No one has ever seen a whiteman pound fufu...

My dear friends, your humble missionary to Africa has now 9 weeks and just a few days left before the return to the once familiar, now only remembered smells, sights, sounds and faces of what remains in my heart as my true home. I have been to many towns and villages in Ghana since I made my last blog entry. I have met many, many people. My experiences have been sundry and myriad. I wish I knew where to begin or at least how to keep this entry from being too much at one time. I will do my best to keep this entry short and to the point, sharing but the highlights of what has been a most amazing four months.



I have a gastronomical stalker. I am pursued relentlessly by my nemesis. My enemy seems to never tire, never sleep nor ever turn away. My enemy show up when I least expect him and always when I have just begun to relax my guard thinking he is gone at last. Bane! Bane! Thy name is "sugary, black-pepper spicy, Elmer's glue consistency, grey porridge!" **shakes fist at the air** Everywhere I go it seems to be found and never randomly, no, people say, "Kwame, we got this for you!" as if someone is spreading some foul rumor that I love the grey death porridge. I very nearly weep openly when I eat it, I won't lie. It is the absolute outermost edge of what my willpower can overcome and it would seem it is well beyond the realm of what my Korean-American sensibilities of palate can take. I've actually seen the spoonful in my hand shake as I draw my hand to my lips by sheer force of will against better judgement. The bowl is always so large and so deep. Spoonful after spoonful and the bowl never empties. The spicy, sweet, grey death porridge runneth over and mocks me. There is no way to describe its flavor to you - it tastes like...well...itself and nothing else.



I went to Asanti-Bekwai region. I had met a man named Kwesi at Legon Campus where I used to meet my language coach. The man lives in Asante-Bekwai and invited me to be part of a crusade he was organizing in two small sister villages of Chechewere and Batinko that were remote and in what we loosely refer to in Africa as "the bush." I was, of course, thrilled to no end by this offer and following approval of my host church, I went and stayed with Kwesi for a week and a half. There are pictures on my FaceBook page and I will try to get some new pictures uploaded here within the weekend. I spoke on three of the five nights of the crusade in a village with no running water, no electricity whatsoever and no cars. The houses were mud huts with grass thatched roofs. The villages were made up of the elderly and the very young, the middle age having left the village life for the city, usually never to return. This is similar to the flight that occurred in America from the farmlands to the cities.



While in Asante-Bekwai I shared a one room house that was about 75 ft x 35 ft with two other men. It included a small gas burner hooked up to a propane tank, a large trashcan that held our water supply, a small fridge to keep some foodstuffs preserved, a single bed and a bathroom that was about 8 ft x 3 ft and was the only room with walls. The rest of the house was divided up by curtains hanging from the ceiling. Our only mode of transport was either by foot or a harrowing ride on the back of Kwesi's dirtbike. I told my mom on the phone one day, "Don't tell my mom but there aren't any helmets!" I always felt like some crusader on the back of that bike, racing off to some village here or there to try and tell people about the love of God before it was "too late." By the end of the crusade, a dozen people had made professions of faith. I spoke what little Twi I was able to and the villages were in an uproar of excitement. Few had ever seen a whiteman, none had ever heard a white speak Twi. I met with the two chiefs and they had agreed that the primary physical need of the two villages was to have a five classroom school built, since the young children had to walk 5 km each way, along a buy highway at dawn and dusk to get to school in Asante-Bekwai proper. They also need a village restroom, since there is no sewage system and no indoor plumbing. The entire village goes to a remote spot in the bush, where the user must balance on a few poorly cut scraps of wood and tin above a shallow pit. As the chiefs showed me the place, a boy no older than six or seven was precariously balancing over the pit. Can you imagine being comfortable if your child was doing this? It's incredible, but this is what most West Africans live with as a reality day to day. I was disgusted, not at the practice which was out of necessity, but that in the capital the government offices all have indoor plumbing while a very large portion of the population is still relegated to a practice not seen in the developed world for a nearly a century. Basic necessities of life and happiness; healthy food, clean drinking water, safe living structures, access to basic medical care and a safe, clean and effective bathroom facility. None of these could be readily found in the twin villages. Yet, in the capital, new high-rises are being built every single day. It is my dream to help Africans know their own needs better, help them organize more efficiently, recruit aid among Africans and empower them to help themselves.



The gift that broke my heart. On the morning of the final night of the crusade, Kwesi and I were talking about how to finish big and make sure there was follow-up even after I returned to Accra so that the momentum wouldn't be lost in the villages. There was a knock at our door. I went to see who it was and as I approached the door, I could see through the spaces in the boards that there were two women carrying bundled loads on their heads. I opened the door and greeted the women and received their traditional greeting in like kind. Kwesi was standing beside me by now and I'm thankful because though I understand more Twi than I speak, the speed of delivery can sometimes be a translation problem for my brain. As the women took off their bundled loads they laid out a branch of plantain, a basket full of cassava and a live chicken. These are the ingredients for fufu with chicken and ground nut soup ("peanut butter" soup). The women said the villages had met and been so glad that I had come to tell them about the love of God and the gift of Jesus that they had all gathered together what they had and when they had gathered all they could had sent these two women to bring me a gift of food. As I they spoke and as I understood, I clenched my jaw, grit my teeth and felt my eyes pool up with tears. I had been to their villages, I had walked with their chiefs, I had seen where they lived and what little these people had to wear, to drink and to eat. Here they were giving me a gift of food, a commodity they could not afford to give. To reject the gift, even out of kindness, would be an insult to great to express in words. The gift broke my heart and changed my life. I have never felt anything like that moment before and just retelling it brings tears to my eyes and a sniffle to my nose.



That day, Kwesi and I pounded fufu. Culturally, traditionally, this is a woman's job, but, quite frankly, Kwesi and I wanted fufu and there weren't any women! The rarity of two men pounding fufu got some attention from our dozen or so neighbors where we lived on the outskirts of Asante-Bekwai. When I took the pestle and began to pound, it was as if the world had stopped rotating for these people. Even in Asante-Bekwai few had seen a white man, none had ever heard one speak Twi and no one, not even the oldest had ever seen a whiteman pound fufu. I put pictures up on my FaceBook page, it is a very exhaustive food to prepare! I'll never forget a very old woman holding two small children in front of her, her hands on their shoulders. She held a smile and never took her eyes off me as I pounded but she leaned forward and between the rhythmic thud of the pestle hitting the mortar, she told the little girl and boy, "Now watch this and never forget. You will tell your grandchildren you saw this. No one has ever seen a whiteman pound fufu before, not even before I was as young as you."



I got to walk in the village where whitemen hadn't been seen before. I went into the bush where they said whitemen never go. I ate traditional foods they say the whiteman can't eat and I ate in the traditional way with my hands in the way they say the whiteman won't eat from the same bowl with my new friends. I pounded fufu, washed clothes by hand in a bucket, toted water to fill our trashcan with our daily supply of water and I greeted my new friends in Twi. An respected and ancient woman took me aside and asked me countless questions to find out as much about me as she could. Satisfied at last she smiled a nearly toothless smile and as her eyes sparkled she laughed and said all of these things - it was impossible, all of it, utterly impossible, it couldn't be done. No white can be this way. I remember her checking my arms above my sleeveline and saying I must be "obibini" or black. She concluded that somehow I was "becoming black," surely that was the only way these things were possible! I told her it was by God's grace and because I loved them so much that I could live among them as try so hard to be one of them. She laughed, her eyes shining even more brightly and gave me another addition for my Ghanaian name. "Opam-boa"

It means "to sew stones (together)" which is, of course, impossible. She said it was because I could do the impossible. I laugh every time I think of this story but she said to do what I did that no white was known to do I must be really, really tough. So tough, I "could sew stones together."



That's how I returned to the capital as Kwame Agyeman Opam-Boa.



Stay tuned for part two! I'll tell you about Kumasi, Sunyani and Goaso!