Chinese food in Ghana

Hello all, this is Codi with another update from Ghana. I hope you are all well State-side (or where ever you may be—Emily, are you in Italy now?!). I wanted to introduce you to my research group here and also share a totally-multicultural-moment.

Meet the group

Our research team has really begun to grow into a cohesive unit over the last 2 weeks. The five of us girls from U of M share everything from bars of laundry soap and rinse water to snacks of mangoes, pineapples, finger-sized bananas, and green-skinned “oranges.” Every meal time and evening I learn more stories about my colleagues, their families, and their values:

First there’s Allison, a recent graduate from the Program in the Environment—like me—who hopes to move to Hawaii someday and practice environmental health, sit on the beach, and eat pineapples everyday. Rachel, another recent graduate from Program in the Environment, spent the last 2 summers in Bhopal, India and West Virginia and (subsequently) is a fervent defender of human and environmental rights. Kaylee is a masters student in U of M’s School of Public Health studying epidemiology. After she completes her degree, she hopes to design health studies for GE or another industry. Finally, Mozhgon is a PhD student in Environmental Health. We call her our “mother hen” (partly because her family has tons of chickens—and peacocks!—and mostly because she is the nurturing leader of the group). I think she would make a wonderful professor of environmental health someday.

In addition to the Michigan gang, I am getting to know our Ghanaian translators as we conduct surveys in the field everyday. Sowah grew up here in Bolga and has helped with this project for the past two summers. He actually used to work in the gold mines of Kejetia several years ago. Charles does volunteer teaching for middle school-aged students in Bolga and takes university classes in economics and psychology on Saturdays. Emmanuel completed a degree in nutrition over a year ago and is also a volunteer teacher in Bolga. He hopes to travel to the States for a masters program if he and his wife Rita can afford it. Emmanuel, Rachel and I all aggregate in the back of the van to assiduously study GRE vocabulary during our tortuous bus rides to and from Kejetia everyday.

Diversity at its best

Spending time with this already diverse group of colleagues has enriched my cultural perspective so much. For example: we have compared Ghanaian foods (which are the only dishes that Charles, Emmanuel, and Sowah have been exposed to) to Persian food (Mozhgon is half-Persian), Chinese food (Kaylee is Chinese and Allison is half-Chinese), Indian food (Rachel’s partner is Indian and she spent time there last summer) and other ethnic and American favorites (falafel, Thai, pizza, TexMex, cereal, pie—we talk a lot about food, can you tell?). I have also gotten a taste (punny…) of family dynamics in big Ghanaian families or families like Mozhgon’s with more than 6 many siblings. And it is fascinating to learn about the challenges and benefits of inter-cultural relationships (like Rachel’s) and inter-cultural families like Allison’s and Mozhgon’s. (“What do we mark on standardized forms?” they laughed, “Do I feel Asian today? White? Or Other?”)

This week, however, we took “multicultural” to a whole new level. In Kejetia, a Chinese-Canadian mining company bought some land and hired a troupe of 35 Chinese men to mine gold next to the Ghanaian miners (who we are interviewing). The Chinese miners saw us driving by in our van one day and came into Kejetia to meet us. Kaylee grew up in Beijing and speaks Mandarin, so she chatted with the miners. They invited her to join them for lunch and (upon her request) extended their invitation to our whole group. So after our surveys on Wednesday, 3 Chinese miners brought our group to a bit of shade by Kejetia’s stream, and we had a picnic!

The miners provided wooden chop sticks and Tupperware containers of white rice and stirfry. The 5 of us girls felt honored by their generosity, but our Ghanaian translators didn’t know what to think. Chop sticks? Eating rice and veggies with two little pieces of wood? (They thought we were all nuts!) Among much laughter and picture-taking, Kaylee, Allison and the Chinese miners demonstrated proper chop stick technique to Sowah, Charles, Emmanuel, Rachel, Mozhgon, and I. Sowah and Emmanuel picked up the technique, although each bite was painstaking. Charles eventually abandoned the chop sticks and ate the Ghanaian way (with his right hand—Ghanaians say that you enjoy your food much more when you eat it with your hands). Rachel and I managed half-scoop/half-carry bites of vegetables and rice to our mouths with relative ease. But one of the Chinese miners actually took the chop sticks and fed Mozhgon at one point!

The stirfry was DELICIOUS: eggplant, onion, potato, pork, chicken and tofu! Garlic, ginger, and hot chilis flavored the sauce (instead of the overly salty/MSG-filled sauces that coat Americanized Chinese food). The Chinese miners actually brought seeds to grow their own garden and have a chef who cooks all of their meals. (We’d love to join them for lunch more often…)

Afterward we snapped myriad pictures with various combinations of our Ghanaian-Red-headed-Chinese-American-German-freckled-Persian-Polish-tan-yellow-black-red group. The Chinese miners loved Kaylee and were fascinated that Allison was half. At 5’9’’ and 5’10’’ both Kaylee and Allison towered over the short Chinese men as they snapped pictures with both girls. Then they wanted a shot with both the red-heads and the “non-Chinese” girls. Even our Ghanaian translators documented the diverse group with pictures on their cell phones.

I never thought I would get my first authentic Chinese meal in a gold mining community in Bolga, Ghana.