shishi

          ' Shishi' in one of  Ghana,my country's local dialect means 'under','beneath','below'.....I'm sure you get the general picture...when you think of the bottom part of something,think 'shishi'!...this whole blog arose from a convo I was having with one of my sisters (shoutouts Joseline !) recently ..we were reminiscing about out childhood escapades as usual...then we started talking about 'shishi'...every African knows shishi..well not necessarily the nickname shishi but they might call  'bottom' by another dialect..shishi basically is the burnt bottom part of most rice dishes..in this case,waakye (a rice and beans dish..made Brown by a special leave),white rice,jollof rice (a rice dish cooked in a tomato sauce. .outcome;red rice!)... In Africa we like to overcook our meals most of the time..same applies to our rice meals...they keep the rice on fire long after it's cooked and the result is the burnt bottom...shishi to you!..lots of people love it,my mum inclusive! And when we were kids you always found a piece of shishi on your plate. .I used to wonder whether it was some sort of garnishing for the meal or sometin! ..i have always hated shishi cos it is dry and crunchy and gets stuck in my molars.. and it was hard to get it out!..my mum always put it on my meal even though she knew i hated it..maybe she forgot or she just was hoping i'll one day be converted..that's how much she loved her shishi..she still loves it and I still hate it!.. my mum liked it really blackened..maybe it's cos she's really 'black ' in complexion!...hehehehe ....anybody who came looking for her at home would say I'm looking for the very dark-colored woman!'..or 'wu maame  na oy3 tuuntuum paa nu ?. Literally translated in my local dialect to 'is your mum that really dark complexioned woman?'...My family members love shishi so much they converted my mini-me at her very tender age..the poor sod is only 3 and she loves 'kanzo'...kanzo is another nickname for burnt rice!..everytime i ask her,'what did u eat at school today?'..she replies, 'kanzo!!!' .always cracked me up!.....hahahahahahaha.....she is so adorable!..
          Another sister of mine (yo Sophia!) loves shishi to this day!.she'll always remind me to buy her 'carpet' whenever I was going to buy waakye..carpet is another fond 'nickname' for burnt rice bottom..seeing as you can peel a whole piece of it from the pot and it comes out looking like a piece of carpet..and the waakye sellers actually put the pieces of shishi from that day's cooking aside for those who love it and they actually sell it!. .yes,shishi get class paa!.... anytime we cooked a rice meal at home you'd hear Sophia and my mum later scraping away at the bottom of the pot for shishi..scrape scrape scrape..scrape scrape scrape...and I'll be cringing and rolling my eyes nearby!..I really dunno what they get out of it..shishi has not got any healthy nutrients. .everything has been long gone with the overcooking and burning!..well lots of things we enjoy doing doesn't add anything valuable to our lives but we do it...for e.g.investing our time and energy over and over again in relationships that are doomed even from the start!we keep adding and adding and adding to the bottomless pit of misery and expecting some positive results..which never happens!..we wake up in the morning and start all over again..it's just a waste of everything...life is meant to be enjoyed with people who genuinely love and appreciate you and your love..we live only once so make it count by doing meaningful things that will benefit you first before anyone else..one blind man cannot lead another blind man cos they will both fall in a ditch!
          My sis Sophia is also addicted to ice.. I didn't know how bad it was until she came for ice from my fridge one time and within minutes brought it back..she said she didn't like its 'look'..she started rummaging in my freezer for another 'type of ice'....and I'm sitting there thinking 'what look does ice have apart from what we all know!'...apparently there are different types oo!..ei !!. .she then proceeded to explain to me how some ice after being formed has an opaque look. .some have a 'transparent' look...'cracked' look...'smooth' look....it was a serious moment..*laughing out loud at the memory of it all again!*....*rolling my eyes* at the same time!...aside all of this she puts down any slight discomfort in her body to her ice addiction!..
                ...any headache was brought on as a result of the' iceblock' EATING habit...any leg pain she has was the ice's fault! sigh...she really dey drive me bonkers waa !!. .cos it's me she'll come to for the ice and it's the same me who has to explain it's just cold water basically at the end of the day..yet we have this same convo let's say once a month!...smh...she's made an ice-addict out of Pebbles,our German shepherd.she uses her paws to fish out the ice from her water bowl onto the floor so can lick it..can u blame her,dogs are always warm and their breath can fry and egg!...Sophia also introduced Ice to my two mini-mes  (the plenty training started early for them!)and the youngest,just a year old is a pro!...chale!..those tiny fingers go for the tiny ice slivers and ofcos straight to her mouth like nobody's business!
       I have a confession to make..I also have my own thing i was addicted to!..when we were way younger we used to live with a family we had sort of adopted as our own..they lived with us in our family home ..the wife had a small grocery stall and she sold all kinds of things from biscuits to sweets to sugarcane to roasted peanuts (another addiction of mine which is still ongoing!) to dry white clay....we call it shire or ayilo..it's used mostly for decoration on the body during traditional dances and 'shenanigans'.. someway somehow people started eating the clay for all sorts of reasons..some as a result of pregnancy-related cravings,some were pica 'moves',some as a delicacy  (believe it or not!) ..there's so much 'controversy' surrounding this issue...it got so that a negative connotation was attached to the eating of it..some even believed it was a superstitious 'habit';why wouldn't they?you can't be in Africa and not be a tad or totally superstitious!..if u ate shire  they said u were possessed by a demon..you can imagine the mental torture this addiction cost me!I was so embarrassed  and fearful someone outside my nuclear family would find out and point fingers!people also said it made u anemic cos the clay 'absorbed' all your blood..how that's possible I have no clue!..I tried reading about it tho and i discovered that when you have heavy menstrual flows and lose all that blood you start to crave for certain stuff which can be found in the the clay..I'm not an expert so I'm only speaking as a lay person...I have very heavy flows so who knows maybe that's why I started eating the earth..or maybe I just fall under the pica category..its like a catch-22 situation...hmmmm
           Whichever the reason I found myself addicted to this thing,if I may call it so..it started with me nicking one or two dry , cylindrical clay 'rolls'...lemme explain how I heard it was done..wet clay is rolled into all kinds of sizes and baked dry ...they got tiny ones all the way to large fist-size ones .....then it was packed into baskets according to size  and taken to the 'market' for 'consumption '...I got so into it that I knew all the types..some had more gravel than clay,and I hated those ones!..some were mostly sand,ofcos I hated them!..some shire/ayilo were clay[ey] yet hard, I didn't like those ones...the ones i liked were the proper clay that melted in your mouth...thinking about it back then always made me swallow saliva. .that's how much I was addicted..I later learnt I could get worms as a result cos some clay had all types of parasites that layed eggs in them and if you ate them you know what would happen...I didn't know at first!when I became a clay-eating pro I became very technical in my journey...I'll make sure I dewormed every other month...hwerh!I was afraid wai!..lol...yet i couldn't stop..I had a couple of dry spells where for like two separate times I just went off it for two-year periods then came back on then went off it then fell off the wagon again!..chale girls abr3!!!..the addiction was so bad I even took coupla bags of it with me on some European travels!..ei, I loved that shit!..I used to imagine filling a plate with lots of them and adding stew and having it for lunch with cutlery!..I think I was a little crazy!..just like Sophie is on her ice-block/kanzo shenanigans. ..
          When mummy found out about this ayilo thing she wasn't happy..she told my dad(on one of his rare visits to Ghana from Nigeria) and made it look so bad...I denied it..since i couldn't stop it I started hiding it yet she still caught me..she would actually look through my hidden cache and I'll find out she's thrown them away!..I decided to be a step ahead of her ...I managed to find out how she knew I was still eating it cos I thought I hid the addiction well..I later realized she knew some signs I had missed..e.g. after eating the shire it dries on your lips and leaves a white ring..so i made sure l licked my lips well well so nothing gave me away...also because shire doesn't digest it just came out when there's a bowel movement...it coats your whole stomach and organs and could block your intestines and i was a victim of that..I constipated a lot...and my bowel movement was always grey cos that was the color of ayilo..when i realized how much damage eating it was causing me i was already in the last stages of addiction and just couldn't back out..I just couldn't! And to make matters worse it was so cheap...easily affordable..easily acquired...sometimes the ayilo breaks up ,cos it was too dry maybe, and the sellers sold those ones even more cheaper than the whole ones ..ofcos yours truly went for those mostly!!..chale! ..I can't believe I'm opening up about this!.only my mum n sisters knew about it..and dad ofcos,after mummy snitched to him!.couple of years ago I just went off it again and i haven't had any craving for it since then!..I'm so glad cos it caused me more harm than good....this has been so therapeutic for me..I had wanted to write this issue under a blog titled 'addictions' but it ended up here!..life is like that..sometimes you just have to go where it takes u..I hope u learned something from it all...thanx for reading...#shalom #gaylesgifts