晴らしい場所である。なぜならガーナは、このような類のものが手に入る、ほぼ唯一の場所だからである。このような食べ物を好物とするガーナ人は、そうとうに気高い愛国心を持っているか、もしくは長年の訓練の成果としか考えられない。「フフ」もほぼ同じようなものである。バンクーを球状にして壁に向かって投げてみよう。跳ね返って来るはずである。では、フフを球状にして同じ事をしたら、フフボールは壁にベタッと広がって張り付くだろう。それから大事な事がある。フフを咀嚼してはならない。理由は誰も教えてくれないが、ガーナ人は、フフを本当に味わうためには、噛まないのが肝心だと信じている。

In the end it usually boils down to rice and chicken for me; or chicken and rice for a change. After more than two months here, I can't see chicken anymore, so it came as something of a relief when I discovered the "Bon Appetit"-Spot five minutes from here. I had passed by the place everyday, but it is just a little wooden hut of some five square meters. One day, I ran by and I glimpsed this sweet little coffee machine, a real espresso machine with steam and all. You have to know that although Ghana is also a coffee producing country most people don't drink it. And if they do so they take instant coffee. Tasteless, thin instant coffee. No surprise, I immediately stopped short and started chatting to the guys running the spot. It turns out they don't speak English, just there local language, Arabic and French. One was from Burkina Faso, the other from Cote d'Ivoire and no matter all the shortcomings of French colonial rule, they had left them with a taste for real coffee.

詰まるところ、僕の場合はライスとチキン(あるいは変化をいれて鶏肉とごはん)に落ち着いた。しかし滞在期間も2ヶ月を超えた今、もうチキンも傷食気味といった感じである。だから、自宅から歩いて5分の所にある「ボン・アペティ」を発見した時、僕はまるでか奇跡か、と思ったほどであった。実を言うと、僕は毎朝この場所を通りすぎていたのだ。けれどそれは、僕にはただの小さなの木造小屋としか写らなかった。ある日、そこに小さなコーヒーマシーンがあるのを垣間見た。しかも蒸気を使う、ちゃんとしたエスプレッソマシーンである。ガーナは、コーヒー豆生産国だというのに、人々はコーヒーを飲む習慣がない。もし飲むとしても、インスタントが関の山である。当然のごとく、僕はその場に立ち止まり、そこにたむろしていた男達と立ち話をし始めた。そして彼らが英語ではなく、地域の方言、アラブ語そしてフランス語を使用している事が分かった。１人はブルキナ・ファソから、その他の人々はアイボリー・コーストなど、皆旧フランス植民地国出身者であった。彼らは本当のコーヒーの味を求めてここにやって来るのである。

Since two weeks I make my own little Hadj to the place, have coffee, chat and eat food from francophone West African. The dish below is liver with pees and onion, but if you add some sort of slightly acidic couscous and fresh tomatoes and vinegar than you'll get Ayeke, an Ivorian dish.

２週間前から、僕はコーヒーを飲み、話をし、フランス語圏の西アフリカ料理を食するために、まるでメッカ(イスラム教徒の聖地)に通うようにここを訪れている。下の写真にあるのがレバーの豆と玉ねぎ添え。もしここに、酸っぱいクスクス(非常に細かいパスタの一種)と新鮮なトマトそしてお酢を加えれば、アイボリー・コースト料理「アイケ」の完成。

And finally, my favorite snack: Roasted plantains with groundnuts (peanuts). You can buy it pretty much everywhere. It is warm, sweet and nutritiuous. If you are in a hurry and there's no time to grab something decent, this is what you would go for.

# posted by Thilo @ 10:03 PM 1 comments

If it goes on like this, I will have to change the name of my blog. It is not the world according to me; it’s the world according to all these people around me. The picture you see above shows Dudley Thompson, a Jamaican I met in Accra. The little girl above just happened to find my camera interesting and I couldn't resist but publish the picture. I instantly fell in love with her. I mean it is a stereotype par excellence, but kids in Ghana are just too sweet.

Back to Dudley. I met him during a conference on how to ‘Re-brand Africa’. Basically, what the organizers wanted is finding ways of how to brush up Africa's image. The old man was there, because they wanted to have someone who could speak about politics and culture among all the marketing talk.

Dudley served the purpose. He is a former ambassador and proud holder of the Order of Jamaica, a seemingly prestigious award in the West Indies. He hadn't been to Ghana for a long time, not since they had buried Kwame Nkrumah, the father figure of Ghana, and his former friend. 'My dear friend Kwame Nkrumah', is actually what he used to call him. It was just brilliant seeing the old bloke sitting there in his sofa, playing with his walking stick and bringing up glorious moments from the past. He turns 90 next year. I would have given him at the utmost 70 years when I first met him. I mean, he has problems walking and all, but once you start to talk to him there is this vibrant booming voice, intellectual wit and humor. True, he likes to talk and enjoys the attention. But apart from a normal dose of vanity, there is a message. An urge to share his thoughts and ideas, to spread the word before his time ends.

He seemed pleased to have this young white journalist sitting there in front of him, listening and growing visibly impressed. In the 40s he had worked and lived with people like Nkrumah and George Padmore. I mean, not that these people meant much to me before coming to Ghana. But this is not because they were of no importance. It is rather a sign of my ignorance. But I'm learning. I'm trying. In short, Padmore was an Afro-American journalist, an intellectual and an activist for Pan-Africanism. He gathered all these people around him while staying in London. At least for once, a lot of the first African leaders spent some time with him. Nyerere was there, who later became president of Tanzania. It was with Padmore that Thompson met Jomo Kenyatta, the founding father of Kenya, whom he defended when the British imprisoned him for being the alleged leader of the bloody Mau-Mau movement.

Whatever, this is not meant as an alternative to Wikipedia, so look it up if you like. It is just that in the course of the interview, I decided to write a story about Nkrumah and maybe try to get enough material for a radio piece. I want to understand these men. He was both one of the first to free Africa and one of the first to lead his country slip into some sort of tyrannical rule. When people started to criticize him, he went for a one-party state with a draconic police force. Finally, he was disposed of by a CIA-backed coup and it took more then 25 years until Ghana reemerged. Now, I often hear people lament about the fact that in the 50's Ghana was ahead of countries like Malaysia or even South Korea, but nothing ever changed.

What I think is that maybe understanding Nkrumah and why he failed helps to understand other countries in Africa and their problems. Sometimes, I think that these men like Nyerere or Kenyatta, these visionary freedom fighters, where just not meant to be pragmatic managers of day-to-day business. Add all the external pressure and what else can you expect. But there are many aspects to the story and pinning down one reason for failure is bound to fail as well. But one thing still rings in my mind. Thompson kept on saying that there is an original sin of the white men, the sin of having damaged the black men's self-esteem. That white men have stained themselves with racism and, no matter how long ago, still carry this stain on their soul.

# posted by Thilo @ 9:24 PM 0 comments

Once again a story without pictures. But this time I have a reason. There are no pictures. My laptop has given up on me. All my photos and texts have been obliterated. There was a power cut and when the energy came back my computer told me that I don't have a hard drive anymore. Very unspectacular. But even this rather uninspiring event is a story in itself.

When Kwame Nkrumah became Ghana's first president in 1957, he was inspired by socialism and the idea of creating some kind of a Pan-African way, different from what went on in the rest of the world at the time. His new African way never quite made it and all that is left today are a number of truly massive industrial projects like the port town Tema or the Volta dam in Akosombo. Still today, the dam is just enormous. The resulting Volta Lake has been the world's biggest artificial lake for some forty years. The turbines in the Akosombo dam create most of the energy consumed in Ghana. But in the 60s, when lake was flooded, internal demand was too low. In order to make use of the excess energy, Nkrumah went for long-term contracts selling energy to a ridiculously low price to a huge aluminum smelter run by an American company. At the time the deal made sense, because it was American money that helped Ghana build the place.

Today, Ghana's economy is growing by approx. six per cent every year and energy demand has grown fast. The problem is such that during dry times the dam is producing less energy. But because the government is bound by its ancient contracts, energy has to be saved elsewhere. They call it the National Load Scheduling Programme. It means that more or less twice a week there is now power for exactly 12 hours. To mitigate the effects, they have devised a clever concept that just leaves certain areas without energy. So if there is a black out in your area, you can go two blocks down the road and find bars with cold beer or an Internet cafe.

And even when there is power the voltage in your plug might shift quite a lot. And that's what killed my hard drive, at least that is what the guy in the repair shop told me. Bad luck. But they will install a new hard drive, so I should be online soon. Plus, it is raining and the water level in the lake is rising again.

# posted by Thilo @ 6:26 PM 0 comments