Dinner and a Wedding!

After living without a working stove for our first three weeks here, we have finally figured out how to use it correctly and have since been basking in the glory of being able to actually cook things.  Never have I been so grateful to be able to boil water and cook some pasta-again, it’s the little things J  Anyway, with the knowledge of our working stove in mind, it was time for a second try on a Max Mart trip, since our first one failed in spectacular fashion.  Not so this time around.  First of all, with a gelato shop right inside the entrance, the hot and sweaty tro-tro ride we took to get there was immediately negated.  Then, the actual shopping commenced, and I got blissfully lost in the many options before me.  Frozen veggies!  Babybel cheese!  Fresh chicken at the meat counter!  Peanut butter! (I have become weirdly obsessed with peanut butter here…not sure why…Hannah and Erin had to stop me from buying three jars on this shopping trip).  Heavy baskets put an end to our trip, as we wanted to be able to get this all back on a tro-tro home, so we said goodbye to Max Mart until next time.  Our tro-tro out of Medina broke down briefly, and we were treated to some passionate preaching in a local language by a woman in the front row, but we arrived back in Dodowa before dark and ready to cook.  You see, we had invited Irene and Jonas, two of our research center friends who live nearby, over for dinner!  We made a chicken recipe of Hannah’s that turned out to be delicious, and supplemented it with lots of pasta and sauce as well as sautéed spinach.  We even were able to procure parmesan cheese from our shopping trip to grate over the pasta!  So fancy, right?  Our dinner for six turned out quite nicely, with good conversation and full stomachs all around-I felt like Charity looking to see who had finished all of their food.  This time I wanted everyone else to eat all!  Irene, Jonas, and Oti all gave the meal their seal of approval, and Erin and Hannah topped the meal off with their concoction of oats, chocolate, peanut butter, and not sure what else all mixed together.  It was great to hang out with friends outside of work, and we’ve realized that more people live right here in Dodowa than we originally thought, so we’ll be able to invite more DHRC friends over in the future!  

Saturday saw us all waking up early to get ready for a wedding!  A little backstory first: at the interdepartmental meeting a few weeks ago, we heard mention of a wedding coming up soon.  We did not know whose wedding it was, but in the meeting they talked as though anyone who wanted to come could come.  This confused me, because I’m used to weddings being pretty strictly invite-only affairs.  We vaguely wondered whether we could go to this wedding, and when we finally asked Oti about it, he looked surprised to even hear the question and said “of course you are coming! Why wouldn’t you?” And that’s how we ended up going to the wedding of two people we didn’t know.  Technically, we “know” Eunice, the bride, because she works at the research center and I’m sure we met her in our whirlwind first day of introductions.  However, you usually don’t end up attending the wedding of someone you met once at work, but that’s just the way it is here.  As Hannah put it, “exclusivity doesn’t really exist here”.  We excitedly discussed with Gloria the day before as to what we should wear, and she assured us anything we have in African prints would be good, and so we settled on wearing our matching sundresses in different patterns that Millicent, who is quickly becoming our favorite seamstress, made for us.  The wedding was a little over an hour away from Dodowa, so we carpooled with research center staff to get there, and arrived at a Presbyterian church decorated with green, white, and yellow decorations.  The church building itself was not actually a complete building (it didn’t exactly have a roof), but tents were set up over the seats and streamers, balloons, and banners made it look like the most beautiful venue to get married in.  The wedding was pretty standard as far as weddings go, with joyful songs, scripture readings, and exchanging of vows.  The main differences, however, were that the sermon was not the most optimistically phrased sermon for a new couple (basically the minister ranted about how horrible and shameful divorce was, and basically said that they better not get divorced), the bride and groom hugged instead of kissed after they had exchanged vows, and people were much more vocal in their celebration of the couple (when they went into a back room to sign the marriage contract, people began dancing and singing loudly in excitement, which only increased when the bride and groom came back out and started dancing through the crowd themselves).  After the ceremony, pictures were taken, including one of the DHRC staff with the couple, which I’m hoping will make it’s way to me in an email, and then everyone made their way down the street to the house where the reception was being held.  Tents in the backyard shaded many tables, and a buffet of rice varieties and chicken tasted delicious after the 2+ hour ceremony.  We sat at a table with Gloria and another family with the cutest little girl in a pink dress that would smile at us and wave from across the table.  We also made friends with two adorable girls dressed in matching dresses who were delighted when we took their picture and showed it to them on our cameras.  Dr. Gyapong had the honor of sitting at the high table with the couple, and also led the cutting of the cake, with a nice speech about how all of the work that goes into making a cake beautiful mimics the work and patience that it takes to make a marriage happy.  Although we left before tasting the cake, we did stay for the champagne toast to the couple, and left for the day happy to have shared in such a special day.  We rode back home with Augustina, who works at the research center and sings at Solomon’s church, and she told us our dresses were the perfect thing to wear and that Eunice was very happy to have us there!

Finally, we have two new friends at dinner: Gina and JoJo, who are visiting their cousins at Auntie Esther's house.  Gina is four years old and JoJo is two, and though they were a bit shy around us the first couple of days, last night we finally got them to smile and play with us!  Both were very excited to see our cameras, put on Hannah's sunglasses, and sit on our laps.  Once Ema's friends Bernhard and Quako showed up, we had quite the group to be able to play a big game of tug-of-war between the all the kids.  Elvis did seem to get a little bit jealous that he wasn't the only little kid around, and was not too happy to have to share his recently acquired book of ABC's (which he hilariously calls his "Bible").  Hannah has a great picture of him giving some seriously angry side-eye to Gina as she happily sits on Erin's lap.
We also tried fufu for the first time last night!  It's made of pounded cassava and plantain, and is served in a spicy tomato soup.  I was a little bit skeptical of how much I would enjoy it, especially because banku and kenke were difficult to get used to the first time, but I actually really liked it, and nearly finished it all!  We came early to dinner to eat it because it is a very heavy food so it is better to not eat it too late.