Next on Food Network

I hope you're feeling hungry and adventurous, because today, you get a crash course in the fine art of Senegalese dining! Be forewarned: "low-carb" has not yet found its way into Wolof culinary vocabulary.

My eating adventures start out each day in my bedroom, when Khadi, the maid, serves breakfast to me on a platter after my morning shower. Once, I had eggs. The very first day. Ever since then, it has unfailingly consisted of a baguette, slightly stale.


At least its contents vary. Sometimes, my baguette is covered on the inside with Chocoleca, a chocolate-peanut spread. It is the Senegalese equivalent (dare I make such a comparison?!) to my time-honored favorite, Nutella. Other times, a vitamin-A fortified margarine spread adorns its soft, refined-flour innards. Maybe once or twice I've discovered "La vache qui rit" (Laughing Cow) cheesey spread. Breakfast is the only meal in Senegal that is accompanied with a beverage- a mixture of instant Nescafe, powdered milk, lots of sugar and hot water. As my roommates in Denver all know (and have eventually come to accept), I am not a coffee drinker. As far as I'm concerned, my daily consumption of Nescafe-flavored sugar-milk does little to threaten this standing.

Lunch is served around two or three in the afternoon, and dinner comes between eight and ten at night. Besides the time of day they are served, though, there are no distinguishing characteristics between the two meals that I have detected. Either can consist of the Senegalese standard favorites, including onion-based yassa, mafe with veggies and palm-oil and the highly favored national dish, ceebujen (literally translated, "fish of rice").

For meals, a woven mat is unrolled for people to sit on. A dented metal platter with a diameter of about eighteen inches is placed in the middle, within everyone's right-hand reach. Shoes are removed before we sit, some on the floor and some on little stools. Sometimes there are spoons, and sometimes we just eat with our hands (as you spaghetti-lovers might recall). More often, there are pieces of baguette that each person takes and tears into morsels to use as utensils. (Mom, Dad, remember how you used to yell at me for picking at my dinner rolls all the time? Turns out it was good practice.) Meals, including those listed above, usually consist of mutton, beef or whole fish, served with a spicy sauce and rice. Meat is deftly torn apart with one hand, and sometimes distributed into a neighbor's section of the platter as a gesture of generosity. Bones, gristle and otherwise unwanted chewed material are let out of the mouth. Not spit. Just let out. Try it sometime, it's actually surprisingly difficult. Little is said, and after a few minutes, someone gets up, washes his hand in the bathroom, and resumes whatever his business was before dinner. Meanwhile, I disappear into my bedroom to down a half-liter of water to help put out the oil-fire in my mouth.



Here is a picture of laax (prounounced like "lock", with a little gargle at the end).

The lower layer is some type of boiled grain as a base. Poured on top of it is a mixture of lots of sugar, orange-blossom flavoring, vanilla and lait-caillé. I once asked someone how lait-caillé is made, and their answer confirmed what I had been told, but could not previously believe. Lait-caillé is made by leaving milk out for a couple of days--it actually is milk gone sour. The most surprising thing about laax, dear readers? It is delicious.

And pictured here is what I imagine to be the closest thing the good country of Senegal will ever come to experiencing tuna fish casserole.


When I announced at lunch that the next day, I would be cooking an all-American favorite to share with everyone for lunch, my family was at first incredulous. Then, they instructed me to only make a little, because they might not be "used to it." (If they only knew what my stomach has had to say about that for the past two and a half months!) So I went to a nearby market and purchased canned peas, mushrooms (which they had not seen before), cream, tuna and pre-shredded French cheese of some sort. When you travel, you learn to make do with what is available. The fam looked on with curiousity and not a little apprehension as I mixed my strange concoction over the gas stove. When it was ready, I spread it out onto a platter, and invited them to dig in. Bebe Fa did, and she liked it. Bachir did not. Nor did he do anything to mask its effects from his face. The other adults were gracious with their expressions of "Neex na," "It's delicious," but their consumption lacked a certain zeal. Ilana, another American student who lives with the family across the street, had joined me for moral support. She's the one who took the picture. Laughing unstoppably at the various reactions around the platter, she and I ended up eating more than our fair portion of the American classic. For those who were "still hungry," ceebujen was served about an hour later.

There was a little left over, so I was instructed to put it into the refrigerator for later. The next day, I caught sight of my host-grandmother, who did not join the feast the day before, peeking into the bowl with a very concerned look on her face.

(In case you're wondering, I don't have any idea what the story is with that doll. I had never seen it before and have never seen it since. Sometimes it is best not to ask questions.)

I perhaps misled you when describing this humble little blog entry as a crash course in Senegalese cuisine. I definitely did when I called it a full-length feature. What I merely provided here were a few little descriptions of an every-day adventure. There is so much more to describe! I won't kid anyone by trying to convince you I am learning how to cook Senegalese food. But, there is a nice little Senegalese restaurant in Denver called "The Baobab" that I am already excited about taking people to for lunch. There, you can taste all the intricacies of ceebujen for yourself, or simply sip on the delectible, refreshing jus de bissap, made from hibiscus flowers. If you are interested, however, be aware that I will make you eat with your hands.

One Month Left

The first blog entry I ever had the pleasure of composing (at your scrolling disposal, conveniently below) was posted exactly one month before my departure. This is its twin, posted one month before my return to the States. I regard December fifteenth hesitantly, out of the corner of my eye. In one sense, I long for its arrival every day. I think about the plane that will bring me home every time one flies overhead. With the coming of every vibrant experience here, I rehearse how I might recount it as a vibrant memory at home. It is not at all that Senegal has been a negative experience, but it has been hard. Still, I feel like a kid who has been homesick all summer only to realize, in the finality of mom and dad rolling up in the minivan, what fun summer camp has actually been. I have missed home for two and a half months now, but I have always known exactly when I would return to it. When I get on that plane in a month from today, I will begin to miss Senegal indefinitely.

I still have much to do between now and then, though. In the middle of last week, the SIT program began the period of the ISP: Independent Study Project. The remainder of November is dedicated to individual research on a topic of interest to each student, to be summarized in an oral and written report as our final academic hurrah for the semester. I have chosen to investigate the role and success of child sponsorship as a method of sustainable development in rural villages in Senegal. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Sounds like I know what I'm doing. Sounds like I am totally experienced and comfortable interviewing and making contacts in a foreign country where I don't actually speak Wolof. Some cellphones sound like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. But do they really?

I am getting better at eating with my hands, at least. We had spaghetti once again just last night for dinner, and I must confess, I may have had a smug look on my face as I rolled, folded, spun and plopped the contents of my hand expertly into my mouth. My family may have wondered what I was looking so smug about, especially when the inevitable few morsels landed on my lap. I think I have progressed rather well, nonetheless.

Which reminds me: tune in next time for a full-length special feature on food!

Snapshots

On 3 November 2004, I remember driving up to Boulder nervously, listening to Ben Folds Rockin the Suburbs to distract me during the drive. I was headed to Red Robin to meet up with an intriguing guy I had recently met. He removed his hat for dinner. He paid. He walked me to my car. He neglected to ask for a second meeting. And so Mike and I parted after juicy burgers and long conversation, neither of us certain of whether we had just gone on a date or not. As it turns out we had.

Soon we will upgrade to a new anniversary, a "real" one, if you will, but this is to say that I love you Mike, and going to dinner with you two years ago was the best choice I ever made. Here's to many more years of meals together!

But for now, I am indeed still in Senegal. My mother recently requested more photos, just to make sure I'm still alive. While actual pictures are not quite available at this moment, I do have some verbal snapshots of this past week. Two days ago, I returned from our second and final village stay, based out of Kedougou, the largest city in Southeast Senegal (See the maps below - thanks Mike!). Italicized are extracts from journal entries I made en route.

On 24 October I departed via bus for Kedougou. Once out of the city, I got a good long look at the savannah from my coveted window seat:
The landscape rushes by, endless green. The grasses and undergrowth have never scratched my ankles as I trod on them. I've never run my fingers over the bark of these trees, or stared into their branches at the sky beyond. I've never plucked their leaves to rub between my fingers and release their fresh scent. These plains are a cousin to those I know so well, and yet they are so unfamiliar. A farmer's head bobs above the green, the rest of his body hidden by his crops, his livelihood. Every so often appears a collection of roofs shaped like Hershey kisses, half-melted in the thick heat of the savannah. A life-long home to how many?

After a while:
To stretch our legs a bit, our group dismounted the bus to walk across the bridge above the Gambia River. Below, they were working. In Dakar, buckets are the all-purpose cleaning accessory: laundry, dishes, bath, etc. Here, it was the river. A young girl looked up to me passing above, and brightened her squinted face with a smile more warming than the mid-day sun, and waved. Next to her, a woman lost hold of a large pot she had been washing. She plunged into the river after it, surprisingly unhurried, and returned successfully to our cheers coming from above. The girl beside her had begun bathing, and was scrubbing vigorously her suds-covered body. Again, she looked up to me, again she offered her smile; it stuck with me as I returned to the bus with a warm satisfaction. I tucked her away into my memory. An hour to Kedougou.

When we arrived in Kedougou, we had a few days before dispersing into our village host families. During these days we as a group went on a couple of hikes, to my elation. The first hike was to the Beddick village of Etchwar, a half-hour jaunt up a good-sized hill several kilometers outside of Kedougou:
The brush was thick enough that, although there were others several paces before and behind me, there were moments when I felt alone in my surroundings. The heat pulsated as though the literal breath of God, whispered through the waving life surrounding me. The steepness abated and I turned a corner that stretched open the landscape. Gambia stood somewhere in the distance. There was a woman working her field, the children standing inside the spindly trunk of a nearby tree. I breathed in deeply the sweet scented air, and exhaled a prayer.

Our village stay began on our third day in Kedougou. We were staying in six villages of different ethnic minorities sourrounding the city. I and two of my colleagues were placed with the Peul Bande, members of the populous Fulani people, found in many parts of Africa. I stayed in a thatched-roof hut that normally housed the village cheif, Mamady Diallo. They called me Aminata. The village was called Boundoucoundi, and its people were wonderful. It's bugs were not:
I had chicken pox when I was little, I'm sure of it. I spent a part of my childhood in the forests of Connecticut, crawling with poison ivy. I spent the other part in the mountains of Colorado, in the company of mosquitos and ticks. Whenever I am around cats, my chin gets irritated. All this and yet, searching through all the banks of my accessible memories, it is confirmed that I have never before in my life been this itchy. The itchiness that I am experiencing at this moment is the kind that distracts attention from all else, transcending mild discomfort. Ankles, feet, hands, elbows, legs, back, neck, arms. I would like to cry. I would like even more to scratch. But somehow I retain the knowledge that to scratch as I desire would only result in losing an entire layer of skin. So here I dangle, thinking of nothing but how much I itch, and how unable I am to do anything about it.

When I was little, it was quaint to say, "Don't let the bedbugs bite!" Here, it is wishful thinking.

Here are some thoughts from after my stay:
Today, I returned from a three and a half day stay with the family of the village cheif of Boundoucoundi. My feet are covered all over with insect bites, and with a vague reddish stain on their bottoms from the clay-rich soil. I am struck with an intense emotion I can't quite account for. Nine-year-old Maimouna's smile as the passed between daily chores. Aminata Ba, first wife of the village cheif's oldest son and mother of two, looking simultaneously so old and so young at twenty-two. The cheif's eyes glistening as he played with his infant grandson. When I remember these images I feel the punch of tears forming. Why? They seem so happy, seem to have...enough. I will probably never see them again, but how much of a connection could I really have had with so few words exchanged? A passing visitor in a world so constant, a fleeting presence in a thousand-year-old village. Soon or in another century, the village cheif will pass his legacy on to Souleyman. The next day, the next generation, little Bala will have become an old man, and taken his father's place as village cheif. Maimouna will marry, have children God willing, and continue grinding corn as she does each day. Maybe they will remember me, maybe I will fade. But corn will be harvested, peanuts will be shelled, and babies born, as village life continues.

After a safari-like excursion to the 100-meter waterfall of Dindefello, skirting the Guinean border, we loaded all our stuff back onto the bus for the return trip. The distance we had covered in two days on the way out we ambitiously planned to cover in one day on the way back.
Locusts. Substantial creatures of impressive hopping ability. I examined the one a foot away from my face as I did the authentic-traveller-in-Africa business of the bush bathroom stop. At that moment, I thought of how convenient a thing a tail would be. One with a nice swatch of hair at the end--a weapon, a sheild. That, or a toilet.

A final snapshot from the long ride home:
Hershey-kiss huts again, in their perpetual state of half-meltedness, dotting the landscape. Only now, the thatched roofs no longer represent an impenetrable foreigness of village life. Like the fox's mnemonic wheatfields in St. Exupery's Le Petit Prince, the huts now pull my mind immediately to the sound of Maimouna's voice as she answered her grandmother's summons, or the taste of Souleyman's attaya tea. To bedbugs and cornmeal dinners topped with less-than-appetizing leaf sauce, to tickling small children or clumsily slicing ochra. To my Boundoucoundi.