My Life as a Meme

I'm thinking of having a semi-regular feature here called "My Life as a Meme." For better or worse, I find myself thinking in memes these days. Here's the first installment.

There's not much to be done at this point. They're attracted to my bed sheets, my comb, my soap, my shoes, and just about everything else. They were here when I arrived and they will be here when I leave. I take my comfort in knowing that our tenure as roommates will come to an end in a matter of weeks.

Getting away from the ants, there has been something that I've wanted to share since last Sunday. When Michael, the main student researcher with the program, came several weeks ago he introduced me to Mama Mia's, an Italian restaurant in the Osu neighborhood of Accra. You see more Obrunis (white people) in there than you do Ghanaians, but the quality of the pizza is amazing. Until last Sunday I had to take any comments about the quality of the pizza on good faith. It happens that the one time I went Michael was the first time my stomach decided to protest so I had plain spaghetti with diced garlic... still a surprisingly exciting break from rice!

Last Sunday my faith in the quality of the pizza was replaced with the cold, hard truth. Or soft and gooey truth, as the case may be. As I tried to navigate the side streets of Osu I felt like I was looking for Mama Mia's in all the wrong places. I even thought about giving up and returning to the grilled talapia stand by Duncan's. (Tested before and proven to be quite delicious - a very attractive back up plan.) Perseverance paid off and I ended up finding the restaurant. 

The pizza was truly delicious. I ordered the Peter Pan and realized when it came that I should have brought my camera. I think there were four or five different meats, all of which shared no resemblance with chicken or goat. (There's been too much of that these past weeks.) The pizza could have fed two, so I took the unfinished portion to go and gave it to the porter when I arrived back at my residence. I would have loved to finish it myself, especially as it was a bit of a pricey meal, but remember that ant problem I discussed above? Either way this pizza was going to be someone else's dinner. My choice was whether the recipient would be the ants or the porter.

As I was paying the bill I noticed the waiter walking by with several very small cups. Was this really what I thought it was? It couldn't be - not here! I asked, "Was that espresso that you were carrying?" Before he could finish saying yes, I asked him to bring one to me. I then proceeded to get as high as a kite on concentrated caffeine. Was this a smart choice at 8pm before a work day? Probably not. Was it delicious? You can bet your boots it was. And it certainly beats my standard Nescafe.

Though Nescafe has almost become a thing of the past for me. Now I'm on to bigger and better things. Instant coffee? Who needs that. Instant cappuccino? That's more like it.

You might ask, "Does it even taste like a cappuccino?" And my response...