Tooga ak Togga

29 Mar 12

Sitting and cooking. In the village you often here your name, plus the thing you are doing. For example, my name, Mbén, yengi toog = Mbén, you are sitting, and I answer waaw, mangi toog, yes, I’m sitting. Cooking sounds very much like sitting and I often sit while they cook to watch. I feel honored to get a glimpse inside the world of the women in West Africa as it’s a sight and experience not many Westerners get.

Anyhow my baby sister who is four, I believe, hasn’t come around to me quite yet. She’s getting there but I still get the feeling that she doesn’t like me and that she might even detest me a bit. Of course without a solid foundation of the language most of this is probably in my head; case in point, I recently made up with the shop keeper that I perceived to have assaulted my 14-yr old sister the other day as I was able to hear his side of the story via my LCF which was that she was speaking to him as if he was her age mate which he is not and so he disciplined or educated her explaining that she can’t speak to him like that. It actually felt great to make amends and I’m glad my LCF took the initiative to clarify things from his end, especially since he’s the only guy I know that sells cold drinks in the town. Jamma rekk, peace only. Moving on, one evening while sitting out while my sisters cooked, my baby sister, was, I think, making fun of me for not cooking. I mean I don’t know what she was saying for sure, she could have just been saying that I was sitting, but I asked my sisters who were cooking if they wanted me to cook one night; they laughed and said, waaw. My PCVL from Senegal had my same host family two years ago and wanted to do a visit and stay for a night and so I knew I could lean on him for help with the language and offered to cook the night that Batch, his Senegal name, stayed. I think they thought I was nuts but laughed and agreed. I told my mom that I would cook pasta which there isn’t a Wolof word for that I could find so we settled on macaroni, which surprisingly, she knew.

Having it all said and done I think they thought I would just buy the stuff for the dinner and that they would cook, I don’t think they thought that I actually wanted to cook. So even with Batchey there the communication broke down a bit or they were too nervous to have me in charge of feeding the entire family which I was a bit nervous about too. So I’ll just write quickly what I envisioned and then what actually happened:

I imagined that I would be able to crisp up some cabbage and carrots and onions in the diwlin (oil), add water and macaroni, and then add the already prepared chicken and tomatoes to have a simple dinner that included veggies which dinners rarely do here, and to share my cooking with them, with spices of course.

What happened was that I had to basically boil my cabbage and carrots and onion and some turnupey thing that I thought was a potato in oil and water creating a stew. My older sister and wife (brothers wife) prepared macaroni and a sauce and the chicken on their end leaving me to do whatever which they seemed quite doubtful about. They only used two packets of macaroni which said four servings per bag and we had at least ten of us so I added another pouch to my stew. Then I thought maybe at the end we would combine efforts but they were intent on keeping mine separate. So there macaroni and chicken and sauce of course blows my bland veggie one out of the water and offer folks to eat from both bowls to sample “American” cooking versus “Senegalese” cooking. I was actually quite crestfallen when I realized we had to keep the cooking efforts separate as mine was not intended to stand alone nor does it necessarily represent an American meal. However it turned out to be just fine. I ended up mixing mine with theirs anyway. My dad was so amused and everyone was over-the-top generous about complimenting my effort making me feel like I’ve been an unappreciative snob this whole time given all their flattery. My dad said I was brave and that it was so good and that he was going to be a fat man from all the food. I have to admit, even though it was nowhere near what I had imagined, it was a pretty fun learning experience and I’m thankful that they gave me the opportunity to contribute as hesitant as they were.

Moral of the story, don’t mess with Senegalese cooking because they are on it! But now hopefully at least, people will stop harassing me to cook as I gave it a solid go. Once I get my own grass hut and cookware and gas stove I’ll be able to hopefully share concoctions I’m actually proud of, with food from my own garden! Hopefully.

Gambia is just around the corner, I can’t believe I’ve been here for just over three weeks and have yet to even see my country of service.