I've been chillin au Senegal.
There are a couple of awesome Senegalese things in this picture. My brown bag on the ground (thanks Aunt Laurie), the mat on the ground that is the dining room floor eating zone, and the purple cloth (called tissue here) that Leanna ended up getting tailored into a dress.
Bissap: the national drink of Senegal
Its tasty, full of antioxidants and good for the brain. Drink it if you are tired, stressed, or thirsty. People sell this stuff everywhere and its also a common beverage at parties BYOBissap
Ingredients:two to three cups of dried hibiscus flowers
one to two cups of sugar
optional:
sprig of mint
one cup pineapple juice or orange juice
1. Rinse the dried flowers in cool water.
2. In a pot heat two liters of cold water. As soon as the water begins to boil, add the dried hibiscus leaves. Immediately remove from heat and let the flowers steep for ten minutes. Pour the water from the pot into a pitcher using a strainer to separate the flowers from the water. Stir in the Sugar. Add the other flavorings (if you want).
3. Add ice and chill completely
4. Serve anytime, and especially with ceebu jën or poulet yassa (ill hook yalls up with those recipes soon)
Now I'm working on the value of local foods in nutritional security and malnutrition for IDPs, irregular migrants, and refugees in West Africa. Check this out about the moringa tree. The peace corps and other agricultural development organizations are doing work on microgardening and school/community/health post gardens. I think its all fascinating.
We started working on this because of the growing food insecurities in West Africa, specifically the crisis in Niger.
FEBS moves forward. New plan: big health event in July. T-shirts should be ready to go by June. Meeting with the Medicin Chef and another guy in Yoff on tuesday. Monsieur Dieng is mailing our proposal to the national malaria (PNLP) and HIV (ANCS, CNLS) initiatives so that we can have a HIV and TB testing site and mosquito net giveaways at the event. You know how it do.
