In a recent post, I mentioned that cornflakes cost $9 a box in Dakar Senegal (for the name-brand stuff, anyway). A commenter said something that didn’t occur to me: some people might wonder “why the hell we’re eating cornflakes in Dakar.” I suppose I never thought about why we wouldn’t be eating cornflakes! It’s a valid question – and kind of hard to explain, I guess, when I try to put it into words.
1. The food here isn’t that crazy. There are local specialties and certainly some unique foods. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what we eat in a typical day, but it’s nothing super-shocking. The grocery store aisles are stocked with “regular” stuff: chips, pasta, rice, cheeses, etc. There are some weird meats – I’m not eating kidneys, thanks – but for the most part, we’re not living in crazyjunglefoodland. Senegal definitely has its own signature foods and dishes, but it was also a French colony until 1960, so much of that European presence is apparent in the cuisine.
2. Restaurant menus are pretty normal, too. Hence, the glorious pizzas pictured above at a nice little restaurant near our house. Mine had three cheeses (including blue cheese, the greatest fromage known to man) and Josh’s had ground beef and egg. What a man’s man. Other fare included sandwiches, wraps, various meats with rice…how exotic (not).
3. We’re not on vacation. We gotta eat three meals a day, every day, most of them at home. We shipped lots of cereal and other goods here and every meal can’t be something unique or exotic. Life is just life, and sometimes life requires a quick and easy bowl o’ cornflakes or an affordable and awesome pizza.
Rachael Cullins is a twentysomething American girl living in Dakar, Senegal, with her husband and two dogs. She blogs about her adventures in Senegal and travels elsewhere in West Africa. She will reside in Dakar until summer 2013, when she and her family will move to another foreign post as part of her husband’s career with the U.S. government. In addition to West Africa, she has traveled to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy and Costa Rica and plans to continually add to that list.
