Monday, March 26, 2012
lunch is served
Food is a big concern when getting ready to spend 3 weeks in an African village. Even living in town I eat quite differently that I did in my former American life. Everything is done from scratch and there are a lot of things that just aren't available here. In the village there is much less available, but the real issue is that I was to eat what I was served. Thankfully the food was much better than I had expected! I was expecting to eat a lot of "to" the very thick dish resembling a big glob of cream of wheat but made of millet and often accompanied with a slimy green sauce. But they never gave me "to", I guess they had heard that Tubabu's (white foreigners) don't like it. So the food was pretty good, but I think anything gets old after you eat the same thing everyday.
Everyday for breakfast was millet porridge. Not my favorite, but not bad. Everyday for lunch was rice with some kind of sauce. In the picture the sauce has a lot of cabbage in it. It usually included one or two dried fish which they always generously shoved over to my side of the communal bowl. Thanks. Everyday for dinner was spaghetti au gras, which is spaghetti that has been cooked as follows: Start by frying a bit of chopped onion and tomato in a bunch of oil, when thats soft add a bunch of water and then some spaghetti noodles. Keep cooking until the noodles have absorbed all of the greasy water. You end up with squishy greasy orange colored pasta.
So actually the evening meal was the one that I got tired of first.
I somehow lost 5 pounds during my 3 weeks in the village. And at every meal I was urged to "eat more, eat more!"
Everyday for breakfast was millet porridge. Not my favorite, but not bad. Everyday for lunch was rice with some kind of sauce. In the picture the sauce has a lot of cabbage in it. It usually included one or two dried fish which they always generously shoved over to my side of the communal bowl. Thanks. Everyday for dinner was spaghetti au gras, which is spaghetti that has been cooked as follows: Start by frying a bit of chopped onion and tomato in a bunch of oil, when thats soft add a bunch of water and then some spaghetti noodles. Keep cooking until the noodles have absorbed all of the greasy water. You end up with squishy greasy orange colored pasta.
So actually the evening meal was the one that I got tired of first.
I somehow lost 5 pounds during my 3 weeks in the village. And at every meal I was urged to "eat more, eat more!"
me and the chief
What am I holding? In the chief's courtyard there were women spinning cotton into thread, and so they gave me a demonstration and even had me try to spin a bit. I think they had me try just so they could laugh at me. I am holding a gourd bowl with cotton, the seeds have to be picked out by hand, and then it is combed on the other thing I am holding so it gets all clean and fluffy and ready to spin.
weavers
I took a weaving class in college, I minored in Art, and it was really interesting for me to see these primative homemade looms. A bit different from the looms in that college class! Also interesting that weaving seems to be men's work, spinning cotton thread is women's work. I wonder how this gets decided.
blue sheep
One of the oddest things I saw during my village stay: they think it is necessary to wash their sheep each week. It supposedly makes it grow better. This sheep was then treated to a blue dye treatment which is supposed to make him look cleaner longer. What about washing their filthy looking dog? Of course not, everybody knows that its only necessary to wash sheep! (silly white girl)
the lucky ones
in the village
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