A lesson in Senegalese etiquette

The bowl is placed on a mat on the ground and you’re not supposed to step on the mat with shoes on.

1. Wash your hands before eating (naturally; in my house this is done in a bowl of soapy water, then rinsed in a bowl of “clean” water-after a while, the term clean becomes relative).
3. Only use your right hand to eat.  Your left hand is reserved for other business (related to the lack of toilet paper situation).
4. Wait until the host gives the signal to start eating.  This either means they start eating themselves of they say the Wolof word “bisimilay”, meaning “in the name of God”.
5. You eat from a pie-shaped area directly in front of you, starting from the outside and working in towards the center of the bowl.  This is your “territory.”  Don’t invade other people’s territory.
6. Don’t go right for the meat, fish or vegetables; begin with a handful of rice, then help yourself to what’s in the middle.
7. If the rice it too hot to eat, you say that the “cook must be jealous” (in Wolof of course).  This comes from a scenario of a polygamous family.  Say one wife is getting more attention than the other.  If the one being ignored or treated poorly is cooking, she will make the food extra hot as punishment to her husband.  I guess it’s more of just a saying now.
8. Don’t say how good the food is after the first bite.  It’s as though you did not expect it to be.  Wait until you have almost finished to compliment the cook.
9. Often the host or hostess will distribute pieces of fish, meat, or vegetables.  Otherwise you can help yourself to what’s in the middle of the bowl because it’s considered “common territory.”
10. You should place “one of a kind” items in the middle to allow others easy access.
11. Mix small pieces of fish, meat, or vegetables in with handfuls of rice.
12. Place small bones in front of you on the mat just under the lip of the bowl.  If you find a bone in your mouth, you can take it out with your left hand.
13. Don’t stare at people while they are eating (again, pretty normal)
14. If somebody comes in while you are eating, invite them to join you.  You can invite them again if they deny it the first time.
15. Straighten up the area in the bowl right in front of you when you have finished eating by gently pushing the rice that has stuck to the side of the bowl back into the central pile that remains; this way, if someone comes in late they will find a neat spot to eat from.
16. Lick all the rice off your hand before washing up with soap and water.
17. Get up and leave the bowl when you have finished.  (Easier said than done.  Even if I’m clearly eating, every meal I’m told “mange, mange!” -eat!.  And when I’m done, the say “tu manges pas” or “tu n’aimes pas?” -you don’t eat, you don’t like it?  It’s hard not to let it get to your head, but luckily I learned the word for “I’m full”-suur na.  It’s a magic word.)
18. Don’t step over people on the mat or step over the bowl.

There you have it!  It sounds like a lot to keep track of, but most of it starts to make sense once you start eating around the bowl and it comes pretty naturally.  Lots of learning from experience and observation, more than anything else.

Speaking of food, lunch today was an experience.  It was some sort of bean/rice/spices mixture with meat of some sort.  It tasted vaguely like the smell of farm animals, so that wasn’t the best.  On top of that, there were a couple of eyeballs in the mix, along with something that looked unmistakably like tongue.  NOT COOL.  At one point, one of the men that was eating with us put an eyeball on top of the middle pile and it started to roll into my little territory.  Luckily it stopped before it really became my responsibility, but I was not having it.  And the tongue thing?  Yeah, I don’t even know.  Dinner was great though.  Lentils with potatoes and meat in a really good sauce.  In all the meals I’ve had since being here, there has yet to be a repeat.  Of course, they are all variations of essentially the same thing (rice/noodles, fish/meat, and sauce), but all very different still.  The exception being breakfast of course, which has literally been the same thing every day: ½ a baguette with my choice of butter or chocolate spread, and instant coffee with sugar cubes and powdered milk if I’m so inclined (which I’m really not).  They don’t typically eat fruit with breakfast here like we do at home.  It’s more of a between meal snack or dessert.  There are tons of fruit stands all over the place.  There’s one very close to ACI.  The man working there has been dubbed “fruit man” by the students.  We always go there, and he practices Wolof with us, which is pretty cool.

Apparently there’s a big strike starting tomorrow.  All of the public transportation workers are going on strike, which pretty much shuts down the city.  So, no school tomorrow for the kids, I still have class though.  That’s why we take classes at ACI, they’re pretty much contracted to not go on strike, so we always have class.  Also, the bakers are going on strike I guess.  So maybe breakfast will be different for the next couple of days, who knows.

One last thing for the night: people here are incredibly friendly, to the point of it being weird for Americans.  For example, Camille (a friend on the program) and I walk to and from school the same route at least four times a day.  Yesterday we were on our way back to ACI after lunch when we were stopped by a young man outside his house.  He said hello and grabbed both our hands to shake them, but didn’t really let go (don’t worry, at no point did we ever feel threatened by this man).  He was asking our names and how we were, etc.  He then said that we should come have coffee at his house after school.  Yeahh, sure, see you then dude.  We managed to miss him yesterday and most of today, but as we were walking by after class this evening, I hear my name! He actually remembered my name, which is just weird to me, though I think it’s pretty normal here.  We were already pretty far away, but he was asking us why we hadn’t come over yet.  We said we were late, or whatever, and just kept walking.  This is just perfectly normal behavior here.  Camille explained it best:  It’s so weird for us because not only are we wary of going into a stranger’s house, but we would never invite random people in off of the street.  But here, everyone is family (or is a toubab that might be you ticket to the US, but that’s a different story).