Peanut Butter

People in my region eat a lot of peanut sauce (my family has some sort of peanut sauce with rice for lunch every day) and that means that people make a lot of peanut butter (called tiga diga) which is a key ingredient. To make peanut butter they dry, shell, and roast the peanuts over the fire, and then pound and roll them into a paste. 

My family has a grinder (it looks like something you'd use to make sausage) but it's been broken for awhile now. 

The days of grinding peanuts into butter

Since the grinder's out of commission they take the roasted peanuts, pound them with a pestle in a big wooden mortar, and then they get glass bottle and a very flat rock or a thin slab of smooth tile and roll the pounded nuts into a very smooth butter. 

Mariama Gaulo making tiga diga

It's good, if you like unsweetened, unsalted peanut butter, which I do. My family only uses peanut butter to make sauce, and so when they found out that I like to put it on bread for breakfast (which is fantastic with bananas when I can find them) they balked a little. I figure they feel about my peanut butter sandwiches the same way that I feel about their straight-up mayonnaise sandwiches -- bismillah, to each their own, but I will stick with what I've got, thanks. 

Peanuts

Honestly, before coming to Senegal I had only a vague idea of what peanuts looked like before they were roasted and salted or ground up for sandwiches. This is what peanut plants look like. They're all over the place here, and they tend to be about knee-high, but can get bigger. 

(Thanks, Wikipedia.)

This is a little bunch of raw, just-dug peanuts that one of my host brothers handed me a few weeks ago, like a little bouquet. 

The peanuts are roasted by a few of the small boys, who make a bed of coals from smoldering corn husks and cobs that they've scavenged and then push the raw peanuts into the embers, charring the shells, singeing their fingers, making me nervous. 

To me raw peanuts taste unripe, almost sour, like something you'd feed a hamster, but these peanuts were fresh, a wonderful new kind of taste I had trouble describing -- like, what airplane peanuts are to these peanuts what sushi is to canned tuna. (I like canned tuna, but it's a whole different deal.) 

They tasted warm and fresh and clean, they had a green bright flavor and a rich meaty crunch that made me think of standing in the sunshine, eating a BLT. I was hungry, and they were delicious. 

Chickens

I really like the chickens on my compound. There's one mange-y looking hen who I call The Ugly Chicken but who is the favorite because she lays more eggs than any of the other hens. Some of her little chicks have the same odd bald spots that she does, they're funny-looking. 

These little chickens like to hang out by my hut chirping and scuttling around next to my front step. They're adorable, but surprisingly difficult to catch at just the right moment in a photograph. I spent maybe 15 minutes taking chicken photos, which the neighbors thought was totally amusing and kinda stupid. 

It was worth it, though. Just look at these chickens. Fantastic. 

Sunrise

Last Saturday I got up at dawn to bike from Salémata  into Kédougou, and this was the sunrise that morning. It was cold. I wore my fleece for the first hour, and my ears ached from the chill, but it was still a pretty lovely ride. 

On Beauty

I'm very clean and dress appropriately in village and all that, but I haven't really made many concessions to the Pular ideals of feminine beauty. I don't wear earrings often, and I never wear giant shiny dangling earrings. I don't braid my hair into interesting designs, I don't wear lots of bracelets or colorful skirts or have my gums tattooed black. My host family is really nice about this, and even though they're obviously thrilled when I dress up Senewgalese-style for holidays they've never pushed me to wear dresses or anything like that. 

So, partly because I knew they'd be super into it and partly because I'm totally curious about how it works, I said I wanted to do the henna-type thing that my host sisters like so much. They call it foudin or poudin, depending on who's doing it, and it turns out that the leaves it's made from grow all around my compound. 

First, we picked leaves and spread them out to dry int the sun for an afternoon. 

Once they were dry we pounded them in a big wooden mortal and pestle and then sifted the powder, re-pounding the bigger bits until we had a smooth, green, talcum-like dust.

Then we cut up some limes, which also grow nearby, and mixed in lime juice and water until we had a nice paste.

Then we got out the tape. I did my own taping and my host sisters were very impressed, so then I had to do their taping, too. The little baggies on the left are filled with mangiac, which looks like dirty rock salt and can be used to turn the orange of the foudin into a dark inky black.

After my designs were all taped in place Mariama Kesso helped my smear the paste on.

Then, once I was all covered in leaf paste they put plastic bags over my feet and told me not to walk around for a few hours.

Once the color had set I peeled and scraped the goo and tape off and let my prune-y orange feet dry out before rinsing them off with cool water. 

Everyone was happy. My host sisters were super pleased that I'd let them help me with something, we were all fascinated with how ridiculously orange the foudin looks on my pale, pale skin, and people liked that I was looking a (very) little bit more Senegalese.

Every single time I have gone outside someone stops me to tell me how pretty my feet look. people have been way nicer than usual (they're nice usually, but even nicer now) and a fruit seller lady in the market gave me a lime for free.

On the other hand, I can't shake the constant feeling that I'm wearing little nylon socklets, which is weird. 

The Castle Gets Weirder

The castle of Salémata is owned by a very creepy old French man who I suspect can't go back to Europe because of his InterPol rap sheet. Here are some updates of the slow, bizarre progression of the construction of what I hear is supposed to be a "tourism restaurant and safari bar." (Keep in mind that donkeys are the most terrifying big game animal in village.) 

Spring 2011

Summer 2011

Fall 2011

Plant Life

What is this plant? I saw it in Tamba and I've asked around a little bit. I have no idea, but it looks like some sort of edible citrus-type-thing.

These are my favorite tall-grass-type-plants (obviously I'm not an Ag volunteer) because they remind me of something out of Dr. Seuss. The grow all around the now-dried-up cornfield behind my house.

This is a big baobab near my compound - I'm pretty sure that big branch blew off one really windy night not long ago. They call baobab bohe "bow-hey" in Pular and pain-des-singes "monkey's-bread" in French. Once the big, fuzzy, Christmas-ornament-like pods dry out people collect them, break them open, pound and sift the dry fruit pulp, and use the sweet, tangy powder to enrich porridges or make a thick, sweet nectar that people like to mix with bissap hibiscus juice on special occasions.