School and Souk, March 2010

Training takes place at our trainer’s house from 8am-6pm, and we have a talented cook named Rqia that makes us delicious snacks and lunches. We go to the souk (weekly market) in Timdlin on Wednesdays to buy food for our lunches at the school. The cook gives us a list of items and we practice our language skills with the merchants. The souk is literally planted in the middle of the desert; a large walled arena of makeshift tents and tarps displaying vegetables, fruits, spices, butchered sheep and chickens, household items and clothes. Here, all the vendors are men, unlike in much of sub-Saharan African markets, and they come from all directions in pick-up trucks or with their donkeys laden with goods. It is also the men who do the shopping most of the time. There’s a great selection of fresh produce available. We learned all the essential words for vegetables and beans and spices used in the cooking in the first week of training.

Couscous, Lentils, white beans, and fava beans are a big part of the diet. It’s actually fava bean season right now so families eat it round the clock. We’ve got fava beans coming out the ears as my host father would say. I haven’t seen any hummus or chick peas yet. Perhaps it’s not the season. The oranges are out of this world. In August to October, we’ll see more dates and figs, which I’m excited about. And of course there are endless types of breads. At tea time, a variety of crepes, cakes, buns, and flatbreads are served with side dishes of olive oil, honey, and apricot jam. We spend our days drinking sweet tea and milky coffee with bread. My body has gotten used to 6 meals a day, yet my host family keeps telling me I need to gain weight and I eat like a bird. (They like their women plump, like in Benin). The couscous is so good, and it definitely takes more time to make than the instant box couscous I am used to. Women steam the couscous over a pot of simmering meat and vegetables then take it out several times and imbibe the grains with olive oil. Each granule is therefore infused with flavor. The other day I learned how to make tajine! Rqia showed us how to make one for our training group at lunch. It’s quite simple actually, you just have to have the right cooking dish. It’s basically meat covered by a vegetable tee-pee .