What happens when Ghana meets Italy?

 A messy amazing evening. 

Driven from my friends' requests, I decided to organize a pizza workshop to teach my local friend how to cook pizza. Since we organized on a sunday, the plan was to meet at 2pm to have the time to get everything ready without finishing too late. But here is something you have to know about ghanians, they are always late. So what happened in reality? 

We started very late, we were 15 and we only had a small gas oven. To be honest, I can still feel the stress I felt when I realized what was happening, but as soon as people came, having them there, and being all together calmed me down. I realized that everything would have worked out even if the original plan changed. 

I settled ingredients for everybody, each of us was having it is own bowls and it is own instruction sheet. I was so happy to see all my friends very interesting in getting to know my culture. Baking pizza is a main thing in my family, we use to bake every saturday night and being able to have the same here made me feel even more at home. 

The dough has to rest and raise for hours, so we even had time for some dacing and some games. After that, we got to the funniest part: the shaping and the seasoning. Having done it for my whole life, It was crazy for me to realize that shaping pizza is not so easy and not immediate for people. I have learnt all these skills and tips from my dad and give them to my friends here was very special. I felt I gifted them a piece of me, a piece of my family. 

I don't think I even have to explained how I felt when I saw them seasoning their pizzas with pineapple, fried chicken and honey! I am sure that if the italian embassy finds it out, I am gonna stay in Ghana forever since they will probably take my italian citizenship away😂. Jokes aside, it was actually funny to see what people consider as mandatory to have on a pizza to call it such. 

At the end, this italian-ghanian melting pot worked out very well. At the end of the night we were all exhausted, happy and full😁. We decided to make it a routine and have cultural exchange once a week or once every two weeks. 

I will always remember this day. I felt genuinely very happy. Ghanian are also very competitive and seeing them so motivated in baking the best pizza of the night, filled my heart. 

It was a messy amazing and tasteful evening.