Food

Eat your hearts out:

These are all in my kitchen. Spices, the single gas burner, a nice photo perfectly illustrating the clash between tradition/modernity, and ONIONS for an army (or for a giant household of 14ish).

We made Ceebu Jeen (Senegal's national dish literally meaning fish and rice) with Ramadan, his sister, and their devil nephew Junior.++ 1 kilo rice =

Which you eat communially!! YUMMMMM
Junior got Cocacola in his bottle. Questionable decisions.

Then we went back and made them chicken strips and garlic mashed potatos but you all know what that looks like...

Food here is super tasty, no complaints. Per usual I'm going to be lazy and just make you a list

• Breakfast-Safeway style baguette with butter and nescafe (nothing special)
• Ceebu Jeen-fish and vegis stewed whole in a tomato-based sauce then removed so you can cook the rice in the same sauce. There's also a 'white' variety but I'm not entirely sure how you make that one other then leaving out the tomatoes.
• Yaasa poulet or poisson-white rice topped with thick onion sauce (that they also put in sandwiches, on salads, and anything else that needs a little flavor) and served with either fried whole fishies or lemon chicken.
• Maffe- beef (I think) and sweet potatos cooked in a thick tomato qnd (fresh) peanut (butter) sauce and poured over white rice or couscous. It's hard to pick a favorite but this one might be it. It's super earthy tasting and super delicious.
• Supocanja- this is the only dish I HATE here. It's a slimey okra and tomato sauce filled with fish chunks, fish bones, sea creatures and little else. It's usually poured over white rice which is nice because you can dig out the rice from below, however, my family once served it alone with spoons which was a horrifying experience.
  

Lunch is always a variant of the above dishes. I got really lucky with dinner at my house: we almost always have a salad with grilled meat/fish and onion sauce as opposed to most households' preferance for hearty starches and sauces.

love love

Out and about

Although I typically don't like talking about myself in these things (too bad that's what blogging usually entails) I feel like I should let all of you know what's been keeping me away from the glow of the (janky Senegalese internet cafe) computer screen. Here you go, another bulleted list because I love them:

• Mon-Thurs/Friday: classes, lots and lots of hours of classes. I'm taking African music and dance, Continuity and change in Senegal, History of Islam in Senegal, French lit, and Wolof. We typically have class from 9-12 and then again from 3-6. I am also volunteer once a week in a class of 5yr olds at an orphanage. I would love to be able to talk about how wonderful the volunteering has been but, unfortunately, it has been the exact opposite. It makes me realize how screwed up an education system can get. Ask me about it some other time.
• Toubab Dialaw: We spent a weekend at a pretty well-known dance school/hotel playing the jimbes, dancing, and eating delicious food. It was amazing. Check it: http://www.jantbi.org/
• Mboumba: We went here with our kooky music/dance professor to be in a music festival he helped organize. There was very little actual organization. It was somewhat like Reggae on the River in that it was along a river in a tiny village with tons of stars and mosquitoes but there was no booze or weed or dancing. There was, however, a big name star with fire dancers (Baaba Maal). Word that white people were in town spread fast and we were followed around by a herd of children the entire weekend, regardless of whether we were eating, walking, driving, sitting, sleeping, etc; it didn't matter. It was kind of like being a celebrity except we were just a silly spectacle the entire time, they even dressed us up like the locals. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for multiple reasons...
• Sin-Saloum: MANGROVE FOREST. Nuff said. This was amazing/beautiful/breathtaking. We stayed in an ecovillage which was pretty touristy but very cool regardless. Did some exploring on kayaks and on foot. Saw one of the most magical events of my life. Took hot showers. Swam. Learned pottery from lovely village ladies who dig out the clay themselves. It was supposed to be preparation for our individual village stays in two weeks but I'm not sure who they're kidding.

• All of Dakar's islands: Goree (you know about this one already), N'Gore (touristy but beachy and relaxing also only 300m off the main land resulting in a group of us swimming to the island.) Madeline (The Senegalese think this island is filled with bad spirits because there are mini baobabs and other strange wonders on the island/nature preserve, we had a left-handed redhead with us so things worked out okay. It was a nice break being somewhere that was the opposite of chaotic Dakar.)
  Love you all, enjoy the photos!!