Cat food

Jacob, my driver, looked quietly ahead, unsure what to think of me.

He had been assigned to me that morning out of necessity. The day before I had stayed behind at the crusade site to build a drum shield for a recording project the ministry was working on. The collection of materials and construction of the drum shield is a story all it's own, so I'll save the details of that for later. After finishing the drum shield with the help of Jako, one of our loyal and skilled crusade technicians, I looked up to find that I had stayed well after the last of our transport vehicles had left.

I contacted Kwame - the long time manager of our West African office - to ask for a ride. He sent one of the existing drivers for me, and told me that the next morning I would have a driver to take me from place to place.

Back to Jacob, who, like I mentioned before, was looking quietly ahead, unsure of what to think of me.

We had pulled onto a side road and were parked while we waited for the convoy to continue, and Jacob, well, he sat quietly. I'm a friendly guy (Just ask most people!... but not Bob - Bob is a liar!), I like to have conversations with strangers, especially if the only alternative is sitting quietly, as Jacob, my driver was doing while he looked quietly ahead, unsure what to think of me.

"Are you married, Jacob?"

"No boss, but I have a special lady."

"Oh, very good." I said. "I have a wife and two children in America."

*Crickets.....*

I searched my brain for a conversation starter, but my stomach came up with one first.

"What is good to eat in Ghana?"

"Good to eat?"

"Yes, I mean, what do you like to eat?"

"Oh, I like to eat very much."

...

Me: "At home if I take my wife out to eat, we like to have a nice steak or maybe seafood. What do you and your special lady like to eat?"

"Oh, we like fish. We eat very many fish here."

I told him that I like to smoke meat and we got into a conversation about grilling. It turned out that Jacob was quite a cook and was proud to tell me about his open fire grilling methods. We laughed and joked about burning or ruining food while learning how to cook.

"So, other than fish, what do you like to cook?"

This was the right question to ask for blog worthy material.

"Oh, better than fish is beef. But better than beef is goat."

Me: "Goat? Yes, I had some goat at the hotel, it was very nice, I didn't think I would like it, but it was very good."

It was very good... Jacob looked out the driver's side window of his car for a moment, recalling something delicious before telling me about it.

"But better than goat, is cad"

"Cad? I don't know what that is."

"Cad, yes, cad. Cad says *prrrrrrrrr*."

Jacob made an audible purring sound.

"I love you" - Muffins

"Oh...! Cat!?"

"Yes, Cat! Cat is very good! The best!"

I looked around, noticing the visible lack of cats.

"You know, now that you mention it. I haven't seen many cats here."

"Yes. We eat the cats." he reiterated.

"Wow, I would never think a cat would taste good... In the USA our cats are part of the family. We raise them and give them names and baths. They sleep in our beds and live in our homes."

Jacob looked at me with a smile that said he understood that what he was about to say was the best reply I would ever receive from anyone while attempting to explain the American tradition of letting wild carnivorous beasts into our home for entertainment and companionship...

"Yes. We here too."