Things you (might) do in Ghana: Volume I

Here's my next blog post- you're welcome, Mom and Dad!

1. Drink coconut water straight from the source, careful we do indeed wield machetes. One of our hosts for the week walked (climbed) up the tree to retrieve these fresh coconuts for us.

2. Visit Aburi Botanical Gardens. The beautiful drive in the gardens was on a palm-lined road. We saw a variety of plants including allspice (pictured below), coniferous trees brought to the gardens by European officials, shea nut trees, cocoa trees, coffee, curry, hibiscus and many other beautiful flowers.

3. Tour a cocoa farm to learn how they harvest the fruit, ferment the beans, and also dry the beans to be ready for sale.

Underneath the palm leaves, cocoa beans are fermenting.

Freshly opened cocoa fruit. The beans are sweet and tart.

 4. Holding children whose mothers trustingly let strangers carry these precious kids around the village. Older children often followed us around as well, and many of them held our hands. It would not be odd to see one of us surrounded by children attempting to hold our hands or play with our hair or sit on our laps.

 

 
5. Making aboloo (similar to cornbread) and placing them in leaves to be cooked in a traditional clay oven.

6. Walking through the forest in a rainstorm- of course the obvious thing to do would be to cut palm leaves to use as umbrellas!

 

7. Crab hunting. Basically, you stick your hand shoulder deep into the mud and attempt to grab the crab at the bottom. It really went against common sense to stick one's hand in the mud and expect to get a crab (where are the snakes and other unwelcome critters?), but luckily we all got a crab. There are even a few pinch marks to prove it! (Not pictured- our snail hunting festivities.)

 

 

8. The fruits of our labor- snail kabobs and boiled crab. The kabobs were surprisingly good with red pepper seasoning and onions and green peppers. However, those snails were probably the chewiest thing I have ever eaten. As for the crabs, most of the shell is supposed to be eaten except for the upper section of the crab. It was very similar to eating scorpion in China, but I managed to eat some of the legs, one of the claws, and some of the brain. (Maybe it will make me smarter??? :) ) Anyway, I am happy to be having so many new experiences! 

The finished product- boiled crab, roasted
snail kabobs, and orange-pineapple juice.