It’s been a while since I last posted, but admittedly that post was a tad lengthy so I wanted to give you all time to recover. And as I mentioned, I’m now staying in Dakar for a bit which means I’m back in a routine which means I have less exciting news.
However, I did have my first substantial experience with being sick here last week. I’ll spare you the gory details but I had to rope my friend Lucy into taking me downtown in a taxi so I could get a malaria test. Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but it was election day (for the mayors of each neighbourhood) and we had been told repeatedly not to leave our houses. But when you have a fever climbing and approaching 40 C while your host family is telling you to drink water and you’re thinking, oh, great, I’m going to be delirious soon, you do what you have to. And it turned out that downtown was deserted so we didn’t have any problems. And I didn’t have malaria. I’m thinking it might have been Giardia, everyone’s favourite parasite, but whatever it was I’m doing better now.
As for the election itself, the results spoke clearly of a dissatisfied Senegalese public. The president, Abdoulaye Wade, had endorsed mayors of his party, Sopi, and yet very few of the Sopi candidates won (even Wade’s son lost, and promptly hopped a plane to go live in France). The big winner (by a landslide margin in most neighbourhoods) was a coalition of opposition parties in whom the citizens have placed their hope for change.
And now our new and exciting theme: beverages! Which could also be labeled as: “copious amounts of sugar!” since for example my teacher regularly adds 4 cubes of sugar when preparing a glass of powdered milk, and all other beverages are also heavily sweetened.
My favourite beverage here and the one most emblematic of Senegalese culture is Attaya, or tea. Making and drinking attaya is a group event, often taking a couple of hours to drink three rounds of tiny glasses. The tea itself is gunpowder Chinese green tea and is boiled in the water along with vanilla sugar until the tea is very strong. At that point one of the small tea glasses (probably double the size of a shot glass) is filled and the process of pulling the tea begins. To pull the tea, it is poured carefully back and forth between glasses so that a layer of froth remains at the bottom of each glass and the tea to be drank can be poured over top, leaving the frothy layer floating. While it sounds like a simple process, I definitely need some practice as I have dumped entire glasses of tea on the ground and myself more than once. Such difficulties have led other students to cleverly pour a bit of tea into a bottle and shake it vigorously as a spill-proof method. Once the tea is poured, everyone is served their glass and is to drink the tea in a slurping fashion, letting out a subtle sigh of satisfaction after each sip (the legend is that once a guest at a man’s house didn’t let out the appropriate sigh after each sip, and the man stabbed him in the stomach at which point the guest made the right sound). And once all that is done, it’s time to prepare round two! It’s most common to prepare three rounds of tea: the first is bitter like death, the second sweeter like life, and the third sweetest like love. Many families make attaya every afternoon, others prefer to make attaya with friends late at night. Whatever time of day it’s always a great time to sit around and talk with family and friends, a tradition that I’m hoping to bring back with me along with some tiny tea glasses.
My favourite beverage here and the one most emblematic of Senegalese culture is Attaya, or tea. Making and drinking attaya is a group event, often taking a couple of hours to drink three rounds of tiny glasses. The tea itself is gunpowder Chinese green tea and is boiled in the water along with vanilla sugar until the tea is very strong. At that point one of the small tea glasses (probably double the size of a shot glass) is filled and the process of pulling the tea begins. To pull the tea, it is poured carefully back and forth between glasses so that a layer of froth remains at the bottom of each glass and the tea to be drank can be poured over top, leaving the frothy layer floating. While it sounds like a simple process, I definitely need some practice as I have dumped entire glasses of tea on the ground and myself more than once. Such difficulties have led other students to cleverly pour a bit of tea into a bottle and shake it vigorously as a spill-proof method. Once the tea is poured, everyone is served their glass and is to drink the tea in a slurping fashion, letting out a subtle sigh of satisfaction after each sip (the legend is that once a guest at a man’s house didn’t let out the appropriate sigh after each sip, and the man stabbed him in the stomach at which point the guest made the right sound). And once all that is done, it’s time to prepare round two! It’s most common to prepare three rounds of tea: the first is bitter like death, the second sweeter like life, and the third sweetest like love. Many families make attaya every afternoon, others prefer to make attaya with friends late at night. Whatever time of day it’s always a great time to sit around and talk with family and friends, a tradition that I’m hoping to bring back with me along with some tiny tea glasses.
In terms of drinks that you buy on the street, café touba is definitely the most popular. Everywhere you go you see little rolling Nescafe carts or men carrying around a silver pot full of steaming coffee. All coffee here is instant, and café touba in particular has added spices and sugar (of course). Add to that a little froth on the top from pouring the coffee back and forth a few times, and there you go!
As for juices I’ve already explained the baobab juice made by stirring dried fruit into water until it dissolves, then adding sugar and possibly a bit of pineapple juice. It’s definitely my favourite juice here, and I’ve heard rumours that baobab powder is now being imported into North America: definitely something I have to look into when I get home. Other local juices are much more colourful that the white baobab juice, including the bright red bissap, brown tamarind, yellow ginger, and green dita (a local fruit). Once you start mixing these together (the most popular mix being baobab and bissap) the sky’s the limit!
The ubiquitous beer here is Gazelle, brewed in Dakar and served in a large green bottle. I’d offer you more information, but I’m not a fan of beer so although I’ve tried it, a reasonable description is beyond my capabilities.
And finally: while most students don't drink tap water directly, almost all of us drink the filtered water which removes particles but probably not a whole lot beyond that (and leaves the chlorine taste firmly intact). I've been drinking filtered water since my arrival and haven't had any problems. Yet when travelling within Senegal I try to play it safe with bottled water, as we did on our Tambacounda trip, and you can see below what a four day water supply for seven people looks like.
That about sums up the drinks here, so until next time (which I promise will be sooner rather than later . . . time just goes so quickly sometimes)!
2 comments:
I've just arrived in Dakar and read your post with much pleasure. I have seen the little coffee cart go by just about everywhere I've been and will definitely give it a try.
I came across your post while running a search for "dakar filter tap water" because I am wondering about treating tap water with the "Pristine water purification system". Do you by any chance know of any one that has gotten sick after treating and drinking water this way?
Thanks for any info you can provide!
Jean-Philippe Valois (Montreal) writing from Fass near Canal 4 near the Western Union near the Place de l'ONU, right next to the Blaise Senghor center.
The drink isn't called baobab. It's called "bui" pronounced:bwee
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