Hello again!
I feel like I just finished writing about Accra, and yet here I am in an airport late at night, mentally preparing for another sequence of red eyes. So what better way to pass the time than to catch up on my time in Kumasi?
My last blog post left off last Saturday, just as I’d crashed after the bus ride from Accra. I’d had plans to explore the greater Ashanti Region that weekend — there’s a famous butterfly sanctuary and many beautiful hiking trails — but they were thwarted when I woke up to a throbbing migraine on Sunday. Honestly, this was a serious bummer. I had really hoped to use my two free days to catch up on adventuring, but the headache left me almost completely stranded on the couch of my Airbnb. It was a prudent reminder, however, that I still need to rest. This last leg has truly shown me how exhausting it is to travel this much! And that exhaustion certainly catches up to you (at least, it does to me). Luckily, I managed to catch up on some audiobooks and a bit of work while at the apartment. And even with the migraine, I tried my best to get out of the house for smaller trips around town.
The road to my apartment in Ahodwo, Kumasi.
Although Kumasi is still a major city, it felt much less hectic. I honestly hadn’t noticed how busy my neighborhood in Accra had felt until my first night at the Airbnb: I was very happy to leave the constant noise of voices, car horns, and rooster crows behind. The tropical green I saw on my bus rides through the Ghanaian countryside lined the road by the apartment complex. The hum of trotros and street food vendors could be heard a few streets away, but still, I welcomed the momentary quiet. On Sunday I ventured into downtown for a few hours to visit the Ashanti Cultural Center and Kejetia Market, the largest of its kind in West Africa. I was told that the city almost completely shuts down on Sundays, as most people are in church — because both markets can be pretty hectic to visit alone, I figured this might be my best opportunity. The Ashanti Cultural Center was serene, and I enjoyed watching musicians perform for a small crowd at an outdoor mass, but I wished I had been able to see Kejetia Market at its full force. I still managed to get lost inside, however, so maybe the calmer atmosphere was for the best.
The walkway through Kejetia Market. Someone warned me that if I took any photos of individual booths, the shop owner might make me buy something, so I was careful to be discreet!
I was staying on the outskirts of Kumasi’s Chinatown — according to someone from my hostel, the neighborhood originated from former Chinese political prisoners who immigrated to Ghana, though to be fair, I couldn’t find much online to back this up. I never would have thought that Chinese takeout could taste Ghanaian, and yet the spices in my cozy takeout meal felt distinctly similar to those I had tried in Jollof, grilled chicken, and stews over
Fufu with goat soup! Pro tip I was given: it’s considered very rude to eat with your left hand as it’s considered the “toilet hand.” Same goes for waving or accepting change.
the past week. As always, tasting the food here has been a highlight: groundnut (peanut) stew with mystery poultry, shito sauce made of peppers and fish paste, roasted plantain with lime. My favorite experience was visiting a chop bar, a traditional cafeteria-style eatery frequented around lunchtime. The chef, an older woman on a low stool, was surrounded by several simmering pots of soup, all of which she would stir occasionally. You pick your starch (fufu for me) and your meat (goat, please) and take it to one of the long tables with plastic chairs and tablecloths. The waitress brought soap, a water pitcher, and a large bowl and helped wash my hands — this meal is best enjoyed with your fingers. Behind a woven wooden screen, you could see and hear two men pounding fufu with sticks almost as tall as they were. I could tell the people were not used to tourists at this chop bar — they asked me repeatedly if I wanted a spoon and chuckled more than once at my attempt to eat the soup with my hands — but the savory, comforting food was well worth my slight embarrassment. My only regret was not ordering tilapia. After that meal, seeing all the baby goats in the streets made me sad.
I had never had Ghanaian food before, yet many of the flavors were surprisingly familiar. I remember watching High on the Hog for a food anthropology course last fall, a Netflix series that discusses the origins of Black American cuisine — the first scene opens in the markets of Cotonou, Benin, which is closer to Accra than Ann Arbor, MI is to Chicago. The central argument of the episode was to demonstrate how various West African cuisines (including Beninese and presumably Ghanaian) are represented in Black cuisine, and therefore the broader food culture of the United States. I am no expert on food or food history, but my taste buds seemed to recognize something about the spices and rich umami flavors in the meals I ate. Reading or hearing about food anthropologies is one thing, but to have the opportunity to taste these similarities is a completely different experience of learning, knowing, understanding. Just another part of this experience to be endlessly grateful for.
Tuesday and Wednesday were interview days. On Tuesday morning I made my way to CSIR-FORIG, Ghana’s premier forestry research institute, which is about 30 minutes outside the city. The entrance is off the major road that takes you all the way to Accra. Once I had found the right place, it was hard to believe it was a college campus at all: the handful of academic buildings were surrounded by acres of grasses, palm trees, agroforest saplings, and more. They take the whole “forest” thing pretty seriously. I have navigated more college campuses on this trip than I’d have liked, but this one might be my favorite so far. In the afternoon, I visited Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), a much larger university closer to downtown Kumasi. It was also very green, but buzzing with more signs of student life like a stadium, a more traditional quad, and its own transit system. While walking across campus after initially navigating to the wrong department building, I noticed almost all of the students were wearing some version of slacks and blue button-down shirts — I’d never seen a university with this kind of widely-used dress code, and although I had tried to be presentable, I felt suddenly markedly underdressed.
The forests of FORIG
Wednesday required another trip to CSIR-FORIG and some time spent in the afternoon packing for the next travel day. I have to admit, I’m getting pretty tired of meticulously cramming my life down into my suitcase every week or so. But luckily, my next several turnarounds will not be as fast. On Thursday, I woke up early in the morning to catch the STC bus down to Accra, took a taxi to the airport, and waited many, many hours for my flight to Rome. After a brief pitstop there, I will fly 14-ish hours to Buenos Aires. Although these travel days are uniquely exhausting, I remind myself that they are always followed by new waves of awe at being in a new country, and ultimately gratitude for the magnitude of this experience. I am incredibly excited to visit Argentina and the Patagonia! The journey is always worth it in the end, even if my tired brain has trouble remembering.
See you in the Western Hemisphere!