Peanuts

I love peanut butter. a lot.

Luckily for me, Senegal is pretty big into peanuts too.  We roast 'em, grind them into flour, mash them into butter, bake them into brittle (pictured at left), etc.

To get my peanut butter fix, my old skippy jars accompany me to the market about once every week or two to get filled up for about a $.50 a jar.  My current favorite combo is then to mix the peanut butter with some honey and eating that straight up or spread it on some bread at breakfast or bananas for an afternoon snack.

But do not let the fact that I have easy access to locally made, all natural peanut butter deter you from sending me processed skippy from home - I love the sugary stuff too.

Dressing up and getting my grub on

My feet are tired from dancing, my belly full from eating and my backpack dusty from travel - its been a good couple of weeks.

The party started on a bittersweet note when Kolda said good-bye to a fellow PCV who is all done with her two years with a local band and dancing in the street outside her house (I highly recommend checking out her blog when you get a chance).  The band is pictured at left. The guy without a shirt played a drum for about 5 minutes then spent the rest of the evening dancing around shirtless, reminded me a bit of a gogo dancer trying to get people up and moving with the music.

Then it was time to head north of the Gambia to Kaolack, Foundiougne and Tamba for a couple of birthdays and Halloween with fellow PCVs - all three cities provided late nights and loud music, hence the tired feet.

I was back home to Kolda in time to celebrate Tabaski with my host family.  This Muslim holiday celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael and God provision of a sheep to sacrifice in the place of the son.  As my brothers, dad and uncle went about slaughtering our sheep while we played the Koranic verses recounting the story of Abraham and the sacrifice, I was reminded of Christmas back home listening to the nativity story around the twinkling tree, except I don't understand arabic and the sheep was a whole lot messier than a tree.  Don't worry, my little neighbor picture below was closely supervised and didn't actually do anything besides pretend to saw off a hoof. After grilling lunch, we put on some new clothes to visit neighbors- my host mom had the blue ensemble I'm styling in below made for me - impressive she knew my measurements just by looking at me.

The fun hasn't stopped yet though as I'm looking forward to another great holiday - Thanksgiving - at the regional house this week.  Someone managed to procure a turkey! The joy that the fact of turkey coming to dinner on Thursday elicited in me confirms my suspicions that I've become even more of a carnivore since moving here.  Knowing where my food comes doesn't make me less inclined to eat, I actually look at chickens often and think, you'd be really great with some yassa - onion sauce.