These are two of the most common questions people ask me. Today, I'll give you a "taste" of the answer to both questions.
Good Eats. I usually have cereal and juice for breakfast. One lunch this week I had the Senegalese version of fast food. Neighborhood Senegalese restaurants fix one meal each lunchtime. You provide your own large (mixing) bowl, and for the equivalent of 50-75 cents US, they fill it with an enormous serving of a traditional, rice-based dish. Fish and rice on Monday, chicken and rice on Tuesday, etc. On Friday, I had the beef offering--mildly spiced fried rice with chunks of beef mixed in, topped with deliciously pickled vegetables.
Otherwise, I've been alternating among several dishes my cook prepared for me (she comes every Thursday): chicken in a hot tomato-mushroom sauce, meatless chili, pizza, and meatloaf, along with rice, couscous, pasta, whole wheat rolls, and canned corn. Plus cranberry scones. Fresh fish is also plentiful here. Jealous yet?
Where's the Kroger's? As for cost of living, I just took my first trip to Le Caddie (the neighborhood market, or marché--pronounced mar-shay) since my return to Dakar. It's a mom-and-pop shop a couple of blocks from campus, owned and operated by a delightful Lebanese couple. (Many of the middle-class business owners in Dakar are Lebanese.) What I bought and how much I paid will give you a feel for the availability and cost of western foods.
- 3 boxes of breakfast cereal (including 1 Kellog's Rice Krispies, 1 Quaker Cruesli, and 1 "Temmy's Bran Flakes," from Egypt)
- 2 1-litre boxes of juice imported from France
- 3 1-litre no-refrigeration-needed plastic bottles of skimmed milk from France
- 1 litre olive oil
- 3 28-oz cans of beans (white, red, black)
- 1 medium can of mushrooms
- 3 packages of facial tissues (Kimberly-Clark)
- 1 packet (200g) of butter (French)
- 1 pkg of napkins from the United Arab Emirates
- 1 box of brown (cane) sugar (France)
- 1 bag of white sugar, locally hand-packed in unlabeled bags
- 1 pack of fresh pita bread, hand-packed in unlabeled bags
Total Cost: 30,760 cfa (West African francs), or approximately $60.00 US
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