Today is Monday of our last week, so Auntie Abigail has
invited us to a party at her sister’s home. Ghanaians like to grill, so I
imagined the party would be an informal affair, in the garden, and that we
would be grilling and eating in waves as the food got cooked. When Abigail
first mentioned the party, a few days ago, I had sent her a text message
offering to get sirloin stakes and she had answered that would be fine. Some of
the students had mentioned that they missed a nice stake, and I thought this
would be a nice way to offer them a treat. Accordingly I woke up early, took
the trotro to the supermarket in Accra Mall, chose 16 juicy stakes at the meat
counter, and bought a nice lemon-pepper seasoning pack. We were supposed to
meet at the USAC office at 11 am, and I made it with time to spare at 10:30 am,
just as Claudia was getting ready to go to the house to organize things. It
seemed the easiest thing to do to ask her to take the rather large package with
her.
I was supposed to go with Abigail, who didn’t seem to be in
that much of a hurry. Finally, at 11:30 she was ready to go, and we had a nice
conversation all the way to her sister’s house, which was some distance away.
The day was cloudy and with a few sprinkles, and I hoped this would not detract
from the festivities. I was surprised when we got there and didn’t see any of
the students, but then again this is Africa
and maybe they were fashionably late. At the house I met a Fulbright professor
from Ohio ,
and we had a nice chat sitting in the veranda as the clock inexorably ticked
past noon. Hmm . . . I didn’t see any of the preparations that even an informal
party needs. Finally the students came in, at about 12:30, and we all moved to another
veranda, overlooking the pretty but rather soggy lawn. I was distracted by the
conversation, and neglected to offer my services as grill master (perhaps I
unconsciously had figured out that this was not going to be an informal party
as I had thought).
Alas, it was not. Suddenly, out of the kitchen came a small
caravan of people carrying large platters heaped with food. Some of it looked
familiar: two types of rice, two platters of salad, a salver heaped with
grilled chicken, and another with a tall pile of what I thought were the
steaks, plantains, potatoes, cubes of some dark stuff (perhaps yams?), a
delicious green salsa, fufu and banku. In short, a feast that must have
taken hours to prepare. With much delight we lined up to heap food in our plates,
and it was then that I discovered that what I thought were the steaks was
really a big pile of tilapia fish. So where were the steaks? At this point
Claudia approached me and, pointing to the pile of black cubes, told me that I
should have some of them since that was the meat I had brought. Then everything
became clear: The cook had no idea what to do with the steaks, so she had cut
them in morsels, and had then proceeded to grilled them to death, until they
were more pieces of jerky than the intended medium rare steaks that are such a
part of American culture. L Hey, you learn something new everyday. Besides, the
little lumps of charred meat went very well with the green salsa!
The party was great, as all parties that include lots of
young people normally are, and we finished it in grand style when a birthday
cake was produced, and we proceeded to sing Happy Birthday in three language to
the youngest member of the group, who was celebrating her 21st
birthday away from home. She was a very happy girl!
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