Mangos, Music…and Keleweles

I’ve been in Ghana for about 36 hours now, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sum up my experience in a coherent way. For the amount of time we have been here (quite short), we’ve completed a vast array of activities. Some of them were wholly American in nature (two mall visits, some basic grocery shopping, the purchase of a modem to access the Internet), while others provided a small dose of the vibrant African culture we all came to experience.

This morning, for example, we took a breezy five-minute walk over to a local fruit stand, where we could buy fresh mangos for breakfast (and for only about 50 cents in American dollars). Predictably, they were delicious, and I could easily see making a habit of this over the next month and a half. Where else in the world can you roll out of bed and have a fresh piece of fruit within ten minutes?

While we’re on the topic of food, there was also a trip to a local Ghanaian restaurant called Chez Afriqe on Friday night. After a full meal that included Ghanaian “red-red”, chicken, rice, and “Kele-Weles” (fried plantains, otherwise known as the greatest food ever), we sat and listened to a reggae band that covered a few Bob Marley songs. The music never really seemed to stop, and, slowly, the dance floor began to flood with people.

Only a couple of us made it onto the dance floor. I wasn’t one of them, on account of my general exhaustion and, more importantly, my utter lack of any dancing skills. But it was satisfying enough to simply soak in the music, and appreciate where I was at that very moment. It just felt right, and that was enough for me.