What I eat

One week I decided to write down all the meals I ate. I thought it might make for an informative, if boring, post that could give you some insight into the typical diet of my Gambian family and me. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a particularly atypical week. Potential reasons:

1. Amadou’s new wife, Jainabou, is now doing all the cooking; perhaps she favors different recipes?
2. None of the crops are ready for harvesting yet, so the family is short on money
3. Peanuts, in particular, are unripe, with the result that the local peanut butter is very expensive, with the result that we have rarely been eating the peanut butter and onion sauce that in a typical week would be eaten quite frequently.

Note: Portions this week were particularly small, so I supplemented the following meals with snacks of popcorn, Maria crackers, or oatmeal, and once, a full can of HEINZ BEANZ “Baked beans in a deliciously rich tomato sauce.”



1.

• Breakfast: None, Neene tells me later this was because we are completely out of rice. I bike to the market and buy some more.
• Lunch: Rice with sauce of peanut butter, onion, tomato paste, dried fish, Maggi cubes
• Dinner: Leftover lunch, but with the addition of fresh chili to nibble on

2.

• Breakfast: Rice porridge (gossi) sweetened with sugar
• Lunch: Rice with sauce of red palm oil, macaroni, dried fish, and potato (!)
• Dinner: Leftover lunch

3.

• Breakfast: Gossi
• Lunch: None, out of rice. But when I go visit my husband’s compound, Sinni’s mother invites me to share her bowl of rice with sauce of red palm oil, macaroni and fresh fish
• Dinner: Rice with baobab leaf sauce

4.

• Breakfast: Gossi
• Lunch: Rice with sauce of red oil, onions, macaroni, and fish balls
• Dinner: Leftover lunch

5.

• Breakfast: Sour milk poured over millet that had been cooked so it became a solid blob
• Lunch: Leftover breakfast and some of my husband’s food bowl (rice with sauce of red palm oil and okra)
• Dinner: Rice with sauce of red palm oil and a ridiculous quantity of onions topped with bitter tomatoes boiled so as to be unrecognizable. Seriously. At first I thought they were large pale fish balls, then I thought maybe biscuits, but they were too moist looking. Seafood of some sort? But scallops would be impossible. Oh…bitter tomatoes. Topped with crushed dried chili pepper to taste.

6.

• Breakfast: Gossi sweetened with sour milk
• Lunch: Bread torn into bite-sized pieces and soaked in sour milk
• Dinner: Rice with sauce of red palm oil, peanut butter and chili pepper

7.

• Breakfast: Gossi, unsweetened
• Lunch: Leftover breakfast, I thought, then the actual lunch was brought out: rice cooked with red oil and okra topped with bitter tomato and crushed dried chili pepper
• Dinner: Fatou Bobo’s mystery meal (I couldn’t see what I was eating but briefly). Rice cooked with red oil topped with bits of fresh fish (?) macaroni and leaves (??).

Then I felt like torturing myself, so I looked through the list of meals I’d eaten in Sweden. Here’s one week:


1.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwich of shrimp, mayonaisse, hard-boiled eggs, tomato and cucumber; coffee
• Dinner: Sauce of ground beef, tomato, onion and other vegetables; rice; salad of lettuce, watermelon and corn; cider
• Dessert: Strawberries with chocolate ice cream; tea

2.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwiches of caviar, liverwurst, ham, cheese, cucumber and soft-boiled egg; cider
• Dinner: Pork fillet baked with tomato and cheese; potatoes; salad of lettuce, kiwi, watermelon and corn
• Dessert: Princess tort; tea

3.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwiches of caviar, liverwurst, ham, cheese, cucumber and sausage
• Dinner: Curry chicken with apricots; rice; lettuce and tomato salad; red wine
• Dessert: Princess tort; tea

4.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream; milk
• Dinner: Fried egg; sausage; pickled beets; pickles; potatoes; crispbread with cheese; cider
• Dessert: Chocolate cake with whipped cream and strawberries

5.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwiches of lax; tomato soup
• Dinner: Meatballs; potatoes; lingonberry jam; cider
• Dessert: Chocolate and vanilla ice cream; strawberries; tea

6.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwiches of lax, liverwurst; hallonkräm; milk
• Dinner: Blood pudding; bacon; lingonberry jam; cider
• Dessert: Cookies; bun; tea

7.

• Breakfast: Fil with cornflakes, muesli, and sliced banana; orange juice
• Lunch: Open faced sandwich of egg and anchovy; pear juice; coffee
• Dinner: Salmon baked with crayfish and cheese; spinach sauce; potatoes; pear cider
• Dessert: Chocolate cake; tea

"Even a woman would be okay"

I met the man who painted Kairaba’s new house, which is now a nice shade of blue inside. The painter speaks some English, but we converse in a sort of Englaar or Pulish, with occasional French words tossed in to annoy me.

He asks if I could help him to have a correspondance with a painter-man in Europe. “Or even a woman would be okay,” he adds. I tell him I’ll see what I can do. He elaborates a little on how wonderful it would be if he could have a correspondence. I ask questions hoping he will explain what type of painter-man he would like. Someone who paints walls, or pictures, or...?

Instead of an answer I am reminded that, "Even if it is a woman, it is good... Actually, a woman would be better."

"Okay, I will ask..."

Naming Ceremony!

Baby Musa has been Musa for nearly ten months now. These photos are of the day he had been Musa for nearly one day. You will observe that he does not look nearly one day old. That's because he isn't. His naming ceremony was not until a few weeks after his birth.

Fatou Bobo and Musa receiving visitors
the morning of the ceremony.

Musa looks perturbed because someone drew him a set of eyebrows.



That cooking pot is FILLED with delicious benechin,
if I remember correctly.



Every time I removed my camera from its case, a group of
children would appear and pose themselves before me.
I didn't have the heart to say I'd wanted to capture general
pictures of the scene as whole, so I instead I have lots of
photographs of children. They're the same thing, really.

Ticks!

Isatou Pippi taught me the Pulaar word for tick and described how they will drink a dog’s blood until their body gets big. She asked if Levi had any ticks. I said he did not.

I tried to continue the conversation with an attempt to describe Lyme disease, which is all I really know about ticks. The best I came up with was “America also has ticks. But in America if a tick drinks your blood, you will be sick.”

Isatou Pippi had nothing more to say.

Neither did I.

Ticks make for really boring conversation.

D.I.Y: Mr. Mushroom Head!

Materials: a large mushroom, assortment of small twigs

Step 1: Poke the small twigs throughout the mushroom. Different twigs can represent different body parts, such as eyes and ears.

Step 2: Use a twig not already stuck into the mushroom to draw a nose by scraping an indentation into the mushroom.

Step 3: Find more mushrooms and make a Mr. Mushroom Head for everyone in your family!