Hello Ice!

PCTs like to torture themselves.  We like to sit around and talk about all the food we wish we were eating.  Ice cream…pizza…cookies.  The possibilities are endless!  After the first week at Homestay, we decided we needed a little normalcy in our cuisine, so we made plans with our LCFs to cook dinner at their house one night.

We were soo excited about planning this!  And our LCFs turned it into an educational experience for us.  We had been learning about the Malian money system (unnecessarily complicated) and how to bargain at the market, so in the middle of class the morning of the planned dinner, we all went to the market together to buy some of the ingredients for the dinner.  We weren’t able to find some of the things we needed, so after class finished for the day the LCFs (Abu and Yagore) took 3 of us in Abu’s car to a bigger neighboring town, Dialakorobulu, to get the plantains, lettuce, potatoes, and meat. 

The 5 of us were wandering around the Dialakorobugu market, following Yagore’s lead as she found the things we needed.  Abu wandered off for a few minutes and came back with a bag.  After a few minutes I asked him what he bought, and he casually responded, “ice.”  The 3 of us immediately jumped on him, “WHAT?!? ICE?!? There’s ICE here!?!?  How?!?!?  Can we touch it?!?”  He started laughing as we all reached for the bag.  Hannah cooed, “Helloooo ice!!!” and Abu lost it.  He was completely doubled over laughing as we all lovingly stroked the ice bag.  Apparently it’s brought in from Bamako every day and kept in coolers.  I was soo tempted to buy some just to put it on my forehead and then put it in my water filter, but I restrained myself, mostly because we were already in the car and driving away by the time the idea occurred to me.

Back at the LCF’s house we started preparing dinner.  I’m sure most of you know the extent of my cooking skills, so my responsibility was to hold the plate that held the lettuce that Ashley was tearing.  Basically I had the skills of a table.  Abu pulled his car into the courtyard and busted out a massive speaker that was hiding in the trunk and cranked up his stereo.  It started off playing Malian music, but after only a few songs it suddenly switched to American hip hop, both normal and techno remix.  So here we are, cooking half-Malian-half-American food in the middle of a small village in Mali listening to Akon and the Black Eyed Peas.  Gotta love it!  My lovely friends made us goat meat with onions and tomatoes, fried potatoes and plantains, toasted french bread, and a salad (especially awesome because we aren’t allowed to eat uncooked veggies with our families)!  And Yagore made scrumptious ginger juice.  Oh, and fresh bananas for dessert!  We absolutely gorged on our dinner as the sun set.  And after dinner we went back to Ashley’s house to sit outside and play cards.  It was such a wonderful, normal night and a great mini-break from the stresses of Bambara-filled life.