Chocolate Chip Cookies in Senegal

I decided to make my host family dinner Sunday night just to do something nice for me, since they've been wonderful. However, making an "American" dinner is pretty tough here - ingredients are hard to find, most kitchens don't have ovens, and stoves are mostly portable gas stoves like bigger versions of the kind you would take camping. I had devised a menu of spaghetti, fruit salad, and chocolate chip cookies, so I had my work cut out for me.

Luckily, we have an oven.

I found everything for chocolate chip cookies, except the chocolate chips, so I broke up some of the really good chocolate bars they have here, and had to hunt down baking soda, which is sold in little bags in small boutiques on every street. But you have to ask for carbonate, not soda du baking. Pasta and sauce were readily available in a gas station store, and fruit is easy to find here, and cheap. After several trips to several stores, I was all set to make my family their American dinner, explaining several times that there's really no American dish, because everyone in the US comes from somewhere else (to which a friend of my sister said, "C'est un 'melting pot.' "

That is, melting pot, with a French accent.

Everyone enjoyed the dinner, thanked me profusely, and told me I was "tres gentille." I was happy to do something for my host family, because they've done a lot for me, including putting up with my sometimes ridiculous French and virtually nonexistent Wolof.

But the highlight of the night was when my host sister asked me if I wanted to give our leftovers to the talibes outside. Talibes are little kids who are sent away from their families to live with marabouts, Muslim religious leaders in Senegal. They are treated horribly - deprived of education, medical care, and even the ability to take a shower. They are sent into Dakar each day to beg on the streets for money, which then goes straight to the marabout. In order to eat, the talibes ask for food, carrying around an empty tomato paste can for offerings as they navigate neighborhoods, begging at people's doors after dinner each night. Giving a talibe food is the only way to make sure you're helping him out (and yes, they're all boys). The system is very controversial, and borderline Dickensian. I was glad to give the two kids waiting outside the door the rest of the pasta. I then decided that every time I cook a meal here in Senegal, I will give my leftovers to the talibes.

I also watched "The Da Vinci Code" on TV, dubbed in French, of course.

Next Monday we leave for Kedougou - about a weeklong trip. We've been told that we might get to see giraffes, rhinoceros(es?), and lions. And that's when we'll finally get our 12-hour bus ride through Senegal, from the northwest to the southeast. I'm excited.