Must Have all the Senegalese Clothes & Food!

I started off the morning walking with my host mom and we walked much further than we’ve walked before. I jogged part of the way back and got ready for French class. In French class we ended up doing a lot of random vocabulary – with me learning the French words and even my host mom learning some new English words (sometimes I didn’t even know the English words).

Off to the market again! 

At midday I managed to get my butt to the Marche Sandaga to buy some cloth. I have two weeks left and I am determined to make one more outfit before I leave! It was quite a hassle picking out the cloth and when I did, I was pleased with my decision. As we were leaving the market what did I see but some coconuts. I had to have one – it’s been months. I drank it right then and there (no straw) and had the vendor chop up the jelly and a little ‘spoon’ for me to eat it with. It was heavenly and the jelly was nice and thick. Note to self: Must go have fresh coconuts in Jamaica.

My eating on the roadside didn’t stop there tho. Altho Coumba had a coconut too, she counselled me against buying other things on the road. But as I always say in Jamaica, “what don’t kill, fatten” – not that I want to be fattened but I still want to try stuff altho I really wouldn’t be so carefree buying on the road in Jamaica. I ate this cookie thing – it tasted coconut-y but it was kinda hard and hurt my mouth after chewing it all. Then I had this pastry that had a little fish inside – the lady wrapped it in some paper and gave it to me after dousing it with some good old sauce (Senegalese really love their sauce, any sauce). And lastly, I munched on some little coconut balls, those are my favourite now, next to those sugary balls of goodness that I can never remember the name of – (Someone just reminded me that it’s called begne – yummy begne).

Here was some begne that my host mom bought once

At La Poupponiere, I had a pleasant surprise. I had thought that Marie-Rose had already left for France, but it turns out that she was still in Dakar, just not at the orphanage. She came back with her adoptive parents to say goodbye – quite similar to the scene yesterday when Yacine and her adoptive parents were saying goodbye. 

When I returned home, I decided to exercise my lazy butt for an hour. As I pointed out to everyone at dinner after my workout – the net effect of my exercise and eating habits is weight maintenance – because I eat 3 times everyone else, LITERALLY. It was lamb and chicken and fries and mashed potato and salad for dinner. Plus mango for dessert. 

So this is not a pic of the dinner but lunch I had one day - and this was just for me (dessert and drink not till after the meal too)