Mexican Night in Africa

Last night was official Mexican night in Hohoe. At least around the home base it was. And what started out as a potential disaster turned into a quite edible meal. But I should probably start with the hows and whys.

Last week before the 3-weekers left, there was some sort of stomach bug running rampant through the house. Add that to the already clashing personalities and it resulted in short fuses and insulted staff. Some people were blaming the spiciness of the food for their explosive diarrhea, instead of the parasite that it probably was. I feel compelled to add that these same people were vegan and didn't eat most of the spicy food. However, they made comment to the program director and the cooks, John and Jane, were chastised for basically nothing at all.

For the next several days the food was the worst it's been this entire trip. No flavor at all. We retaliated and petitioned and eventually got some flavor back in the food. But we still felt bad for John and Jane after everything that they do for us. Cooking 3 meals a day in Africa, especially for this size group, is not an easy task. So we decided to cook them a meal. And what is more foreign and spicier than Tex-Mex?

Saturday some of the girls staying traveled the four hours down to Accra with the group headed to the airport and stopped at the supermarket to pick up the ingredients we'd need for a home cooked Mexican Fiesta. The meal was supposed to happen the next day, Sunday, but one of the house members came down with malaria (she's fine now) so we were busy with all the medical drama of that.

We decided that everything had settled down enough by yesterday to cook it up. However, by the time we went to start prepping at 4pm (Dinner is normally at 6) we found that we didn't have all the ingredients we needed.

Avacados = not ripe yet
Pita Bread (substitute tortillas) = moldy
Chili Powder = lost
Chicken = still frozen
Microwave = In our dreams?

I wasn't even part of this planning process. I was just along for the ride, which I've become surprising adept at doing here. But I couldn't keep myself from helping out when I saw the state they were in. We nixed the guacamole. We put off the chicken until last so it would thaw. We decided to fry up potato chips to use instead of tortilla chips.

Having actually fried potatoes before I took over that station. And for the next 3 hours witnessed the hilarity that ensued from my corner of the stove.

Jane the cook was home sick but John was there wincing at the mess we were making of his kitchen. I think at points he thought us to be incompetent, ridiculous, clueless, crazy, or all of the above. I'm pretty sure there were times he went outside just to stop himself from taking over.

I don't know if I have ever laughed as hard as I did last night. It was definitely a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. But at the same time most of us were just laughing at the ridiculousness of it all that no one cared. I wish I could describe the individual moments to you so that you'd have an inkling of what occurred but I wouldn't be able to do them justice.

Let's just say that dinner eventually got done, only an hour behind schedule. And the feast consisted of: Rice and Beans, Fajita-style chicken, homemade salsa, homemade cheese sauce, potato chips, taco salad with a taco season vinaigrette, and churros.

It actually tasted good. Which was great because the kitchen looked like a disaster zone. If we had been in the States they would have needed to call in FEMA. Honestly. I think we used every available pot, pan, fork, spoon, knife, bowl, etc. in the building. It took us over an hour after dinner to do the dishes. And that was even with "cleaning as we went". Sort of.

Every time something would go wrong all night, our mantra became TIA, TIA. It's quite fitting and reminds us to roll with punches when things aren't what we expect.