Our Trip to Henriette's Village

Henriette's village

Here are quite a few pictures from our trip last Saturday. Enjoy!

Poulet Yassa

Poulet Yassa

Poulet Yassa is a Senegalese meal that we eat quite often. It is Dan and Alexis' favorite meal and our house helper, Henriette, makes it for us almost every other Tuesday.

Check out http://www.gowestafrica.org/media/recipes.php for this and other West African recipes!

Poulet is the French word for "chicken". So, basically it's a meal made with LOTS of rice, a whole chicken (cut up and cooked), diced vegetables, and an onion sauce made with LOTS and LOTS of onions. Henriette used to slice 6-7 onions before realizing that was just a few too many for our taste. Even when she slices 3-4 it makes my eyes water! The onions however are Alexis' favorite part. She picks them out of the sauce and eats them like spaghetti noodles.

Our pictures include one large dish of Poulet Yassa with several spoons around it. This is how you eat with a large gathering of people. Each person has their own "pie-shaped" space in front of them and they only eat within those boundaries. No crossing over to eat something on another part of the plate! It is a little tricky to pull chicken off the bone with a spoon and you most definitely are not allowed to use your left hand to help in anyway!

There are also a few pictures from Le Ricef, a restaurant on the westernmost tip of the peninsula with a beautiful view of the ocean. Check out what Dan got for dinner. The presentation of the meal surprised him quite a bit!

Worms, worms, worms...

De-worming

We have de-wormed! What??? It is recommended that missionaries living in West Africa de-worm every 6 months. Thankfully the process is simple. Dan and I each take one pill of Vermox and the kids each drink one small bottle of Zentel. Good thing Alexis only had to drink one bottle because she didn't like the taste of it at all. On the other hand, Lucas would have taken hers too if we would've let him! What kind of worms are we talking about? Well, the kind that live in your stomach, for example. They cause all kinds of nice things I won't mention but I'm sure you can imagine. Thankfully, we haven't had to experience this and our de-worming was merely a precaution.

Fly Swatters & Mosquitos

So, I was sitting on Lucas' bed writing this blog in my mind when whzzzzzzzzz - ANOTHER mosquito flew by my ear. Aargh! Good thing we have a fly swatter! We didn't think to bring one to Africa so we consider it the best gift given to us by another missionary family. They understood the need for each family to own one!

So, let's talk mosquitos. We rarely find any in Alexis' room but there are always some in Lucas' room. Each night before we put him to bed we check the whole room and yes, they do hide in the toys but mostly on the walls and curtains. We check his room again before we go to sleep a couple of hours later. Last night we missed one so we moved a sleeping Lucas to the living room and went on mosquito patrol. Good thing we did because we got four of 'em! Then we found 2 in our room so you can quickly see how much our fly swatter gets used!

The good news is that during the dry season (right now) we have only 3 main flying bugs that invade our house and the mosquitos are the only ones we keep an eye on. The flies would rather have our food and the heart-shaped ones just stay on the walls. During the rainy season we add 2 more fun ones. Then we have mango flies which can give a person mango worms (not fun-you get rid of the possibility of mango worms by ironing ALL your clothes and yes, that includes socks and underwear). We also have these really weird slow-flying black bugs. I don't know what they do but they are certainly the least fun to look at.

Well, I was going to say on a positive note that I hadn't seen a cockroach in a long time but I got one in the bathroom last night. Rats! Oh, wait...that was just an expression! Thank goodness we don't have those too!

Park Day & Magic Land

Park Day & Magicland

The park pictures are from a playground that is next to the field where Dan plays softball. We later visited Magic Land (an amusement park here in Dakar) with another missionary couple and their son's family who came to visit from the U.S. Lucas loved having 3 more boys to play with! When we were all done at Magicland, Lucas pulled me aside and said, "Mom, they're white!" I just smiled and asked if he like playing with kids who spoke the same language. He nodded with a grin on his face. The kids had such a fun day!