Officially, 96.5 is half way to 193. so at some point today we hit the halfway point. But, we wanted to come up with an appropriate 'halfway' country. Now, obviously, the world is a globe- there's no 'mid-point', so we decided to look up where exact 0 degrees longitude meets 0 degrees latitude. Or, where the equator meets the prime meridian. There isn't a country there exactly, as that point falls in the Atlantic, or more specifically the Gulf of Guinea. The closest country though, is Ghana. And so we decided that would be our halfway country.
Ghana is West Africa's 'Golden Child', an example of stability and democracy. Accra, the capital, is ranked as the 2nd most livable city in Africa, next to Cape Town. It shrugged off it's French colonial rule sooner than most African countries, and has thrived as a result.
In Ghana, you can take advantage of everything Africa has to offer: gorgeous beaches, large busy markets, mud brick mosques, and large national parks.More than that, visitors will find easy transportation and English-speaking citizens. As a result, Ghana has often been called 'Africa for Beginners'.
The Ashanti Empire ruled before the French, and with their leadership, the country enjoyed wealth and stability. Ashanti artifacts are still highly prized by collectors. But one artifact that has remained elusive is the 'golden stool'. This stool supposedly floated down from the sky and landed in the lap of the first Ashanti King. To this day, only a few people know the location of the stool.
The colonial rule reads as you would expect though, and our landmark pays tribute to that. The Cape Coast Castle in Ghana is one of the most culturally significant in Africa, as it was once the largest-slave trading center in West Africa.
Originally built by the Swedes to trade lumber and gold, but later used in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was the last place slaves saw before they were shipped across the Atlantic.
Ghana is also home to the world's largest artifical reservoir, Lake Volta. The people of Ghana merged the White Volta and Black Volts rivers, to force water to flow into the Akosombo Dam. The dam generates electricity to not only Ghana, but to Togo and Benin as well.
The boys made their postcards.
Calib made the Ashanti golden stool, and someone holding snail kabobs (because that's a thing in Ghana, and when I told the boys they said 'please don't tell me that's what we're having for dinner').
Peyton's featured the Palace of Paga, a traditional style of the Pio area in Ghana, and an elephant (because Ghana is known for it's large herds of them-- and hippo sanctuaries!)
Hayden's featured the dam, a snail kabob and the golden stool.
For dinner we had Ghana Chichinga (Suya Chicken Kabob), Red-Red with pita bread to scoop it up, boiled corn (off the cob so Calib can enjoy it even with his braces) topped with toasted coconut, bananas and strawberry fool.
This dinner earned FIVE spoons up.
Asa and I give it a very enthusiastic spoons up. This was one of my favorite meals since Palau (I'm still hung up on that shrimp). First of all, this chicken was super tasty, tender and juicy. I even ate the onion and green pepper off the kabob and I almost never do that. Peyton, Calib, and Asa all had second kabobs.
I had high hopes for the red-red. Everyone was like, you HAVE to make this for Ghana. Blog after blog after blog. And I mean the recipe I link to up there is actually called 'Red-Red, The Greatest Recipe Known to Humankind', so expectations were up there. And it was delicious. We skipped the bananas on top, I had read those were optional, and Asa toned down the heat so I could eat it. I wouldn't say it was the best recipe we've had on our journey though 97 countries, but it was pretty darn good, and I even saved leftovers to have with eggs and pita bread for lunch the next day, so that says something. Everyone but Peyton were totally into the red-red.
The corn was just corn on the cob, boiled, with a little butter mixed in. Then it was topped with toasted coconut. Full disclosure: Asa skipped the toasted coconut. Peyton wasn't too sure about it, but he ate it. Calib, Hayden and I thought it was a lovely added addition.
And of course, the strawberry fool. It's basically just strawberries mixed in with whipped cream. Some of it is pureed strawberries, some of it is just sliced strawberries- but yea, that's it. We still don't have a mixer here, so we whipped the heavy cream by hand (or rather, I did while Asa cooked everything else- he tried to take it over for me towards the end, but I didn't want to him to have all the glory). So I mean, obviously that was universally loved- because who isn't a fan of strawberries with whipped cream?
We colored in our halfway point, and we now have more colored in on the table than not. Pretty cool!
We also celebrated with a 'half-way there' Jeopardy. Every country had it's own set of clues. If you could guess it with just the hardest clue, you got 500 points. There was also 400, 300, 200, and 100 point clues if you needed to get that far. Every 100 point clue was the capital, and I thought maybe we'd have to go down to a lot of those- but I think they only needed four or five of them to go that far. I was super impressed by how much they remembered. In the end, they earned money for their jars, which they will be able to cash out just in time for our trip.
That's 97 down, 96 to go!!! It's super exciting to have hit the halfway point!
Next Up: Gabon
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