World Ark Magazine - January/February 2008 - (Page 27) Climate Accra clings to the underside of western Africa where it bulges into the warm Atlantic, what was once known as the Gold Coast. Its rainy season coincides with hurricane season in the United States. Storms begin in west-central Africa and blow westward across the continent before dipping into the warm Atlantic on Africa’s West Coast, near Ghana, Benin and Togo. These same storms will pick up speed and force as they travel through the equatorial waters to become tropical storms and hurricanes, or else play themselves out over cooler waters. What happens here has a very real effect on lives of Americans thousands of miles away. Peace This is not the Africa most of us would imagine. Many Americans envision Africa as an exotic setting for violent, heroic, over-moralizing movies with broad political generalizations. (Two such movies won Oscars just last year.) The Ghanaian seated next to me on the plane in from London told me not to expect Ghana to be like that. Ghana is different, peaceful, stable. In 2007, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence from England, and the national flag—red, yellow and green horizontal stripes with a black star in the center—can be seen everywhere. Growth Accra is representative of cities throughout the region. It is not spreading predictably in concentric circles around an older central core like, say, London or New York. Instead, its growth seems more organic, with new settlements and markets emerging wherever traffic flow and open space dictate. With so many new people and new businesses, local regulations are impossible to enforce. And so an informal economy has arisen which, according to an article that appeared in a local newspaper during my visit, now employs more people than the formal economy. Along roadsides or in marketplaces, new businesses spring up every day. Hand-painted signs everywhere advertise small restaurants that fulfill the dietary desires of this newly urban population. Each restaurant lists its own traditional Ghanaian fare, but banku and fufu are on every board. Banku and fufu are both pounded, starchy pastes— banku made from fermented corn, fufu from cassava—that are served as accompaniments to soups and stews. (Or is the soup an accompaniment to the banku and fufu?) Diners pull away elastic chunks to dip into soup made from groundnut, okra or palm oil, with just enough heat to make you sweat. PHOTOS BY JAMAN MAT THEWS Food www.heifer.org January/February 2008 | WORLD ARK 27 http://www.heifer.org
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