Quick glimpse into a few everyday activities
Weekend breakfast with my siblings: On the weekends we all eat together. Everyone leaves for school at different times during the week, so ndekki (breakfast in wolof) is self-serve.
My brothers and sister serving themselves to breakfast. From left to right: Papi, Mor, and Aby. A typical breakfast includes milk (from powder), nescafe (for me), and bread with chocolate spread, jam, laughing cow cheese, or butter. The bread is what we would call a "french baguette," it is tasteless and has the nutritional equivalency of cardboard. It tastes okay if you dip it in your drink.
Laundry: maangi def foot (I do laundry) by hand in Senegal. Most Sundays or whenever I found the time, I would hand wash and line dry all of my clothes. It took me at least a month to be able to wash anything according to my host mom’s lowest standards. But by the end of my time there, I was allowed to do it by myself.
Sitting in the house on a bench doing laundry. I used three buckets: one for soaking, one for washing, and one for rinsing. I would hang the laundry on the line inside if there was not too much, if not I would put it on our neighbor's line, the Sane family, located on their roof.
Cooking dinner/lunch: Yassa Ginaar
I requested yassa-making lessons from my host mom. It is a combination white rice, seasoned chicken, and onion sauce dish that is very popular and one of the easiest dishes to learn to make. Some photos of the process:
This is where my Mom does all of the cooking. There are two gases that she cooks on, even though we have a stove she prefers the gas. The pulled-apart chicken for lunch is in the bowl. Chicken tends to be expensive, so we only had it on special occasions.
This is my sister Aby with the marinades and the chicken. My mom grilled the chicken over a small charcoal grill after she had stuffed it with spices and marinated it. I was allowed to cut onions and assist with the sauce making.
This is the final product ready to be eaten. My host mom filled the bowl with cooked white rice, the chicken, and the onion sauce. The container with the green lid is filled with piment sauce, made of very hot peppers. Each person added it to their section per their taste. I have gained a huge appreciation and taste for piment due to my Tonton Ibrahima Gueye, an uncle who eats with us. He taught me how to eat and appreciate it very well. For every meal, we sat around the bowl on benches or the floor depending on age and ate with spoons. Traditionally we would eat with hands, but my family choose to eat with spoons for sanitary reasons and for me. I can get by eating with my hand, but it is definitely a skill that is to be learned after much time.
