by totafab | May 10, 2024 | Dakar, Family, Food, Life, Senegalese Culture
In my house leftovers entered the stage with me. The kids pretend they like them and my husband makes tremendous efforts to eat them because, sometimes, I don’t offer an alternative. Leftover food is still kind of a tabou in this country. It’s mostly for the poor,...
by totafab | May 3, 2024 | Dakar, Family, Life, Senegalese Culture
Walking around Dakar you will see makeshift tents at every street corner, tied to poles, so that they kind of make a “room”. It is the gargottes, little low-profile restaurants with only a table and a few benches, where you can have breakfast (sandwiches with eggs,...
by totafab | Jul 13, 2022 | Family, Food, Life, Senegalese Culture, Teranga
Tabaski and I go back to 5 october 2014. A friend of mine invited me to his sister’s house and I happily said yes, not knowing what to expect. I was imagining a Christmas-like kind of day: you eat a lot, you drink, you chat and then, when you can’t eat anymore you...
by totafab | Jul 6, 2022 | Family, Food, Life, Senegalese Culture, Teranga
Next week-end is Tabaski. Tabaski is the Senegalese name of Aid el Kebir, the mutton feast. In honor of the supreme sacrifice that Abraham was ready to offer, killing his son because God asked him to, Muslims today sacrifice a mutton. Just like all traditional...
by totafab | Jun 22, 2022 | Family, Life, Senegalese Culture
It was the end of the summer, my brand new husband’s youngest children (11 and 13 years old) had spent the whole summer with us. In the summer everything goes, you wake up late and eat ice cream at all times, and I was absolutely not interested in issuing directives...
by totafab | May 25, 2022 | Family, Life, Senegalese Culture
You can travel up and down the world and will find no two cultures are alike. But the mom is always The Mom. In Senegal it is not a rare instance to be raised by a woman who’s not your biological mother, even if your mother is alive and well, you know her and have a...