Piece of Cake!

My birthday fell on a Saturday. When they learned of it, Pamela and Savanna insisted on cooking me dinner – chicken and rice. In actuality, they had been wanting to cook again for some time, this was just a good excuse.

Savanna has “studies” every Saturday morning. I guess it’s like a study hall or extra tutoring or something, but every Saturday morning from 9-12 she goes back to school – but without her uniform. After that, she said her mother (aunt) wanted her to pound fufu, so we decided to start the cooking at 4:00. While Savanna was at her studies, Pamela and I went shopping. I purchased all the ingredients for my birthday dinner, but that’s fine. It was about $15 for 15 people. Not bad. At the cold store we got one kilo of thighs and one kilo of breasts. When I ordered the breasts he asked if I wanted soft or hard. I assumed this meant frozen or thawed, but Pamela informed me it meant boneless or with bones. We took the boneless. It turned out no one had ever had chicken breasts. Since they are nearly 2x in price, I’m not surprised. In fact, Savanna and Pamela thought they were made of fat (like literal breasts). I had to explain they were the chest muscles and why they were white and the thigh meat was dark. Ah, the teachable moment!

Philip had stopped to bring a card and I invited him to stay for dinner. The kids were all clamoring to get in, so he told them they couldn’t come in until they’d had their baths. I think the various caregivers never had such an easy time getting the children to bathe! I let a Precious (freshly bathed) in early along with Savanna’s young cousins, Mamakos (pictured) and Felix. Felix’s twin sister, Felicia, was not feeling well so she was with her mother. I had purchased some bubbles in the $1.00 section at Target before I left Seattle, so I had 8 tiny bottles of bubbles and they were a huge hit. We spent quite some time on the balcony blowing bubbles downwind. Some of them got pretty good at blowing a lot of bubbles from one dip. Others just got soap all over themselves.

I had purchased some cheap plastic bowls and plastic spoons and cups, which was good because we had both Pamela’s (Grandmother, mother, sister, cousin) and Savanna’s (Mother/Aunt, 4 cousins) families, plus Philip (our Asst. Branch Manager, pictured), Quinn and Pearl (sisters), and Kwadwo (pronounced Kwa-joe), a 2-yo who was being watched by Quinn and Pearl. The food was absolutely vacuumed up. It was good, in the tomato paste and spicy hot pepper way that most Ghanaian food is good. Philip had to leave after dinner and it was all I could do to save him one tiny piece of the chocolate cake I had baked.

Pamela had written on the white board to commemorate my day – although she got a little carried away and also wrote “Merry Christmas, Auntie Jan”. They also sang me Happy Birthday, at my request, before I served the cake. They clearly knew the tune, but sang “Happy Birthday to you” for every phrase, but that’s the basic gist of the song, so it worked for me!

I found an amazing cake recipe online and the cake came out fabulously considering our oven has no thermostat and it is only possible to use the top or bottom elements but not both. As there is no powdered sugar in Koforidua (maybe in Accra but I wouldn’t hold my breath), I found a stove-top recipe with granulated sugar. It was basically runny fudge that firmed up as it cooled. Yum! While I was serving it (in plastic cups with vanilla ice cream), people who had not been at dinner kept appearing – “…and one for my grandmother”, “…and three, for my sister, mother and baby brother”, etc. I had cut very small pieces from the beginning, fearing this exact eventuality, but I finally just said it was “finished”, took the pan into the kitchen and shut the door.

And that’s what it’s like here – Auntie Jan, give me - and Auntie Jan where is mine? I loved having the party and making my special kids happy, but the hangers-on and the demands can be wearing.
XO