Lékkal Bou Baakh!

Lékkal Bu Baakh is Wolof for “faut bien manger” in French and is awkwardly translated to “it’s necessary to eat well” in English. At mealtime, my entire family crowds around a large circular platter full of rice or couscous and chunks of meat, carrots and potatoes. Usually they eat with their right hands (the left hand is used to clean intimate parts of the body), but I’ve noticed that when it’s really crowded, some of them grab spoons. The first day, my host-mom had me try with my hand, but it soon became clear that forming rice balls with one hand and getting them into my mouth without making a total mess is not something that comes naturally to me. Fatimata kept correcting me, “No, no, watch me! Watch me! Do like I do!” And I would laugh and spill more rice on myself. My host-mom and sisters, broke off pieces of fish and carrot and pushed them in front of me. “Lékkal bu baakh! Faut bien manger! Eat, eat, eat!” Since then, I’ve always been given a spoon. My host-mom says that I eat too slowly with my hand to keep up with everyone, and she’s worried I won’t get enough to eat. She’s probably right. We’ve been slowly introducing fresh vegetables to my diet, and I’m still not allowed to have rice for lunch and dinner on the same day (As I already mentioned, she worries about my digestive system). And while sometimes it can be kind of annoying to have her prepare something special for me, I really do appreciate the concern; some of the other students have already complained of stomach trouble, and so far I’ve been fine.

For breakfast every morning I have powdered milk and sugar and part of a baguette with a nutella-like chocolate spread that’s made with peanuts. Everyone else has Nescafé (instant coffee) but I’m not a fan. I’m getting used to the lumps in my hot milk, but the Senegalese sugar consumption is crazy. My sister, Khady, adds 5 cubes of sugar to her [one cup of] coffee every morning. When she handed me the box, I took one, and she was like, That’s it?! Um. Yeah. Those are big sugar cubes, man.

On a completely unrelated note, I have discovered that the women here don’t grow hair. Fatimata let me examine her arm yesterday and there are little pores where the hairs would be if there were any, but it’s completely smooth. Must be an adaptation to living in a hot climate. Apparently, they don’t even have that much hair on their heads. We were noticing the first few days that many of the women were wearing wigs. My sisters said that they get weaves or wear wigs because their hair is very fine and doesn’t grow long. My host-mom has cornrows and wraps her head in brightly colored fabric.