Yaasa laa togg! (I managed to “make” yaasa)

Well, when I say I managed to make Yaasa, I mean that I asked Mariama, our maid, who speaks Wolof, to show me how she made it. I’ve been wanting to learn some Senegalese cooking for a while, (as is the case with a few other things that have been tough to fit into the schedule) and I finally got my chance. Mariama laughed so hard when I got the question “Can you teach me how to cook Yaasa?” across in Wolof after a conversation about her family. (quelque chose comme “Ndax bëgg nga, mën nga ma jangale naka togg yaasa, s’il te plait?” which is a terrible attempt at a polite request because we haven’t learned that yet in Wolof class, and if I asked my host family, they would just ask her the question for me, and I wanted to try)

She and Gorgui, one of my host brothers who was around, found it hilarious that I followed her around the kitchen all morning with my pocket-sized notebook, watching and scribbling ingredients and directions in English while asking feebly constructed Wolof questions about the process. But in the end of the day, I minced two onions (soobleey? I think in Wolof) did not mince any of my fingers, and had a great time. Mariama is a patient teacher and found time in her busy cleaning schedule to talk to me, and I got the yaasa recipe, plus a few more words in Wolof.

After a while, I had to get out of the kitchen and let Mariama do her work, so I took an hour walk while the rice was steaming. It was a nice chance to get out (in general, midday is a great time to walk, because only crazy Toubabs with cabin fever (me) and those who have to be out working are on the sidewalks) Inadvertently, my path took me right by a mosque at the opportune time (Friday, for afternoon prayer), so I had to dodge traffic in order to walk behind the mats of people who were caught on the sidewalk when they had to start their prayers.

Back just in the nick of time for lunch, everyone liked the yaasa (which they claimed was my yaasa, even though I explained over and over that I cut two onions). This also brought about a new slew of Senegalese husband joking, which seems to happen whenever I do something right or make a new effort to be a part of the host family. I wonder what will happen next weekend when I attempt American food on our propane tank heating element.   

Toubacouta

Toubacouta, a very small city southeast of Dakar, but there is so much about it that I experienced to describe in one blog post. To start, our group of 18 plus Waly and Korka, who work with the program (very cool people) took a “toubab bus” on the highway towards Kaolack for a four day long fieldtrip outside of Dakar. We had a full itinerary with visits to a poste de santé (public health station), a national park (an estuary with mangrove trees), a performance by a Mandinka dance/theater troupe, a roundtable (well, round “mat”) discussion with groupements de femmes in Nema Baa (women’s agricultural and business co-ops), and a lecture by the former mayor of Sokone (a slightly bigger town) about decentralization and development in his experience. In between all this excitement was time to relax poolside at the hotel (it would have been a richer experience to stay with families in the village, but this may have been a logistical issue, in any case, I’ll take a pool even if the water was a bit murky and there were some bugs and I’ll take the first air-conditioned night I’ve spent in Senegal since our first night in the country).  

It was such a treat to eat authentic Senegalese meals with the family of Dr. Sene, the director of the MSID program, at the home of his brother and to meet some of his extended family, including the second wife of his father, who was not a young lady) and interesting to say the least to interact with a few Senegalese students, born in the area, but studying in Dakar who showed us around the village. In order to keep this blog post from getting too out of control lengthwise, here are some of the highlights of the trip

-          Meeting the groupements de femmes, in Nema Baa. These women literally work around the clock to raise vegetables and grain as well as caring for their families. In this part of Senegal, as in many others, agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, but made exceptionally difficult due to impassable or poorly maintained roads, and lack of linkages to value chains where transformation of products provides a much high margin of profit. As the women brought up in the discussion (in Wolof and Sereer, translated to French by Waly), their life is improved by pooling resources within the group, but from what I’ve seen, real potential for a life that is not plagued by back-breaking work needs better infrastructure, but alas, one of the many problems of “development,” is how to logistically move all actors from political and economic point to point when it’s not in everyone’s best interest, and often the poorest take the worst losses.

-          Watching a local soccer league game and a performance by the Mandinka dance and theater troupe. It was great to see whole communities be able to take a break from exhausting work and have the time and energy for great community bonding events. The dance/theater performance was really well done, lots of variety, and it was neat to see that even during the drama, they used a folk story in which characters spoke mainly local languages (Wolof, Mandinka) but other characters, would “comment” in Wolof, French, or even English to keep all audience members engaged. These performers were in such excellent shape, you wouldn’t believe their stunts unless you saw it, especially the fire-eater and the glass man (dancing on broken glass?!?!?). Grace, one of the group, will be doing her internship with this band, and pretty much everyone is jealous of her.

-           Visiting the national park, wildlife refuge, and planting mangrove seedlings. We stopped off at headquarters to talk to the ranger a little about the park’s history and current objectives. Then, since there was no gas at all in the town, and the mangrove area we were projected to visit required a motorboat, we put off the proposed seedling trip to visit a wildlife refuge. It felt very touristy to ride around in a random-looking safari vehicle, but it was fun to be 10 feet away from two rhinos and see some different animals. Later in the afternoon, the gas somehow made its way to the boat motor, and we were able to take a pirogue out to the mangroves. The pirogues are like long wooden canoes. Ours seated all of the group, plus the students and a small crew. Fun times were singing random songs in the pirogues as we cruised through the water, watching people harvest oysters and the satisfaction of getting to do some highly organized semi-independent work with my hands, sorting mangrove seedlings and planting them in rows. Getting to the mangrove seedling bed was another story… a story involving knee to thigh deep mud embedded with crabs… i.e. lovely bleeding cuts covered with black mud.

All in all it was an intense experience, but a good time to get to know everyone in the group better (and play old cards games like in band tour days). It will be very different in a week when I will be “on my own” i.e. not in the same city as other group members when I will be transitioning from Dakar to St. Louis (in the north on the coast) for my internship.

I hope all is well with you, your family, friends, work and study, Miss you, and hopefully I won’t be offline as much next week.   

Lekkal, Suur naa, and other useful food-related topics

So, as promised, I have to say a few words about the cuisine here in Senegal, especially since once I get back from out four day field trip to Toubacouta, I am going to attempt cooking à la senegalaise. For someone who is used to a lot of variety in her diet, especially seasonal variety, Senegalese food seems very standard and reliable so far in Dakar. For breakfast, I can always count on part of a baguette and tea before school, although I found out the first day with my host family it’s weird to not eat anything on your bread, so I’ve accepted the Chocoleca/Chocpain (think Nutella with a peanut base) that now comes pre-spread on the bread when I get to the table. So all you chocolate fans in the states should definitely come to Senegal!

Lunch (if with my host family)  at 2:30-3:30 and dinner 8:30-9:30 are usually about the same size, and are one in a selection of dishes we eat, which are 90% of the time rice cooked in palm oil with fish with a few vegetables. Since all my host siblings prefer the fish and I prefer the vegetables, I usually get as much carrot, eggplant, and cabbage as I want. Besides worrying about my slow metabolism, the food here has not been a problem, in fact, I’m not sick of it yet. I have to add that it has been mango season, so I’ve been hitting the fruit stand at lunch for the most delicious mangos at about 50 cents USD a piece. My family also varies the sauces, etc. that we eat on the rice/fish combo. There is yaasa (onion sauce), begguch (hibiscus leaf base), maafee (peanut sauce) which are my favorites, and also some red sauce with a tomato base that goes with beef or mutton and couscous when we have that.  Sometimes the rice has spices in it, and other times it’s plain, but so far, nothing has been very spicy, as long as you take care to not eat the rice directly around a pepper. I made this mistake once, and since there is no drinking during meals (only after) I learned quickly not to do that again.  

I haven’t gone to many restaurants, but the ones I’ve been to usually have a combo of the Senegalese food I just mentioned and random sandwiches, salads, pizzas, etc. There isn’t really fast food, per se but there are fruit stands, boutiques that sell drinks, snacks, and  sandwiches(sheep liver, egg, tuna, etc.), dibiteries which sell grilled meat, and pizza shops. Last night I went to Nice Cream with my host sister, which is awesome! She got a huge three flavor cone for about 3.5 USD, and the atmosphere and the ice cream was very chill (pun intended). Mostly, I drink water here, but every once and a while we have bissap (hibiscus) or bouye (baobab fruit/ pain de singe) juice or ataaya. Being a predominantly Muslim country, there is not a lot of alcohol, and what "drinks" there are in restaurants are generally not what you expect (like, some straight alcohol in the bottom of a [water] glass) and are very expensive.

 Portion sizes here are very interesting, because they are quite large for everyone. One night last week, apparently I wasn’t eating enough at dinner, so my oldest host brother told me to get a spoon (normally, I *attempt* eating with my hands) and so I went in the cupboard and got the spoon size I would use in the US. Before even sitting down, my host sister said basically “what are you doing that for, go and get a real spoon!” (the size of the serving spoons I have at home) At every meal, when someone finishes, you will hear “lekkal” (Wolof for, eat!) or if it’s me, they prefer “Il faut bien manger.” But the good news is there is usually a remedy for that, “Suur naa” or “doyena” (spelling approx.) which both mean “I’m full.”

The fun thing about eating here, is meals are very communal, down to eating out of the same bowl. There are lots of good feelings around food. Although, it has been tough to adjust to the fact that I can’t sip water during the meal, and people don’t talk too much. Another alteration is that eating in front of people is not only rude, but basically forbidden. Whenever someone brings food in the house, they offer you a bit/sip, and refusing this is difficult culturally. It’s tough when the food is a sheep liver sandwich or half a fried egg at 10:30pm, but a really cool concept nonetheless.
Another fun food related custom is ataaya, the traditional tea. The best way to describe it is a  long brewed, somewhat bittersweet tea, which you drink in the equivalent of a shot glass (not even kidding on that one). One of my host brothers makes it and he is usually off doing things, so we’ve had it twice, once on a Saturday night until 3am with all of the friends/neighbors over, which was great fun! Another treat is Thiakri, a sour yogurt with orange/vanilla flavor and millet couscous.

It will different this weekend to go into “the regions” out of Dakar, because I was told the food can be somewhat different (i.e. less rice more millet and less meat more veges).