We had two members of our class who were from Senegal; one's sister had a baby the week before we arrived. When we arrived, the politics group was invited over for a naming ceremony. We missed the ceremony, but did get to spend the afternoon with the family.
We'd been in Senegal for three days by this time, but this was the first time I felt that I was finally IN Senegal. This beautiful young family invited us into their home, made sure we were comfortable, let us hold the beautiful baby, and fed us two tremendous dishes! The first, Lacht (?) was a milky porridge with millet, some fruit, and sugar. After three days of lots of rice and bread (which I love by the way) we couldn't eat enough of the sweet stuff. We thought that was lunch. And rightly so, because we were full.
But nope, there was another dish (the name of which I cannot for the life of me remember). Suffice it to say it included chicken, rice, vegetables, and some very nice spice. We sat on the floor in two groups of about 6 people each and ate from the same large dish. Some of the women had tried to bring in small tables for us to eat on, but the men insisted that we needed to eat like real Senegalese!
I was incredibly grateful that they allowed us to spend an afternoon with them on such an important occasion. Everyone was so warm and made us feel right at home, like we belonged to the family. The afternoon was a microcosm of my entire experience in Senegal - amazingly warm and kind people, wonderful food, lots of laughs, and very memorable.
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