Another Perspective – MILOB Guest Blogger

I got this email from Adams.  He originally sent it out to his family and friends not in the mission.  He told me about it and I said I’d be interested in reading it.  It made me chuckle so, I thought I would share it here.  A little background on Adams.  First off, I should probably clear up that his name is not actually “Adams” but Adam.  When we drove up to Gbaranga for the Bangladeshi medal parade (this was the 1st weekend we were here) Asif (the guy I replaced) was trying out different nmemonics to remember everyone’s names.  For example, he used “Tom and Jerry” to come up with “Tam”.  Don’t ask me, it was his memory game.  So, for Adam he thought of “Bryan Adams.”  The story doesn’t stop there like you may think it would.  Thereafter, he became “Bryan” because Asif had forgotten which name to remember.  A couple of weeks later (and tons of giggling and sometimes outright laughing) Asif caught on that something was amiss.  Upon his inquiry we explained that Bryan was actually Adam.  Well, Asif laughed and apologized profusely for remembering the wrong name.  And then, in order to remember the correct name, repeated to himself, “Adams, Adams, Adams…”  And thence the name was born.  What makes it even more entertaining is that other people refer to him as “Adams.”  I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that I introduce him as “Adams.”  Now that that history is finished.  Adams is a MILOB (Military Observer) working in Buchanan.  The MILOBS work at remote sites, talk to the local villagers, and monitor the situation in their areas.  Unlike the staff officers here in Monrovia, they “rough” it.  Although living conditions vary from site to site, normally they share a room, they use their mosquito netting, and they eat what they can when they can.  (Unless they’re in Voinjama in which case they eat really well).  A little more background on Adams, for those of you who don’t know, Zeyn and Adams were college roommates their senior year.  Small, small world.  So, without further ado, here is life here from another perspective…

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It’s about 4:30 in the morning on a Sunday.  I’ve learned that it is never appropriate to fully trust an electrical generator that is run by unskilled, underpaid people who have never had electricity themselves.  My bedroom turns instantly into a sauna when the fan is not on, and I immediately start losing weight… I can’t stay there.  So I go out to the car to head to the office where there is at least more reliable electricity and see things I’ll never understand.  First, one of the house-boys that works at my place of residence comes out to open the gate dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt… it’s Africa, and although it’s 4 in the morning, it’s still hot as hell, by my standards.  I go through one manned gate between the house and the office where the guard is wearing pants, a jacket (looks like wool), with the hood of a sweatshirt (under the jacket) pulled up under a wool hat.  The gate-guards in Groton wear less gear in January.  I am appalled.  I get to my office and all of the guards here are wearing long sleeves and jackets… I just don’t get it.  My big debate before leaving the house was whether to put on a t-shirt or not.  I finally did because I don’t like to put a backpack on bare shoulders.  In case we haven’t met, I’m a cold weather kind of person; I haven’t complained about winter since 1986 so I’m allowed to whine about hot weather.

Now that I’m finished with my early-morning rant I can say that everything else here is going well.  Despite the oppressive heat, it is actually cooling off a little as the rainy season approaches.  That should start in May, but we’ve had a few storms already.  I like them because they tend to cool things off and don’t last very long.  I invite you to throw that back in my face when the rainy season truly begins.

I believe I’ve mentioned the fact that I eat most of my meals at the Ghanaian Battalion (Ghan Batt, to its friends).  It was a rocky beginning for their chow hall as they struggled to even open their doors, but now that they’ve been steadily operating for a couple of months, it still seems to be a significant struggle for them.  For instance, the night before I left for Ghana (yup, out of the frying pan into the fire) dinner was not the usual “2 crock-pot feast,” but a single crock-pot with white rice…yup, that was it.  I watched a couple of people put ketchup on their rice, another use BBQ sauce, and I just turned around and left.  For those of you with weaker geography, Ghana is in Africa which is not Asia, and they seem to have never heard of soy sauce.  Anyway, yesterday the Ghan Batt had a distinguished visitor from Ghana and they went all out on the lunch spread… I’m not even being sarcastic here, it was quite well done, for what they have to work with.  They prepared an even more authentic Ghanaian meal than usual, I was told.  It was reiterated to me that “fufu” is a staple of traditional Ghanaian cuisine, but I did not realize how many variations that exist.  First, fufu, the way they make it, is a little hard to describe: it looks like a ball of dough with a shinier coating on the outside.  The consistency is like wet, sticky bread dough and they serve it in balls about 5-6 inches in diameter; pretty large by my measure.  It must weigh 2 lbs.  If it is allowed to sit for a while it will flatten out slowly, and it is traditionally eaten with no utensils.  I tried it once before, when they randomly made it for lunch because I love to try new food.  I also, as many of you know, have a big problem with not finishing what I’ve taken to eat, especially in Africa, but I’m man enough to say that I was beaten by fufu.  My first attempt, last month, was in eating a ball of “rice and cassava fufu.”  It was white and quite slimy.  They serve it with a type of soup that usually has some sort of protein in it (fish, chicken, or “bush meat”), and you’re supposed to tear off a piece of this sticky starch, dip it in the soup, and shove it in your face.  Reference here your kindergarten memories of eating paste with your hands.  The first thing that struck me was the texture: not quite solid, but not able to just be swallowed, and slimy enough to run away from my teeth as I try to chew.  I made a good go of the first half of this ball, slowed down significantly for the next 25%, and hit a wall at 75%.  Very few times have I seriously thought about running to vomit in the middle of a meal; this was one of those times.  The odd seasoning in the fufu, the extreme spice of the soup, the slimy, doughy texture, and the sheer volume of it all formed together like a Voltron of dyspepsia to put me down.  My Malaysian team leader, sitting across from me, laughing, commented that I did not look like I was enjoying my fufu and that this is why he sticks with rice.  I realized at this point that the fufu had also robbed me of the ability to speak, and just shook my head.  The fufu had won. Yesterday, however, lunch was served late, I was exceptionally hungry, and I’m not generally one to learn my lesson the first time, especially when it comes to food.  So I dive into the fufu again.  This time it’s more yellow in appearance and a little less slimy looking.  The accompanying soup looks quite good and has beef in one version and chicken in the other; both turned out to be good.  I did apply one previous lesson learned and I decried, up front, that I was only going to eat half of the ball. One of my Ghanaian team mates said he would eat what I don’t finish and we shared a moment of disbelief: he of me for not wanting to eat as much fufu as was put in front of me, and I of him for thinking he could fit all of his and half of mine into his gut.  I got right to work.  This fufu was much better than the other.  It was made of cassava and plantain and was, in fact, a little less slimy, and did not have the same seasoning as the rice fufu. I even had a moment where I thought I might eat it all… I was wrong.  I probably ate 60% before my gag reflex started warming up and, applying another lesson learned, I stopped eating.  My dumbfounded team mate had already housed his entire ball and was eyeing mine.  I slid him what I had left with eagerness, confusion, and some degree of revolted respect.  It was a good lunch.

That story was longer than I expected; probably longer than you expected too. It appears that the internet has been turned back on—I believe there is a master switch off the coast of Greenland; I believe a lot of things.

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Stay tuned for my next blog on “How driving in Liberia is like a playing a game of Frogger…”