Dinner is Served

I eat at least one meal every day at the Night Market.  It is a collection of stalls run mainly by women and their children. There is a tremendous amount of variety of good sold - from tins of tomato paste, to fresh tropical (local) fruits, to warm meals of local cuisine, to burned copies of American DVDs, to second hand shoes. 

For dinner I usually get 30 peswas worth of Waakye (rice and beans) with stew (the reddish sauce, which is a tomato based stew), shito (the dark brown on top of the stew, which is a spicy local sauce) and 20 peswas worth of fried plantains. So my delicious dinner only costs 50 peswas (about 50 U.S. cents)!

Waakye with stew, shito and fried plantains.

There are lots of other local dishes served at different stalls around the Night Market. I will try to take more pictures of my other favorite meals and describe them to you in future blogs.

Below is a picture of my favorite stall - mainly because the women working at the stand are really sweet! The large metal bowl to the left is where I order my Waakye. I tell them how much I want in peswas, she scoops it into a bowl and passes it to her mother behind the main stand. I walk around to the back and complete my order with sauces and fried plantains. 

My favorite stall to buy Waakye.

It might be hard to tell from this picture, but there are lots of bowls in the window. I usually only order sauce on my Waakye, but you can also get a Ghanaian version of cole slaw, ground cassava, a hard-boiled egg, fried chicken, or fish, cooked hot dogs, or beef, chicken or fish stew. 

When the Ghanaian male students come for dinner often times they load up on all of these sides and get a huge bowl with a few spoons. The bowl is piled high with food, and they sit around the tables and share a meal. Usually we don't see the Ghanaian female students eating at the Night Market, women either bring the food back to their foods in a plastic bag, or make food on a burner in their hostels. I have heard they do this because they did not want the boys to see them eating.