Vegan in Africa? say what crazy lady?

I made the switch from veggie to vegan about two months before leaving for Africa. Go Figure. In a place with as limited of food choices as your local 7-11, I was going to skip out entirely on anything animal; no meat, eggs, fish, dairy. I, the incredibly dutiful subscriber to sustainability, good karma, and digestive functionality, would boldly go where no vegan dares to go; to the land of little else to eat but starchy bread and stringy goat. Regardless of all the quips my doubting, ye of little faith friends back home piled on me before I left, I was going to stick it out. I mean, visiting Africa pretty much means malnutrition anyway, so why not stick to my big green guns and go down in hippie land history in the meantime?

I didn't last two weeks. During the first few days of my journey, my gracious hostesses in Accra went to all sorts of ends to honor my strange dietary requests. Spicy bean stews and marinated soy balls sat patiently waiting on the stove before I even got out of bed. Giddy with a full, satisfied belly and even a hint of self-righteous delight, I thought, "Ha! this won't be so hard afterall!"

But after a few days of the hustle and bustle of Accra, I was ready for the relaxation and cuties of a beach, so bidding my hostess a fond fond farewell, I set off for the country, where I wasn't exactly sure whether anyone even knows what soy is.

I stayed with an auntie in the fisherman meets Bob Marley village of Cape Coast, who promised me a good dose of real LOCAL food that evening. Even more confused by my meal time code of conduct, she nonetheless promised meat- free guilt-free (food-free?) dinners during my stay.

That day, I survived on white bread (the kind I used to love to eat as a kid with a nice hunk of Oscar Meyer bologny and Miracle Whip... yum) and loads of tropical fruit. I have to say, the fruit in Ghana is enough to make you give up any other form of food entirely. And I sort of did. Fresh coconuts the size of volleyballs, mangos, papayas, plaintains and apple bananas; I was sure I could be nourished from these juicy nectars for the rest of my life. Oh and did I mention the raw peanuts that make me and my history with airplanes feel like I have finally tried the REAL thing?

After a few days of this fruit diet, however, well, you needn't know me that well to guess what kind of bathroom story would go here. I'll spare you.

I hoped a few bowls of auntie's homemade cuisine would offer a bit of substanence. She served up, with the pride of a hustling peacock, the local delight (and tourist's fright), fufu, which is best described as a giant ball of uncooked, chewy dough. Cassava, a large starchy root, and either plantains or yams are boiled and mashed together through rounds and rounds of loud, almost violent pounding. The result, a white mass of unidentifiable goo, is placed in a big pot of soup, usually supplemented with some sort of meat (read stringy goat). In my case, I got "sunflower" soup, the Ghanaian term for Cauliflower, which I found so incredibly and vocally adorable I nearly frightened my auntie out of the room.

I dipped into my fufu eagerly, having fasted all day, heeding a friend's warnings that fufu is "only meant to be eaten on a full belly." (Apparently you must be starving to actually enjoy this stuff). After eating a portion the size of a small cat and still half of it to go, I finally said enough, but could see the disappointment in my auntie's eyes when I couldn't bring myself to finish. As culturally sensitive as I wanted to be, I already had a 6 month old fufu fetus in my belly, and the thought of waddling around with football sized chunk of dough for my instestines to gnaw on for the next few days was too much to bear.

Imagine my suprise then, when I woke up the next morning absolutely RAVENOUS. How could I still be hungry? I was eating AFRICAN portions now (which, for one meal, is more than I usually eat in an entire day) and that fufu had me nearly stuffed to my brains last night! So at breakfast, I shoved down a pineapple and more white bread, determined as ever to feel nutrioned and satisfied, even if I really wasn't, as the only vegan Rasta wannabe for miles around. I took this all as a great lesson in discipline and commitment. Kind of like studying for a really hard exam or fasting for Ramadan. No problemo.

After another few days of this proteinless drama, I started to feel rather cranky and, well, thin. Not like in that sexy bathing suit kind of way, but the completely deprived and achey kind of way. One night, I stayed in a hostel that actually had a mirror (not so common round these parts) and discovered much to my lonely tummy's chagrin, that I was getting kind of fat. I had been feeling hungry for days and still my belly had started to puff out over my pants. Flab started appearing around my chin. My muscle mass had all but skipped town ("you want tone? in this heat? on this diet? you gotta be kidding crazy lady!").

I finally broke down the next day, at a rest stop on my 10 hour, absolutely exhausting tro tro ride to Northern Ghana. As soon as the bus stopped, street vendors came rushing to the windows, bearing their usual baskets of goods -- fried chicken thighs that had simmered in the midday sun several days in a row, plantains, fried dough balls, and hard candy. I couldn't take my eyes off the hard boiled egg lady, who was cracking the shells on ths spot and spooning some red mushroom sauce into the interior. I don't even LIKE eggs and I was practically glued to the window, drooling all over myself. As I nibbled on a fried dough ball (my third friend meal that day) contemplating the egg lady, I thought, well it doesn't get any more free-range than this. I could count as it was, at least 3 dozen, hearty chickens and roosters roaming around the bus stop. Granted, they seemed to practically be eating shit, but at least they weren't crammed in some cage eating shit. Okay, so eggs it is. I caved, and damn that was the best egg I have ever eaten in my life.

Now my experiment was well worth a shot, and before all the "I told you sos" start piling in, let me just end by sharing something a fellow traveler helped me to realize about the relative harmlessness of eating eggs. While meat requires a nasty slaughtering and milk is meant for baby COWS for heaven's sake, (and wouldn't you be upset if someone came along and stole YOUR breast milk for a pretty penny?) eggs, on the other hand, come out of the chicken every day regardless of whether or not that chicken is planning for a new member of the family. So in a way, it's kind of like eating a chicken's period, right? Not so bad after all!

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