Banana Bread

After weeks of searching I collected all the ingredients to bake banana bread. This was not a specific craving of mine, perhaps it stemmed from all the women I see walking around Yendi carrying baskets of banana on their heads.
I have made banana bread many times in the states, and in fact, I made banana bread all summer while working at the Fly Creek General Store, in New York... I guess what I am hinting at, is that I am not an amateur banana bread baker.
SoIi searched for weeks for all in ingredients. White flour, white sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda (this was the most difficult ingredient to find), I even had to travel one hour from yendi to purchase bread pans.
One sunday evening I was feeling ambitious so I decided I would make a batch. I followed a recipe and mixed all the required ingredients together. As I was pouring the batter into bread pans, I realized that the stove was not turned on to preheat. The oven in my house is a compact gas/electric range with a gas burning oven. When I opened the oven door I realized there was no pilot light, and I had to manually light the burners. I asked two women who work at the mission center next door to my house to help me light the oven. They came over and showed me how to turn on the gas cylinder and light the top over burner. I was very excited to bake my bread so I put two bread pans in the oven and set the timer. After about thirty minutes, I went to the kitchen to check the progress of my creation. The top of the bread seemed to to be browning nicely, but it was not rising exactly as I remember it doing from previous experiences. I accounted the lack of rising to inadequate measuring spoons and “guesstimation” on the baking soda and baking powder. My initial thought was to add more baking soda in the next batch. After two hours, the batter had not improved and I was losing hope... I took the pans out of the oven and new that all my efforts were lost (at least on this batch of bread). After the oven cooled down I moved some of the racks around and noticed a compartment at the bottom of the oven. When I pulled on the top of the compartment, I lifted up a cover to reveal another gas burner. It turns out I was trying to cook banana bread on broil! I was dumbfounded, why had I not thought of this before? Of course, the top burner in the oven is always designated for broiling, what was I thinking cooking banana bread on broil? Needless to say, once I figured out the oven situation, I baked another batch and now my Ghanian friends are begging me to bake more “American bread”, I’ll just light the correct burner before baking it!
...entry written on 17 September 2009