A Snake and a Goat

It's been an eventful weekend...

A huge snake was spotted behind Happy Kids, from my window on Friday morning. The entire school instantly paused all classroom activities to try to kill it. Apparently this happens quite frequently because there was a definite plan of attack. This is the 10 step plan to catch a snake on the run around the Happy Kids School:

Nelson during the snake hunt

1. If the snake was spotted from a 2nd floor window, drop a huge slab of cement on it  

     a. If the snake runs, it's alive and needs to be chased. Continue to step 2.

     b. If the snake doesn’t run, it’s dead and no more work is needed

2. Alert all of the teachers, nursery staff and the headmistress about the snake sighting

      a. This will cause all of the students to run outside to join the hunt

3. Gather all objects that could be used to fight off or spear the snake (this should include 4x4’s, long pieces of plywood and metal pipes)

4. Assemble a watch team to stay on the 2nd floor to keep an eye out for the snake or any sudden movements in the grass

5. Find matches

    a. If matches can not be found in the office, get the fastest boy to run to the boarding house to get a new pack of matches

6. Light pieces of the brush on fire in areas where the snake could be hiding to flush him out into the open

    a. If snake doesn’t respond to the original flame, light lots of little fires to scare him

7. Chase snake to new hiding spot while throwing rocks at it (this step is tricky because some people will want to run away from the snake)  

8. Stand on alert near the snake’s new hiding spot with spears ready to attack

9. Throw an occasional rock into the bushes to scare the snake

10. If the snake cannot be found, return to step 6

Looking for the snake after
starting the first fire

Everyone on alert at the snake's
new hiding place

Some of the 2nd floor lookout team

The big palm tree next to the school was
set on fire after returning to step 6

We chased the snake from behind the school into a heavy brush area with a big palm tree and weren’t able to find it. When we returned to step 6 of this process, the headmistress instructed someone to light the palm tree on fire. The tree burned for a while, but the snake was no where to be found. We finally gave up and headed back inside after we had been on the snake hunt for about 45 minutes. The new teacher, Felix, thought that the snake had run away, but everyone left their branches, pipes and pieces of wood by the front door of the school so they could get to them faster if the snake was spotted again.

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I don’t think theres a way to ease into this, so I’ll just put it out there. I ate goat on Saturday. 

Nicole and I headed into town to meet up with the guys at the shop and were reminded that we would be spending the afternoon making fufu. Saturday was Nicole’s last day in Hohoe, so a special meal was  needed to properly see her off.

The soup

Fufu is a popular dish here in West Africa and is usually prepared with cassava and yams or plantains. (We used cassava and plantains.) Preparing fufu is a strenuous task that involves boiling the cassava and plantains and then pounding them into a dough with a huge wooden mortar and pestle. The dough is then eaten with a special soup with a tomato base and added onions, green peppers and ginger for flavor. Because Saturday was such a special occasion, our soup included a whole Red Fish and some goat meat. I helped cut up the vegetables for the soup, but was only able to help a little with pounding the cassava and plantain. This is by far the hardest I’ve ever seen anyone work for a meal. As the cassava got doughier, I could barely even lift the pestle out of the mush to mash it more. Courage and Enoch took turns pounding the starchy foods into dough for about 40 minutes while I held the bottom of the mortar in place with my feet. 

Pounding the Cassava

Courage. The fufu master.

Once the dough was done, the soup was poured over it into a bowl and set on the table. After washing only my right hand in the water bowl (as is custom here in Ghana because the left is considered unclean) I pulled up a seat around the table with Nicole with the 4 guys. Everyone dug in and after asking a few questions about what exactly the goat meat would taste like, I finally tried it. I was nervous but it wasn’t bad at all... kind of like a more chewy piece of beef. I told the guys I thought the meet was really chewy so they gave me a different piece to try. I noticed the texture was completely different and when I asked why, they said because that was a liver piece. After hearing that, I quickly traded my piece of goat meat in for some of the red fish. I thought the fish was great, but it took me a while to figure out how to eat around the bones while only using my right hand. I’ll need a little more practice and don’t plan on eating any more goat, but was glad to finally have a truly traditional Ghanian meal. 

All of us around the table

The so-called Red Fish that
went into the soup... whole

The final meal

While we ate, one of the guys shared a story about his experience killing a goat and the rest talked about other foods that they thought we should try. I told them that I want to kill my own chicken, pluck it and cook it with them before leaving. They said that wouldn’t be too hard to do, so we’ll see.

Random Things I’ve Noticed/Learned:

• 'I’m coming' means a lot of different things, but usually never ‘here I come’ or ‘I’m coming right now’. Most people say 'I’m coming' to mean ‘hold on’, ‘I’ll be there in a minute’,‘I’m leaving for a while’ or ‘I’ll be right back’. This may sound confusing, but I usually can figure out exactly what they mean.
• The majority of people in Hohoe are Christian, but there is a small Muslim population who lives in their own special area of town. I thought the separation was interesting, because all of the Muslim residents of Hohoe only live in that part of town. I finally crossed the bridge and ventured into the Muslim part of town this weekend. Like in the rest of Hohoe, everyone was very friendly. The only real difference is that most Muslims in Hohoe speak Housa amongst themselves, not Ewe.
• Sitting under a big mango tree is usually the only option for air conditioning. There's lots of shade and usually a nice breeze.