Continued

Ok lets get a few more things on here.

Food. Food in The Gambia is primarily based on rice. Almost every meal will be served with some form of rice. For breakfast you might get rice with some sort of sauce over it. More likely you will get rice porridge which is very similar to oatmeal but in my opinion much better. Sometimes they will also grind up peanuts and put that in with the rice porridge. You might also get local bread for breakfast which is similar to french bread but you can get the local peanut butter to put on it. The local peanut butter is very good and similar to the natural peanut butter you can by back in the states. Peanuts by the way are the primary crop in The Gambia.

Lunch is the usually the biggest meal of the day and is almost without exception based on a large bowl of rice with something on top. They make many different types of sauces some from various types of leaves, peanuts, ect. My favorite is the peanut sauce which can be served with potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, bitter tomatoes, cabbage, egg plant, and various other vegetables. Depending on your family and how much money they have you may not have any vegetables at all. Again depending on the family you might also get some type of meat. Usually its fish because it is the cheapest. But you may also get goat, sheep, beef, or chicken. Although on one occasion I ate a Mongoose which was quite tasty. Other random meats you might have are: bush pig if your in a Christean village or compound which is not common since only about 9% of the population is non-Muslim, there are other types of bush meet including various birds, squirrel, and monkey.

Dinner can be very similar to lunch and sometimes they just eat what was left over from lunch.

Meals in the Gambia are generally eaten around a communal food bowl. The men eat together from one bowl and the women and children eat from another bowl. You eat with your right hand and make a little rice ball with some sauce and toss it back. It's easy once you get used to it. Check out the pic below for an example. Notice were all eating together (men and women) because this is the Peace Corps lunch bowl.

Thats about it for now. More people waiting to get on the computers. Talk to you later.