Friday, July 08, 2005

Trotro shopping and street food

I was just in the middle of typing a moderately long post and the
computer in this cafe closed all my windows.

Here I am in Kumasi. Missy and I took a bus this morning and just
finished exploring the largest outdoor market in Africa. It was
a sensory overload, with sections for clothes, shoes, fabric, food
including live chickens in cages or baskets on people's heads,
veggies, fish that stank...NOt that much hassle, a bit of Obruni
calling and occasionally a hand grabbing my arm. We're sticking
mostly to city center so it's cheap for taxis. OUr hotel is
absolute crap - last weekend I paid 51k for a nice bed, good sized
room and bathroom with water and a shower and all that, with a fan.
This weekend it's 60k for selfcontained small room with a fan and
the bathroom is basically built into a corner of the room, kind of
unsheltered.

I've been meaning for a while to describe the street food options
here in Ghana. In camp, you can walk up as it's getting dark and
see all sorts of grills out with corn that tastes like popped corn,
chicken or beef htat's really spicy, fried plantains or yam chips,
and sometimes rice or casava or egg bread sandwiches. Also there's
tables out with candy and cookies. And they sell the most delicious
coconut sugar cookies that I'm addicted to for 200 cedis (2 cents!)
as well as donuts and dough balls (the former also in the morning)
and some other less appetizing cookies. We've got our favorites on
camp. You can get fruit and vegetables but usually that's in the
morning and afternoon; I've got my favorite spots for tomatos or
mangos etc. And my two favorite kinds of cookies, one that's really
gingery and with Arabic writing, the other that has delicious nutty
chocolate paste inside.

As for the trotro shopping. Basically, vendors stand with things
on their heads or in their hands on the sides or in the middle of
crowded streets. You can get pastries or FanMilk (line of frozen
yogurt like treats that are fairly good, considering), candies,
cookies, fruit, and nonfood like hankerchiefs, shirts, bags, etc.
I've grown quite addicted to Mentos as they are always waving in my
face and it's the only Western candy they sell - the fruity Mentos,
with an Arabic wrapper.

A few more signs...

-Decent Haircut, also Decent Mobile Phones - really great advertising there,
guys!
-Amalgamation Bank - Amalbank

That's all for now. I might try to listen to a Sox game here
depending on time.

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