James does not like Fu Fu

Fufu is a staple of Ghanian cuisine which basically consists of yams (real ones not sweet potatoes) that have been pulled and mashed. It eventually makes a lump of stretchy substance that you can use to eat your food with your hands. In Ghana they make fufu by using tall tall poles to pound the fufu in a low bowl. It looks something like this:


This picture depicts the Ghanian story about why god is far away. He used to live nearby but kept getting hit by the poles the women were using to make fufu. He got very upset and decided to go far far away where he wouldn't get hit anymore.

James is an adventurous eater so for lunch our first day in Kumasi he decided to get Bush Meat stew with Fufu. Here is what it looked like:


My mom and I tasted it. Fufu was not so yummy. It might be our least favorite food in Ghana.

That night around midnight (well after we had gone to sleep) James leapt into my side of the two twin beds pushed together in our hotel. He started grumbling, "I'm cold, I'm cold, I'm cold!" I told him to turn down the air conditioner. He shut it off. Since James had been hot the night before with the same air conditioning level I thought perhaps we should take his temperature. 102 degrees. We had no blanket in the hotel room so I covered him with everything we could find that might be warm, including the mosquito net:



Since his fever kept going between 99 degrees and 102 we got to embark on the lovely adventure of going to foreign clinics. We went to the Cocoa Board Clinic, a clinic for cocoa employees (one of Ghana's biggest exports). It was quite lovely and civilized. ...James did not have malaria and they gave him some antibiotics. The best part was the pharmacy that was IN the clinic.



My mom and I spent the day feeling a little under the weather and slightly feverish as well. I'm convinced it was the Fufu.