Eating when you're hungry

These boys have just had a successful hunt for a hedgehog and a rat.

While the vast majority of food consumed in the village is millet, people supplement their diets with other things as often as possible. "Often" isn't as often as anyone would like, but they make do with what they can, when they can. Some common diversions to the regular millet routine include sweet potatoes (purchased at markets in the city) from December-March, mangoes from April-June, ansa berries (green bean-like things that grow in the bush) in June-July, locusts (caught in the fields) and wild greens from July-September, and anything else that can be caught, hunted, or picked year-round.

So what do people hunt and catch around here? I see a lot of young guys, around age 15, heading out in the evenings to hunt rabbits, rats, mice, hedgehogs, lizards, and birds. They use slingshots to hit and stun all and any of the above, and finish the job with a rock or a stick. I've seen Fachi's son, Amadou, spend hours meticulously rigging up a trap to catch birds; he used rubber bands, cardboard, and string to fashion a sort of trapdoor/headbanger thing. It took me awhile to get used to seeing boys carrying home hedgehogs and rats to cook up, but I'm used to it now. The boys are invariably cheered by their bounty, so it's hard not to share in their excitement.

Home cooking

I eat dinner with Narba's family three or four times a week. It's usually tuwo, sometimes wake (cowpeas), and a couple of times we've had dankali (sweet potatoes). Narba and I sit together, a bowl of food shared between us. The rest of the time, I cook for myself. I eat breakfast while sitting on the front stoop of my hut (usually oatmeal if the store in Konni is selling it). Lunch is usually couscous or noodles with available veggies. I buy couscous in Tahoua, noodles from Ibrahim or Ado, and vegetables from the Illela market if they've got any.

A meal of dehydrated potatoes & veggies, cooked over my propane stove

From May through August, I couldn't find any fresh veggies, and relied heavily on those that I dried previously and dehydrated veggies from home. Dinner is the same. Sometimes I have company for meals; anyone who comes over while I'm cooking is subject to it! They like a lot of what I make, but nothing tops hura.

What we eat and how it's made

In the couple of weeks that I've been home for Christmas, I've gotten a lot of questions about what I eat in Niger, and about what everybody else eats, on a normal day. The curiosity is mutual! People in my village are also keen to know what it is that we eat in the States, and I am asked about it all of the time. They guess that Americans eat a ton of meat, bread, and rice- a pretty accurate guess if you ask me! I'll try to shed some more light on the typical diet for rural Nigeriens, and also on mine.

So, first: as alluded to in previous letters, Nigeriens eat millet, every day. In my area, it is usually the only thing eaten. It comes in two main forms: as hura or as tuwo. Hura is a millet+milk=water porridge that is drunken from midmorning until night- basically, whenever you're hungry or thirsty, you take a few gulps of hura. Tuwo is a thicker millet meal that is hardier and more solid than hura; it's served with sauce made from any available ingredients (usually dried okra, dried tomato, garlic, and salt, plus any dried leaves gathered in the fields). Tuwo isn't made every day; it takes longer to prepare than hura.

The making of either hura and tuwo for a family of 10 people takes anywhere between 3 and 4 hours when the labor is shared by two or three women. A really long time. In the example of hura, you have to: 1. Carry a bundle of millet stalks from your granary to the threshing area (threshing areas are communal spaces, usually on the edge of the village, where women work together with women from other families). (10-20 minutes) 2. Beat the stalks with a stick to separate the millet from the stalks. (20-30 mins) 3. Beat the millet chaff off of the seed using a large pounder or a long stick. (20-30 mins) 4. Separate the chaff from the seed by using the wind to blow away the chaff. (20-30 mins) 5. Take the seed from the threshing area to your home. (10-15 mins) 6. Pound the seed to remove the husk. (20-30 mins) 7. Wash the husk away in water, which is then given to the animals to drink. (15-20 mins) 8. Pound the husk-less seed (the germoplasm) into a course flour. (15-20 mins) 9. Roll the coarse flour into large balls and boil them to soften them up. (15-20 mins) 10. Pound the boiled flour balls with a little bit of water until they make a solid lump of dough. (10-15 min) 11. Mash the dough in a bowl of cow's milk, add water and hot pepper, and voila! It's ready.

The sound of millet being pounded is a constant one; I can hear it before the sun comes up every morning. I'm sure you wonder what it actually looks like, so here's some video of Zuera and Mariama .

Split pea mush

Pasta (and some tuna from a care package)

9/1/08
I have gotten into the habit of photographing meals that I have cooked that are particularly delicious. For instance, today I made a split pea stew/mush with peas you sent, potatoes, onions, and cabbage that I dried last April, and BACON BITS from an ingeniously engineered care package. (Thanks, mom! The peas cook in under 15 minutes.) Dee-licious. But don't tell my neighbors that I'm eating pig, especially now that it is Ramadan.

Peas, beans, etc.

A smoky mess

Haoua: "See? It's easy!'

It was a few days before anyone noticed that I was cooking "like them." I confess to feeling very inferior and pathetic in my fire-building skills despite my years as an explorer scout, backpacker, and--gasp--firefighter--but yesterday Narba discovered me huffing and puffing over a smoky mess. (It spoke very much of her fine manners that she didn't fall over in laughter.) Instead of showing a speck of condescension, she got down on her knees and within 5 seconds--I swear--she had a blaze going. How the??
So, humbled and exposed, I once again am under Narba's tutorial care. This morning, to my delight, I boiled a big pot o' water by burning another section of my fallen shade hangar. Satisfaction! It's strange how I always considered myself fairly capable in matters like this, but that here, my state of knowledge about living in the bush was exhausted by day two. A word to the wise: surrender your silly pride and ask for help when you need it. Your water will boil faster.

A cabbage, and more

5/12/08
On Tuesday I left the village at 6:30AM on my new stallion, a brand spanking new red and white Trek bicycle. We handled the 22K to Illela in style; it took two hours! Lots of bumps, a few sandy patches, and thankfully, no close calls with trucks overflowing with people en route to market. John joined me where the road passes his village; we arrived in high style, and spent the day rehydrating, eating street food, and buying "groceries" for the week. For me: a cabbage, two mangoes, carrots, dates, two eggplants, and a little pile of sweet potatoes. I didn't expect to have so many veggies this time of year; it was such a relief. I strapped my wares on the back of my bike and bumped my way back home over the hills. I arrived in my village just before sunset to a crowd of kids. "Samsiye, you came back!" So happy.

Oh, the beans

Sampler from Harmony House Foods

I can't thank you enough for sending the delicious dried vegetables!! YUM! You went to town, and I am the lucky eater. So far I have tried and loved the spinach, peas, and cheese powder: Wow! It turns into an Alfredo-like sauce; need I say more? I'm really excited to try the meat substitutes; in an earlier packet you sent taco seasoning, so I'm going to use the "beefish" stuff to make TACOS. Oh. Man. It's so fun to watch the dried bits turn into delectable goodness...and the beans...oh, the beans...they'll be so good...

Breakfast

I make myself breakfast, and because my grandpa is AWESOME, I have lots of delicious dried fruit to eat it with. Nigeriens eat breakfast too ( that was a funny statement, wasn't it? But hey, who knew?) Normally they will eat leftovers from the night before: millet with sauce, or a drink called hura (millet with milk and sugar), or on special occasions, fried flour with sauce or sugar (think donuts!) called fanke, or fried bean balls with sauce, called sosay. I like fanke and sosay, but haven't had hura because I'm not supposed to have milk due to the presence of TB.

Jellybeans

3/24/08
Was yesterday Easter?? I think it may have been. To celebrate I just pulled out the bag of jellybeans you so thoughtfully sent me, mom. They are so GOOD. How can anything so small be so pretty and so good? My god, I think I never enjoyed a jellybean more in my life. Should I be concerned that they still haven't melted? What's in these things?

Here is how we eat.

There is a very large platter; we sit around it and eat with our right hands. Kids eat separately, on the sand, out of a big bowl on the ground. Haoua and I, or Aissa and I eat together, sitting on a mat. Most meals are rice with a sauce over it: tomato, onion, garlic, spices, sometimes with a couple of chunks of meat. A few nights a week Arziza (the dad) brings home what looks like a large rat, which they set on the fire: fur and tail and head and all, then roast it. They don't let me eat it, for which I am ever grateful.