HOW MANY HENS WILL TRUMP NEED
TO REPLACE OBAMACARE? - Part 5
Continued from... Part 4
I enjoy every minute of cranking up of real engineering solutions to problems faced by the 'civilians', but this opportunity came thanks to a small mishap. While waiting for my friend to return, I was pulling something out of my bag, loaded up on the motor bike, and the bike lost the balance. As I had my backpack on one shoulder, I pushed my free left hand under the bike and managed to put it upright again. The next morning, I felt a severe pain in the back of the shoulder. My hosts prepared a local ointment and got a local youth to give me a massage. Two days of that did not solve the problem. A 70+ old bonesetter in the neighboring village judged that it was not a strained muscle but a dislocation. He only asked for some warm water and Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) butter -a local panacea. Inside his home was unbearably hot, so he made me sit on a thick Wawa (Triplochiton scleroxylon) tree root. Trapping my left arm between his legs to immobilize it, he hooked his fingers under my armpit and pressed the other hand over my shoulder blade. Altogether, it didn't take more than 15 minutes. The fee? "Your gratitude...", which, in those circumstances, amounts to about two hens.
Did my health insurance cover it? Of course, it did. I insure myself among the goodwill and competence of rural people, and never among the stiff-collared, paper-shuffling bureaucrats. When I reached an X-ray machine after a 10-hr bus ride, a few days later, Kumasi Teaching Hospital doctor expressed complete satisfaction over my operation. Now, how many hens would Trump need to replace Obamacare?
Remember I told you that, at the Guinea-Cote d'Ivoire border crossing, I foo-fooed the medical officer who insisted that I needed a meningitis injection? I lumped him among the corrupt border officials, but he was simply following the Ministry orders. This time, as I got back to Cote d'Ivoire from Ghana, they pinched me by force, robbing me some $4 in the process. Since I had already read up on this vaccine, useful only in specific cases, I protested, but they foo-fooed my horrible French. Not just me, they steal money from poor natives too. It seems the Ivorian Health Ministry (who sells the donated mosquito nets in the black market for $8) has hooked up with some crook to cook up this scam of injecting all travelers giving them no options. The Medic explained to me, with a straight face, that it protects me against the dust! Abidjan is breeding grounds for Cholera, Dengue, Malaria..., to TB; give me a break! The World healthcare industry, not just Obamacare or Trumptrash, seems to be plagued by racketeers.
 |
| Wawa tree |
The Sahel environment is harsh, looks devoid of life to the untrained eye, but contains innumerable varieties of fruits, in addition to the vast volume of water underneath. The Wawa tree looks similar to South American Ceibo, its dry fruit is edible and provides the base for Sobolo nutritious drink. In Tamale market, I ran into many such dry fruits, though some were too hard to entice my taste buds. The Gaia fruit, called yellow berries by Ghanian kids, gives a mouth watering sweetness. Its medium-sized tree is the ideal climbing-training ground for the only Ape inhabiting this environment. After evening water pumping duties, the kids don't leave the pump area before gathering some Gaia, their prized offering to the favorite visitor. One of my childhood favorites, the small, round, tamarind fruit (Gal siyambala) surprised me in this market. Here it is drier, but its distinct, tongue turning taste is still there.
This Valentine's Day I could not pass without a date. Its sweet experience brought fond memories back, so I tasted quite a few that day. No, do not judge me so fast..., we are talking about sweet date palms! After a mosque-dressed boy surprised me with some in Makeni, Sierra Leone, I could not track them down, until Tamale. I would not have recognized them in this dry format, if not for my Nigerian Rotarian friend who accompanied me there for a few days. I quickly added dry dates to my travelling food and managed to hunt them down also in Bolga.
 |
| Milling red rice in Sierra Leone |
Bolga's best food secret was the red rice, available even in restaurants, but offered in the form of a large ball, wrapped in a plastic sheathing. That way, they escape the controlled cooking required to present it in a drier format. Once I tasted it in Segbwema, Sierra Leone, saw them milling red rice in many rural villages there, but this was the only place I could get it on order. I never missed a chance to eat it with fish in groundnut soup since, all for less than a dollar! Most common food in northern Ghana homes though is Fufu, mashed plantain, yam or cassava, steamed into a pudding. After watching my host lady in Kumasi 'driving' the pounding (mixing the half cooked pieces to get a uniform mashing) with her bare fingers, as her husband banged down the heavy pestle, I always check for 'minced meat' before eating it. The
plate of sauce/soup to eat the main dish varies with the region. Cote d'Ivoire
uses small round brinjals (Batu) or okra (ladies' fingers) as the base; Sierra Leone
poor get by with manioc, sweet potato or some other green leaf they can pick
out cheap; Bolga rural homes use dry okra with mashed salted anchovies. All use
home-made palm oil, tomato and a lot of pepper.
After travelling the whole day only munching this and that to get to Akosombo, I searched for some hot food at night. "Would you like Indomie?" Now, that, not even the guidebooks mention it. On every street corner, they would cook right away a packet of instant 'chinese' noodles with whatever condiments at hand and serve it ready to go. Not your most ethnic food, but where else can you get a dish, made to order on the run, all for a dollar? Still not sure who pulled the heist on the name, though; Indians or the Chinese?
After travelling the whole day only munching this and that to get to Akosombo, I searched for some hot food at night. "Would you like Indomie?" Now, that, not even the guidebooks mention it. On every street corner, they would cook right away a packet of instant 'chinese' noodles with whatever condiments at hand and serve it ready to go. Not your most ethnic food, but where else can you get a dish, made to order on the run, all for a dollar? Still not sure who pulled the heist on the name, though; Indians or the Chinese?
 |
| Lake volta |
I came to Akosombo to see live what, as high school kids, we crammed for 'do you know contests': the world's largest manmade lake (till it got pushed to second place by Three Gorges, after 50 years), the Volta lake. I hoped to learn firsthand about 50+ years of socio-environmental impacts from this oldest, huge, tropical dam project. I tolerate the glorification of cement and steel, as I heard in Itaipu, as long as I can catch between those phrases what I want. Yet, the Volta River Authority organizers at Akosombo were pathetic, and I gave up on the 'selfie-tour' altogether. On Sundays, no technical personnel were available, so I opted for a hike.
I went opposite the directions given by guesthouse keepers and found a local farmers' path, but soon got lost among anthills and huge centipedes in this sweaty jungle. Huffing up a hill, I oriented myself roughly using the distant lake and came down through a vast police barracks complex. Climbing back on those slippery chert rocks was not an option. I sweet-talked the police to letting me in through the gate of an exclusive clubhouse at the top of another hill and followed their pool outlet drain. I knew the water had to flow behind my guesthouse, and got back to the room in five minutes. Only then I realized that I had not even turned on my GPS. If your nose gets the job done, why waste the batteries?
Kashyapa A.S. Yapa
March 2017, Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa.
kyapa@yahoo.com
