UP COUNTRY FOOD,EATING,LIFE 

November 12, 2012

It occurred to me that I should have another blog about miscellaneous subjects.  This one is about travel and living Up Country.

Rice Paddy (light green patch)

Sierra Leone is a beautiful country.  Very tropical and lush flora.  Water is plentiful making rice one of the main agricultural products.  During the 11 year war all production stopped and the rice paddies reverted to indigenous conditions.  Rice production is back, but is still not enough to supply the needs of the country.   That is slowly changing.  Local rice is very fat, quite delicious and very different from the imported kind.

Local fruits are bananas, bananas and bananas.  There are many different kinds of them.  Green ones that are ripe and delicious.  Yellow ones that are yellow both outside and inside and are very sweet.  Red ones are also very sweet.  I am told there are hundreds of different kinds!  Plantains are used for all meals and are cooked in vegetable oil until soft and sweet or made into thin chips like our potato chips.  Papaya and mangos are seasonal.  Pineapples, oranges, and something like a tangerine they call a lemon (it is NOT a lemon as we know it) fill the stands.

  

Carrots, green beans, tomato, casava, potato, sweet potato, onion and garlic can be found seasonally in the local stands.  Hot peppers are a favorite here and come in red and green.  They are very small, but mighty! Outside of the super market in Freetown imported apples are sold.  The sweet potatoes are huge and a pale yellow-white color.  They are quite firm even when cooked.  

Local avocados are delicious and cheap, try .25 each!  They are large like our Florida ones, but have a skin and taste like our Haas. One day we stopped the car to buy them from a human mini-market.  I was puzzling over how I could eat it when I watched Sheku break his open with his fingers, tear off a chunk, and begin to eat the meat by separating it from the skin with his teeth.  When in Africa...... 

Nuts called ground nuts are a small cousin to our peanuts.  I happen to like them better.  Chestnuts and coconuts round out the selection.  The chestnuts (called bread nuts here) are roasted and warm when bought - yum!  They take the green colored shell off of the coconuts and then cart them around town in a wooden wheel barrow to sell.  Ground nuts are shelled, place in plastic wrap then wrapped up tight into small round packets.  To eat them you make a small hole in the side of the packet and shake them out a hand full at a time.  Cost?  Ground nuts are about .12 a packet, chestnuts about .25 for a medium bag full and I haven’t had coconut.  Bananas sell for .12 to .25 for a large hand.

Three of the districts grow cacao and coffee is also grown here.  However, there is no industry in Sierra Leone; all the cacao and coffee beans are exported.  No local chocolate or coffee can be found!

With the exception of the super markets that sell imported products, shopping is done along the streets of the towns lined with stands.  The super markets up country are more like our small convenience stores and are found only in the larger towns.

Through The Car Window Banana Buying 

Often as we travel through the small villages we will stop a human mini-market to buy our bananas, ground nuts, or freshly hard boiled eggs.  Hard boiled eggs are .20 each.  Michaela LOVES bananas but is quite particular.  She can tell if a banana has been tree ripened or not.  She will only buy tree ripened.  I tease her and tell her she has a nose that can smell a tree ripened banana a mile away.

A typical local meal in Salone always includes rice.  A large bowl of it is dumped onto your plate.  Then whatever else you have ordered comes in a smaller bowl.  You are given a fork and soup spoon wrapped in a tissue.  A packet of purified water is given to each person.  Sometimes a glass is given sometimes not.

The selections to go with the rice are, okra stew with smoked fish or meat, casava leaves with meat, potato vine leaves with smoked fish or meat, or beans with meat and are all cooked in red palm oil.  ALL the selections are liberally spiced with the small and mighty peppers.  I have tried all the above and have gotten used to the spice.  The only thing I have not been able to bring myself to eat is cow hide.  It resembles a large worm and is rubbery and tough.  

Evidently cow hide is popular in Ghana too.  Seymour from Ghana tells me that in Ghana there is a scarcity of hide for leather goods so much is being eaten!

I like the food here very much.  The proper way to eat the rice is to take a small portion of whatever is in the small bowl, mix it in with some of the rice and then repeat the process until all the rice is eaten.  It is impossible for me to eat the whole portion of rice. Mixing it all in at once is not done.

One dish I have not tried is soup.  The soup can be either fish, pepper, ground nut or goat. Michaela tells me I could not tolerate the super spicy hot pepper soup.  My next meal, I am trying the soup unless the offering is pepper soup!

One meal I particularly liked was in Kailahun at the hotel.  The cook and I had a conversation one morning when I was waiting to be picked up.  He had a plate of sauteed sweet potatoes and offered me a taste.  Delicious!  On my last day I asked him if he could make me the sauteed sweet potatoes and country chicken.  He covered the chicken in a spicy crust and fried it serving it with the chicken.  YUM!  A country chicken is very lean as it only eats what it can find on the ground, but is very tasty. 

The accommodations up country are called Guest Houses. They all have a living room and dining area.  I guess you could compare them to very large Bed and Breakfasts.  Most have a kitchen and at least serve breakfast included in the price of the room.  Some offer lunch and dinner also.  The one here in Kabala, the main town of the Koinadugu District, serves nothing even though they have a dining room set up.  Wait!  They do serve soft drinks and beer, including Guinness!!!  And play LOUD music each night.  The children and some adults gather outside the open door to watch the TVs and listen to the music.  Those who want to buy drinks come in and sit down.

Bathroom With Buckets For Bathing Kabala

The accommodations vary from district to district.  The differences being A/C VS Fan and running water VS no running water.  Here in Koinadugu I have one of two out of five fan cooled rooms that has a “bathroom” as part of my room.  There is no running water so there is no sink, just a toilet, a drain in a corner and three large buckets of water replenished daily.  The water tank on the toilet has no top so it is easy to pour water into it for flushing.  Using a small bowl to pour water over me while standing by the drain, I take a bucket bath each day.

Bed, Chair & Table in Kabala

Electricity is provided by generator in all areas up country.  Freetown and immediate environs are the only locations having public electricity.  Here in Kabala the generator runs from 7PM to midnight.  By midnight it is quite cool outside and the breeze coming in the glassless screened windows is enough to make sleeping very comfortable.

Most people have no electrical source at all.  It is common to see many small stands “selling” cell phone charging service.  A couple of locations serving drinks and food have a generator running all day.  They also have TV sets and are the places people gather to watch the news and sports.  Yesterday, while having lunch, I watched Manchester City beat Tottinham in a very close and exciting game of football (soccer to us).

This is primarily a Muslim area so the call to prayer can be heard clearly each morning.  I love hearing it.  

Below are pictures of my room in Kono and in Kabala.  The cost per night has ranged from $17.50 in Kabala to $50.00 in Kono.

Living Room For All Guests in Kabala

Much Love To You All,

Mom/Grandma/Sara

Kono Bed in a very large room.

Note that shower head points straight out so must be used as a hand held. 

Dining room in hotel in Kono.  This is the place where everyone came to eat, chat and work on the computer.  No internet, but could at least write blogs to save for further posting.