Happy Stomach

Food is scarce, yet people are eating- including me. If there are not enough vitamins & minerals your stomach gets big and sticks out.

I get lazy when it comes to food, luckily if I'm hungry people will feed me - tizert (pounded millet)with okra or baobab leaf stew. Once I encountered BushRat stew, a local delicacy, but the taste is um, quite, yes -a bit gamey.

I try to stay stocked with eggs & laughing cow. Everything has to be bought at market or the Big Town. Tomatoes too but that's harder cause they get squashed and go bad. There's tomato paste in small tins which I just learned to open - rub the tin fiercely on a stone until the lip just peels away! Clean & pretty.

But the price of a can will also buy me local chop - my favorite being sold in the AM between 7-9ish (Rice & Beans- it's just rice in the afternoon). If I happen to have woken up energized and fetching water I will often stop and get some in a bag then eat it for lunch and dinner with additions.

Sometimes I have hot smooth porridge from a neighbor made with millet, ginger and other nice things. Sometimes I save that for dinner too. It is good with local peanuts which I can get by walking around since people are cracking them all day. Another yummy treat is KuliKuli- a large ring shaped crunchy snack made of pounded & fried peanut- each costing a penny and good with tea.

Though people cannot drink tea without bread which is very funny to me since I drink tea almost daily, whether it being morning chai with local honey & milk, afternoon lukewarm tea cooked by the local sun with sugar, or night tea- an herbal blend or mint if my stomach aches with Ghardia which comes and goes. Look it up. But don't worry, I take antibiotics- sometimes.