Thursday 2 February 2012

Birds


Yesterday I ordered a truck to bring me water, and they brought it to my village today at three in the morning. Since I had to get up early anyway I made myself a cup of coffee and enjoyed a silence of the night in front of my house.

Actually even the night has its’ own sounds. Night birds are especially loud with their piercing sounds. Sometimes some frogs and neighbors’ roosters, which have no sense of time and you can hear them even at night, join to help the birds with their voices. 


At the same moment when you sense the night falling in to the day, night birds go silent and leave the stage for the day time birds. Slowly my little feathered friends begin their own concert. I think there must be a million different birds around our village. Everyone is different color and size than the other and each has its own distinctive sound. Especially in the morning the concert they make sounds like a natures’ anthem. 





In the evening a bat announces the coming of night birds by flying to the same spot every night. Last year we had a very special little bat that was pink, and he always flew around the dining room in the restaurant after every one finished their meal. This year he was replaced by another bat which we named Browny.



As you can see I really enjoy in birds and their singing and also watching their various colors and sizes.

Sunday 22 January 2012

Market

There are a lot of markets around my village. But that still does not mean I can just cross one dusty road and I will get everything I need. All the markets are more than an hour drive away, that means roughly 8 to 10km. It takes so long because of the slow Ghanaian traffic.

I like to go on the market. I am walking around, admiring beautifully arranged and colourful fruit and vegetable. I am surrounded by the red aromatic piles of tomatoes, shining green peppers, orange carrots. I could write a whole book about the juicy, sweet and sour tastes of the fruit they sell there and about all the nice scents surrounding the baskets. But not all the smells are nice for my nose. Dried fish or pork hooves dyed with red preservative do definitely not smell nicely. Also open sewer and rotting waste do not smell like perfume.  When I get used to all the different colours and smells it is time for me to start shopping. Usually I have whit me a list of things I need to buy, which my cook Marry prepared it for me in the morning. I buy everything on the list, but almost every time I am drawn by some other things which I just cannot pass without buying them.

Shopping in the market can be a lot of fun. The costermongers are trying to convince me about the good quality of the fruits or vegetable they are selling, and I am saying that it is not the best quality and show them if it started to rot or that it is a bit wilted. It all leads to bargaining about the price.  I must say I am quite proud of myself whenever I succeed in saving a pesewa or two. Anyways I usually buy fruit and vegetables from the same costermonger that I know for a long time now. In fact we have become real friends. Every time we see each other we first hug each other and talk about our families and all the current topics, and then we go to business. If I start to complain about a certain price she usually gives me some extra pieces of whatever I am buying. Still at the end she always gives me some watermelon, few oranges or pineapple. One of the most interesting things you see on these markets is that people do not use scales. Everything is measured in pieces or bunches, so you can decide how much you would like to buy only by the look not by Kilos or pounds. Normally I know in advance how much I need, so I order: for 10 cedes carrots, for two cedes hot pepper...

Buying meet at the butchers’ place is also something special for me. He has wooden shack with windows protected against flies with nets. When you come in you capture the smell of fresh meat. On the desk he has half of cow with skin and bones all together. There are two prices of meat, meat with bones and meat without bones. Because I have the opportunity to choose which part I would like to buy, you can imagine that those will be the best pieces of the meat which has the highest prices in our country.

So this is how my visits to the market looks like.