There wasn’t much going on in Agogo during election weekend so the Canadians and Americans joined forces for fun. After my trip to the waterfalls Saturday we all headed out to a Chop Bar. Chop Bars are usually a stand on the side of a road. Usually a table with a wire “sneeze shield”, if you will, covering the three feet above the table. Basically they are a vendor like you would find at a fair. Some Chop Bars are more like a restaurant thought with seating for their guests and they even play music.
On this night we were more interesting in the stall-like Chop Bars. Most of my Ghanaian friends have told me that I can’t get vegan food at Chop Bars- but I wanted to prove them all wrong. So during my hike to the waterfall I kept repeating the Twi phrase for “I don’t take meat” or “no meat”. Which sounds like Men-pin-nom, but is probably spelled totally different. We three oburnis walked to downtown Agogo that was half closed up due to elections and looked at a few stalls. We decided on a stall selling rice and stew. I have no idea what was in the stew. I told the server “Men-pin-nom” at least 3 times. She said, “No meat, no fish, no egg” I said “Yes no meat, no fish, no egg”. I assumed that she would give me just white rice plain, but instead she also gave me the stew. I still have no idea what was in the stew. It was spicy and brown- seriously- what was in it? Everyone else got the same with the meat or fried eggs that was on the side. I also walked down to another stall for fried yams. Each was 50 peswas. I bought five. I ate them with Heinz ketchup as if they were fries. After dinner we watched a movie.
Sunday was another chill day of ironing, watching the movie The Lake House, and reading (yes I read now- who knew). The Canadians brought over pasta sauce and we donated the pasta and drinks. Have I said recently how much I love lemon-lime Fanta? It is so darn tasty. After dinner we watched another movie- Snatch (from The Lake House to Snatch- that seems odd).
Monday was more of a workday. I went to the TRC and cleaned out more of our new office room, a room that had been locked until Thursday. We took everything out of it, cleaned the room, and reorganized it. It is amusing that every year since I have been teaching I have had to move classrooms: second year of teaching we moved school buildings, third year of teaching I changed schools, fourth year they wanted to have me move closer to the other second grade teachers, fifth year I moved to the third grade hall, sixth year I moved to the fourth grade hall, seventh year I moved to Ghana. So once again I spent a day covered in dust and dirt, cleaning up things another teacher left for me. I found many treasures in this room: phonic slide posters made by teachers, woven baskets, and a mop bucket!
After a hard day at the office I made dinner for the Canadians “farewell”(they are not leaving Ghana, they are just starting a trip that will last over a week and we will miss them). It was salsa, plantain chips, rice, black-eyed peas in more taco seasoning, and garey. What is garey you might ask? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to prepare it well yet either. Josephine had made it for me in the past (by the way- Josephine stopped cooking for us months ago, but is always up for doing a cooking lesson when we want one), but I put far too much liquid in them and they turned out like cold grits with a taco seasoning after taste. I ate the garey, but just mixed it with everything else.
After dinner the Canadians watched one episode of the Flight of the Conchords (the one when they get mugged- “please remove these cutleries from my knees”) and then left for a good night’s sleep before their trip up to Mole Park.
It was a nice chill weekend in Agogo.
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