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).

La Vie Quotidienne (a little about daily life this week)

On Monday, it was back to class, and back to paper-writing and presentation mode for school. The class schedule is getting to be normal now, as are trips to the Parcours store or fruit stand at lunch time. I’ve been missing friends and family lately (although I'm still happy and excited to be in Senegal), but also starting to get concerned as time ticks away. A part of American culture that I believe will always stick with me is the constant doubt whether I’ve been using time wisely as I could be. While I’m in Dakar, I want to have time for the small moments, like hanging out at a restaurant with friends, spending time with my host family, going to the market, etc. but it’s also important for me to do make some concrete career building steps to go along with the personal development.

Yesterday before class, I went for a walk to marché guele tapée (which I found by myself) and since I didn’t find too much there, I took a city bus to the Sandaga market downtown and actually succeeded in buying something (and letting the salesperson assume I was Canadian, as I thought the French and Americans would probably get worse prices) Everyone in my host family is doing well, elementary school teaching starts next week for Maman, high school for Theirno, and college for Amadou. Lately, I’ve been getting “cooking lessons” from Fatimata on how to operate the gas tank heating element. The first time around didn’t go so well, although I didn’t get burned. I guess I was unintentionally entertaining enough to make Thierno laugh so he had to restart the prayers he was in the middle of saying. This is probably just as entertaining as the dancing lessons during commercials courtesy of Khady, but it’s all in good fun. Gorgui, my oldest host brother who business travels, came back yesterday, which makes the mini soap opera that is my host family more interesting. Even though a lot of the conversation in Wolof (and all host family members enjoy poking fun at me for the ridiculously small amount of Wolof phrases I can say), they are always happy to backtrack and explain things, making them my go-to resource for any random questions I have about Senegal.  

This week, I’m hoping to catch up on my Skype (sorry to everyone I missed due to the last minute desert excursion) and on the blog posts (food and walking around Dakar could go on forever, so I’m trying to write them neatly, not in my normal rambling story-telling style). We are also taking a field trip to Dakar’s Chinatown today, which I think will be fascinating.

Since class is about to start, I’ll sign off now. Thinking about you all!

Ciao    

Coupures de Courant et Chameaux

So this weekend was very exciting, starting off with a talk in public health class about STD’s, HIV, etc. made more interesting  by random staff members walking in on the powerpoint presentation. It was really hard to focus, because I knew that in a few hours, I would be leaving for a weekend trip to the “desert” of Lompoul (a short expanse of sand dunes about 95 miles north of Dakar just inland from the ocean). Packing was made complicated by a general brownout/power outage due to infrastructure problems and difficulty funding the combustibles that power the system* made more complicated by the corruption (coupure de courant has become an integral part of my French vocabulary here.) Even though my family’s house does not get affected as much because we are on the same network as a bunch of embassies and hospitals, this was one of the rare times that the power was out for more than 12 hours (no storms or accidents on the grid, just a simple electricity cut) so all of the neighbors and my family were milling about outside where it was cooler. This was one of the few times I’ve had an extended conversation with my host dad, when we were talking with one of our neighbors about power outages in the US and their opinions on country development. The electricity cut issue is a grave problem here on many levels (think about doing business, medical equipment, food storage, not to mention other day-to-day activities that require electricity), and one that with the many Senegalese who have to experience the consequences on an almost daily basis, I hope is addressed soon.

*Senegal is not a petroleum producing country

Thankfully, during the night the power came back on, and I believe stayed on the whole weekend, but I lived without it as me and three other girls in the MSID program went to the desert. It was so exciting the leave Dakar, and to see some other part of the country. The Gare Routière in Dakar was the trial of endurance we had to pass to get on our desert expedition. When Lizzie described it as belonging to “one of the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno,” I was prepared for some craziness, (crowds, informality, a big space, etc.) but not on the level of what we encountered. Even as the taxi pulled up, there were already people trying to talk to me through the window (promoters for chauffeurs) which was highly irritating as I wanted time to process the situation and find a central location to get information (turns out that doesn’t exist, or if it does, you have to pass through too many overeager salespeople to successfully find it). I didn’t realize how much even something as seemingly straight-forward as transportation could be culturally influenced. In the US, I can walk into a bus station, an airport, etc. that I’ve never seen in my life by myself and anonymously read the abundance of directional signs, ask uniformed personnel for assistance, be assured of a fixed price for my ticket, and plan around a relatively reliable departure-arrival time point for the transport. For better or for worse, that’s definitely not the case here. Thankfully, we were able to get into our sept-place (think of worn-down 20+ year old extended station wagon with 2 rows of back seats which all together seat seven) and cruise down RN-2 (which I must stay, was a very nice road once we were able to get out the congested Dakar area and roll the windows down). It was different to see a lot of vegetation and small towns (and to breathe somewhat clean air!) We got so many pictures of the trees and small stands along the road side.

Once we got to Lompoul, the agent of the campement came to pick us up in an old truck. We slung our bags in the cab, and climbed in the benches in the back as it started to downpour. We offroaded it to our camp, and were totally high on life as we got soaked in the rain. The camp was neat, because were we the only ones there besides the staff. We were right on the edge of the sand dunes, and we to “deface the desert” (carve our names etc. in the sand, run up and down sand dunes, lie in the sand, etc.) It was my first time in a “desert” that looked liked the pictures I’ve seen in books, (sorry California high desert, you are in another category). After our chameau ride (camels!) which was really fun, we had appetizer and dinner (which I must say, for a collection of tents without electricity and little running water if any was like dining in a five star restaurant. We feel asleep under the stars (well, at the edge of the dining/hang out tent) after watching the sunset and the lightning from a distant thunderstorm. It was totally awesome (check out the pictures)! The next day, we were on our way back all recharged from being outside of the city, but had to face the gare routière in Kérébar and Thiés and an incredibly irritating sept-place driver who tried to cheat us by changing our agreement en route (all I have to say, oral contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and it’s been tough to get used to the perspective that foreigners can be perceived by some as ATM’s more than human beings).

All in all, I'm so glad I went on the trip, even if the travel was a little hectic, it was fun to hang out and see a little more of Senegal.

Pictures really do say a thousand words!

Although pictures say a thousand words, a thousand words upload much, much faster than one picture! (one minute vs forty mintues!) So I've got some catching up to do, but I don't want to hold up the lunch program at home or be late for class, so captions and pictures to follow later.

Me and my host Maman. She is a very nice lady, and has made my stay here so comfortable by teaching me some Wolof phrases and asking about my day.

The view of Mermoz Premiere Porte from the balcony. Past the parked cars (center of the picture) is Cheikh Anta Diop, one of the main drags in the area that eventually goes by the University in Dakar. You can see the cinder block on our neighbor's house, because they are in the middle of a remodel phase, like many of the buildings in the city.

 

The balcony, one of my favorite places to quick catch an evening breeze and a glimpse of the neighborhood activities. Lately, I've been stopping to play with the troupe of neighborhood little kids here on my way home from school, but keep forgetting to bring my camera!

The sidewalk in front of the house

 

My host sister Khady (left) and two of her friends during Korite, wearing Senegalese boubous. I would like to know the secret of how everyone looks so gorgeous around here all the time!

The trip to Goree Island, on the Chaloupe (ferry). This was the ferry that a few of us almost missed, so they basically hauled us on board as it was leaving (no gangplank!).

The beach on Goree Island, it was picturesque other than quite a bit of floating trash.

The door of no return at the Maison des Escalves, a very powerful image, especially in person!

 

A baobab tree on Goree. Baobabs are important to West African culture, as they were often a meeting spot for negotiations, etc. The trees can live to be 1000 years old!

Walking through Goree Island

Walking along the shore. I found out some people swin the distance from Goree (where we are standing) to Dakar (the downtown is what you see in the distance). We went swimming at the beach, but definitely not all the way across the harbor.

 

The Chaloupe again, but I had to add this picture, because the name of the boat is "Beer" Waly the program coordinator probably thought I had sunstroke because I kept laughing at the name.

WARC, my new school in Dakar.

The courtyard of WARC where we hang out to eat, chat, and do homework (so usually there's a lot more people milling around)

Look out for the bones

Yesterday at 4am we sent off Kaya aka “Haby” to Louga, where she will be for a week. I felt so bad for her because she hasn’t been feeling well, but I hope she likes Louga and learns a lot.  5 hours later was the 3 hours of Wolof class (still like Wolof interrogation, but hopefully with more vocab it will start becoming more of a conversation). We have a lot of catching up to do because our class (they divided us into two classes of 9) convinced the Wolof teacher to tell tales out of school about his time teaching Peace Corps volonteers rather than actually teaching Wolof grammar etc. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much during a class in a long time! It was good stress relief if nothing else. I haven’t been speaking much Wolof lately, but yesterday I started practicing again with Maman, and I had another good conversation (as much as I could in Wolof) with our maid, Mariama, who has taken up the “Ngone Ndiaye” name game along with everyone else. This makes me feel more at ease, because I have never been in a situation where there is a maid, so I was not sure how to act towards Mariama, especially since she speaks about as much French as I can speak Wolof. Overall, I’m thankful my family is very indulgent of my curiousity and likes to hang out with me, even if we don’t really go anywhere or do much.

After class, and lunch of the classic Cebbu jen (later this week, I think I’ll need to dedicate a post to the food situation in Senegal, because it is interesting), I went on an expedition to change over more dollars to CFA. This was only my second time ever changing currency, so I wasn’t as savvy as I could have been. Sometimes, I feel inadequate, because people want to speak to me in English if I don’t catch the French the first time, like at the bank. Usually, it’s not the French that’s the problem, but making out the words over all the background noise in Dakar, or if there is a quick topic change in the conversation and I have trouble matching the sounds with the category of words I was expecting to hear. With my learning style preference for visual and my mediocre hearing, it’s also been tough picking up the Wolof at the rate I did French, because I don’t have the recourse of reading books, articles, etc. to learn words as much as in French or in English. Afterwards, as a treat, I bought some Bouye (Baobab fruit) juice for the family and a Jeune Afrique news magazine for myself for when I’m up in the morning and no one else is available to talk.

Even if I was the bumbling American at the bank, I was thankful to have my CFA and that later in the evening, I got to go jogging on the Corniche, one of the nicer paved roads in Dakar that follows the western shoreline. It felt great to do cardio again, to not have to speak any langauge, and to be able to outrun any commentary on the street there may have been. Later in the evening, we had Cebbu jen again, but it was funny because whenever we eat fish, Maman will randomly say in English “Look out for the bones,” the family joke lately. I’m not really a fan eating fish in any form, especially not when it’s staring at me from the plate with its empty eye socket, tail, skin, and lots of small bones. I’m proud to say that I have been able to get over the disgust I have towards fish to the point where I can eat the necessary bites to make my host family happy, and we’ve even turned it into a joke.

As much as we eat fish around here, and I hear random “look out for the bones,” in mealtime conversation at home, it struck me as a good metaphor for what I’ve learned here, on the ground, about culture (I’ve had a lot of unstructured internet-free time here (read, bordeom), so please pardon the metaphor.) So much of our culture is fundamental to who we are and how we operate, like a skeleton, but it is also hidden too. It is great, and interesting to discover, which has made my stay so far in Dakar both fun and informative. But some you come across, and choke on, either because it’s difficult to get around or you weren’t expecting it. For me, it’s been the difficulty of planning my day, an essential part of my life in the States, when few people around me here regularily plan, or at least make plans in ways that I’m aware of and understand.Hopefully, as I get better at “looking out for the bones” and learn more about the day-to-day life of Senegalese people, I’ll be able to incorporate the things I want to do and places I want to do with everyone else’s days. In the meantime, at least I have jogging now as an option to fight the cabin fever I get so easily and the mental boredom should go away as I start pondering my research questions for my paper and finding ways to get answers for them. Also, I’m curious to see how daily life changes when school starts up, as everyone in my host family is either a student or a teacher, the start of school should bring some interesting happenings and news.

Look forward to more news soon! Salutations          

Demander la route…

Ok, back to the wifi and back to work after a very relaxing weekend in Dakar, especially with the cooler evenings after hot mornings. On Friday, after public health class (which, I have to say, is turning out to be one of my favorites even though I am auditing it, if only I could get my interest in biology/health to fit in better with my carrier plans!)I chilled at home with my host family, watching music videos on TV, because sadly I was too tired to go anywhere, plus I was needed for some translation at home too. Now that Amadou, one of my older brothers is back from his volunteer work in St. Louis, conversation is more interesting with another person, especially when he throws in some random English with the Wolof and French. Even though I speak English with everyone in MSID, English sounds weird when I speak it at home with my host family, because we always speak French.

Also my host papa has been more talkative lately which is cool. At home I’m blessed to have a dad who spends time with Mom, Robyn, and me when he’s not working and “bothers” us to find out how we are. It’s been a bit of a cultural adjustment here, but I think Papa Ndiaye likes me well enough. Last Friday, a cousin and his wife (very nice people) came over, and he introduced me to them. Maman, Papa, and I talked about what I thought about Senegal, and what I am learning at school. It was a surpise when the relatives asked me a question in Wolof, which Papa translated as “demander la route” or basically asking my permission to leave. This was interesting, and definitely an honor, as I’m a visitor in the house.  

Saturday morning, I walked down the road to “My Shop” a round-the-clock convenience store cum internet café which turns into a sort of buy-and-mix-your-own-drinks bar after sundown (there’s really no US equivalent to this that I know of) to email in my paper on the role of women in Senegal. I was very proud of myself, because I made it there without being hissed at once and was only honked at by taxis two times, so I must be catching onto the secret of how to be somewhat inconscipucous xonq-nopp (another sobriquet for caucasians here like toubab, I think Maman said it means “red ears”).

At least, navigation is coming a lot easier and I’ve had a better time of directing taxis (and dealing with my absolute aversion to them), except for Saturday afternoon when getting to Yoff beach would have been a total fail without the help of a nice French-speaking fish merchant. He helped me find the rendez-vous point with the rest of the group from Sacre-Coeur on the beach, which was a much larger area than I expected. So far, Yoff has to be my favorite beach: minimal garbage, not too crowded, sandy, and gentle waves. I’m definitely going to miss living less than a mile from the ocean when I go back home. Although, I need to do a better job of taking advantage of things like the beaches while I’m here, but it can be tough to organize everyone with sporadic internet, and the school schedule.  

Even if I haven’t gotten out in Dakar as much as I would like, I’m discovering things that truly are cultural that I take for granted as being universal which in itself is a good lesson. Take navigation: on Sunday, round two of finding the church did not involve walking through the HLM, but even showing the taxi driver the map with the church location circled did not result in a straight shot there. When the driver turned off the VDN (a highway) too early, I expected he would have gone back to the VDN to find the next exit according to the map and try that, but instead he stopped to ask a few people where the church was. After stopping by a large Catholic church, and the old location of the Methodist church, we were directed to the new location. Distance is also very different, given the poor condition of many roads (especially after a rainstorm) and at times heavy traffic (not just cars, but also a variety of buses, car rapides, trucks, and along the sides, carts and pedestrians.) Even something like Yoff beach, which is only about 4 miles from my house is what my host sister considers “far.”  As I get to know the city better, I think I will be adding onto my “taxi stories” but even that is a part of the experience.

Peace from Senegal, and I miss you all. Hope fall is treating you nicely back at home.

A Baptism and a Funeral

Monday afternoon was a very exciting day because I had the chance to go to a Baptism party after class. The baby’s dad is a part of my host dad’s extended family, and I got to meet 50+ family members and close family friends. Although I had to miss the ceremony that was during my morning classes, I heard they chose the baby’s name and whispered “Amadou” in his ear. Little Amadou was very precious, and miraculously, slept completely through the din of the party. Most of the conversation was in Wolof, but it was fun to observe the family socializing. The closeness and chatter reminded me of the funeral reception I was invited to last week for a close neighbor, although there was also a lot of praying and eating of couscous at that celebration. At the funeral, there was also a rotation of people who would sing to their respective Muslim religious leaders (in Arabic) and it was interesting to observe the diversity of neighbors and family at the reception, most were Muslim, but belonging to different sub-groups and I believe I saw the Catholic neighbors too. It was nice that my host family invited me to the reception, and brought me up to introduce me to the family of the deceased so I could shake their hands. I was thankful that it was not necessary to wear a head-covering at the baptism like it was at the funeral reception, because it was very hot yesterday.

 At the baptism, while everyone was chatting, I played with 2-year-old Ahmed (who didn’t care that I can’t speak Wolof), and found out he was a big fan of my sunglasses. This resulted in an adorable picture, but since I forgot my memory card yesterday, that will have to wait until I have the camera adapter.

A big surprise for me was when all of a sudden, the griot showed up after the lunch. I was confused because this lady (at the time, I didn’t know she was a griot) did not have the family resemblance and when she spoke to me, her French was heavily accented. So, I was quite confused when she dropped a 5000 cFA note in my lap and started talking fast in Wolof. Everyone around me was laughing at us, and thankfully, my host sister Fatimata bailed me out and gave me a coin to give back to the griot in addition to her 5000 cFA. She explained later, that in modern times, griots find out about occasions and go around flattering party guests to ask for money. So much for the historian-diplomat-advisor-musician griots I learned about in African history class, I got to meet the party-crashing variety. My host family was laughing hysterically about this, because the griot was making a big deal about my appearance (I was the only étrangère at the party) especially round face which is not really a common feature in Senegal. Even though I’m able to pass for French, British, German, or Canadian around Dakar with my level of French, unfortunately there is no escaping standing out in a crowd, especially when there are vendors, taxis, and apparently griots involved.