The Food Situation.

I have internet again!

I have too many things to say. I don't know where to start. For lack of a better starting place, some notes on the food situation in Burkina:

-       The staple food is called to (a.k.a. sagbo in Mooré). It is a whitish paste made out of corn or millet flour and water, kind of similar to polenta but without the butter and cheese, or, the things that make polenta exciting. They cook it in a big pot and then let it cool until solid, and then eat it with sauce. My family usually serves it with 2 sauces that you mix together in your bowl before adding the to. One of them is a reddish oily fish sauce, and the other one they call gumbo. There’s something slimy in it, presumably okra, and they also add in some kind of leaves, maybe baobab leaves? A lot of other trainees hate to. I kind of like it.

-       Another standard food is benga, which is a dish of black-eyed peas, served plain on a plate by itself as a meal. They usually give you palm oil to pour over (for flavor?) or spicy pepper flakes. It’s palatable with the pepper flakes. Sometimes it comes mixed with rice when it’s fancy, or with caramelized onions on top. Whew.

-       Other staples: riz sauce and riz gras. Riz means rice. Riz sauce is usually a safe bet. The sauce has different things in it depending on where you go, but it’s usually a neutral brown color, with different combinations of stewed vegetables and meat. They also eat a lot of spaghetti and macaroni with oily tomato sauce. Also couscous. Also plain flavorless soft white bread in the form of rolls or baguettes, which they fold into thirds and hand to you in a black plastic bag.

-       Lest it sound like there is nothing but starches here, which is only 95% true, there are also cucumbers that you can sometimes get in a salad with a garlicky aioli sauce that is pretty good, and also, separately, all kinds of mystery meat (I don’t ask) in a rich brown sauce that they call soup, but which is too rich and salty to eat by itself. You can also get peanut butter at the market, which they scoop out of huge bowls into little plastic baggies. I think we Americans are the only ones who eat it on sandwiches; the Burkinabè sometimes use it in sauces. Oh, also the yogurt is pretty great. It is plain and lightly sweetened, and sometimes they serve it with millet mixed in. The mangoes and bananas are also excellent. The cheapest mangoes are as little as 5 cents each, and the bananas are a little more. I am slightly allergic to mangoes.

-       My host family gives me hot water and sugar cubes and powdered milk at breakfast. It took me awhile to figure out what I was supposed to do with them. Did they stop at that point before buying me coffee granules? It seems to be the case. (People drink a lot of powdered Nescafe here.) They looked at me weirdly when I brought out tea bags. They looked at me more weirdly for not adding sugar to my tea. Repeated statements of “I don’t add sugar to my tea” led to blank stares, as did my attempts to explain why I don’t eat the plain white bread with mayonnaise on it. Oh well.

Overall, I feel that the pleasure that I get from eating has diminished significantly since my arrival here. I used to get really excited about meal times, but now, it's just eh. I don't mean to sound that negative about it. It's just different. Maybe once I get to site and I start cooking for myself again, I'll feel more ownership over it and I'll enjoy it more. On the plus side, at least I'm not craving cookie dough every night anymore.