Breakfast without Bea...and without water

Today is our one Bea-free day at home in Wa.

Bea left at 3:45 a.m. to catch a bus to Banga to attend a family funeral.  She will meet us in Ho on Monday.  I told her I would be happy to make breakfast this morning, especially since Bea shared that George is fairly useless in the kitchen. Also, George and Bea have been so nice, it's the least I could do to make sure George was fed for a day.

I can certainly make breakfast but I woke up to find a couple of challenges.  First, George had 2 guests over in the morning to review estimates for the future Upperwest Science Academy. 3 guests, if you include Virgin. So it wasn't breakfast for 2, it was breakfast for 5.  Second, the water tank had run out so there was no running water. The water man couldn't come until at least evening.

George and I putzed around the kitchen trying to find stuff.  I actually tried to do this myself while George was outside, but most of the cabinets were locked, I couldn't figure out how to turn on the gas, couldn't find the bread, couldn't find plates. Wow. Other than than, this making-breakfast thing was going swimmingly!  Women out there - you know how it is trying to work in another woman's kitchen?   This was much worse. I thought long and hard about walking up the road to the little store/shack where I distinctly remembered seeing overpriced boxes of corn flakes and bottles of soy milk.  At this point, I would have GLADLY paid C$8 for box of corn flakes, threw on some soy milk and called it a day!

But George came in and we managed to gather everything. He pointed out the unrefrigerated guinea fowl eggs designated by Bea for breakfast. At that point I pictured the look on my mother-in-law Jean's face as I considered cooking unrefrigerated eggs. I don't know why.

The traditional Ghanaian breakfast is "omelet" with bread and tea.  That's it.  Any variation is considered inferior.  Any additions to the omelet - onions, tomatoes, green pepper - is considered a special breakfast. Bea was apologetic the days we had plantain for breakfast. You can imagine how corn flakes and soy milk would be received by a group of hungry Ghanaian guys.

Now, I don't make great omelets at home...I don't flip them very well even in an omelet pan, but I had to act like I wasn't some kind of helpless obruni.  I missed my home spatula, by the way. I missed that little guy a LOT. Oh, plastic non-stick spatula, I will never take you for granted again!

So it started like this:

I managed to do the "flip" better than I do at home...

And it all ended looking pretty much like traditional Ghanaian breakfast.

And here's the menfolk enjoying breakfast under the mango tree...

Augustyn, Virgin, Adams and George chowing down on my omelet.

After breakfast I left the guys to talk and did the dishes using the tried and true "three pot method" with clean water from a drum in the kitchen, kept for running-water-free situations just like this.  But there were only 2 containers for this so I made do...

The men liked the breakfast (or at least they said they did). They seemed to eat heartily and licked their fingers. So either it was really good or they were a bunch of hungry guys.

But really -- Corn Flakes. They're not just for Americans, guys.

And I believe the best thing Bea did for us before she left was to boil a bunch of fresh peanuts.  These may be dinner. They are AWESOME by the way.  Nothing like Planters.

Bea's fresh boiled peanuts

We're leaving for Ho at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. This is a 10-12 hour drive. You better believe these are coming with us.

Talk to you from Ho!