The Ghanaian Diet is based on the following principles:
-Too sick to be hungry. Illness such as food poisoning, malaria and typhoid are common, which leave you feeling sick with a loss of appetite- hard to eat when you don’t feel well.
-It won’t stay. Then there is common traveler’s diarrhea where even if you are eating regularly, it goes through you quicker than you can absorb all it has to offer.
Sickness aside,
Food is not easily accessible. This takes many faces.
-Restaurants aren’t near the office so travel time to get to food can take awhile.
-Fast food is not common, nor are restaurants that prepare food quickly. Right now I have been waiting for more than hour for a cheese burger and fries- it doesn’t seem to be arriving any time soon either. Hence I started this evening by reading a USAID report and due to the sun going down, was forced to find another means of self-entertainment.
-The sun goes down. In Ghana, it gets dark early and it gets dark fast. Generally, if I eat out, I go straight after work when it is still light and generally get a taxi back to my hotel because it has been dark for hours by the time the meal is finished. If one waits too long, is walking around alone at night worth the risk? Nah, I’ll just eat a granola bar.
-Eat with your hands. Many local dishes (that are quite delicious) are meant to be eaten with your hands. If you try to eat them with silverware, it begins to take quite a while and the hassle of trying to cut a piece of bone-in goat meat with a knife and fork instead of just picking the meat up and chewing a piece of with your teeth, is so time consuming that you eventually give up for not wanting to spend you day eating.
-If you can’t stand the heat- sometimes the food is so hot or it is so hot outside (enclosed restaurants are few and far between) and I have found, I don’t like to work up a sweat eating so I just quit eating.
-Eating with others. When eating abroad, if you have someone to sit and chat with, the stories are usually endless so getting absorbed in conversation, compounded with heat or a difficult to eat dish, causes the act of actually eating the meal to be cut short.
-Time is Money. Even in Accra, where I am surrounded by restaurants, I know it will take them forever to prepare my food, then I will eat it and wait at least 15 minutes if not more just waiting for someone to bring me a bill- and that of course is after I ask for it- those things just don’t show up on their own. So instead of enjoying my 30-minute American lunch alone, I’m stuck for over an hour and I really don’t like taking my work with me to lunch- dinner, okay, but not lunch.
-Neon Lights. In the U.S. it’s easy to take for granted the golden arches, Taco Bell or Burger King signs that glow for miles- alerting travelers of food nearby. And while Ghana only has one fast food “chain” restaurant (there is one KFC located in Accra), there are no glowing signs to indicate a restaurant. I hear there are a handful of restaurants near the office but I only know of a few and those were shown to me by others- nothing of my own discovery.
-Lack of variety. Don’t get me wrong- look at a menu in most any restaurant and the options are endless- dishes made of beef, chicken, pasta, rice, local staples such as fufu, banku and T.Z. (pronounced tea-zet. Tastes a lot like banku) to name a few. BUT don’t expect variety at breakfast.
I am a diehard breakfast fan:
1. It is the most important meal of the day and
2. I get queezy my mid-morning if I don’t eat.
But after you stay in hotels where they provide the same fried egg and toast, every morning for breakfast- it starts to become too much. I’m going to go to a store this week and buy milk and cereal just to have something, anything to mix up the monotony of that egg. Also, hens aren’t fed as well as U.S. chickens, they kind of fend for themselves so the yolks are not a rich, yellow color- instead they are a slight gray color if anything. This morning, I fantasized about eating a grilled cheese sandwich.
-Cleanliness is next to Godliness. When food is easily accessible, it’s because someone is selling it from a container of some sorts they have been carrying on their head all day or they have started a fire on the side of the road and set up their cooking pot- yes it’s convenient, but is it sanitary? If running water or access to a toilet is considered sanitary- then no.
-Kitchen’s Closed. Most hotels have kitchens and those kitchens close around 3 p.m. so if you want dinner, you must order around 8 a.m. before you leave for work- hopefully you’re thinking that far in advance. Also, it’s hard to extract information in Ghana. No one’s really willingly provides information- if you want to know something, you must ask and hopefully, you ask the right questions. I have been in situations where I was at a hotel and told them I would want to eat later, could I order food. They say sure, but when I try, the kitchen is closed. Not just closed for business but the cook has locked it up and went home with the key so getting bread isn’t even an option. By this time the situation is compounded by darkness, new location, not knowing where restaurants are and being located at the end of a windy dirt road that will take a 10 min walk to get to a main road with taxis so it’s safer to stay inside and eat the peanut butter I’ve been toting around. I’ve discovered I can eat about two tablespoons of straight peanut butter before I’m back to not caring about eating any more.
So with all of these points to consider when thinking about eating, sometimes it just doesn’t all seem worth it so you skip it. I do not condone skipping meals but must admit, I’ve skipped more in my few months here than possible all of the years combined proceeding my trip to Ghana. But I’m not saying that is necessarily a bad thing because:
-My stomach has shrunk so I fill up faster, minimizing overeating and weight gain
-We are supposed to eat lots of little meals instead of a few big ones so eating a miniature Snickers and Jolly Ranchers throughout the day is acceptable- right?
-I just eat one big meal a day now and while lunch is the preferred big meal according to the diet gurus, I rather like the traditional heavy dinner American’s enjoy because eating the same fried egg every morning makes eating breakfast hard sometimes.
As you may have noticed, while true, a majority of this article is my attempt at rationalizing why I now regularly skip meals. Excuses, excuses, excuses :)
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