Dakar, Senegal
Feeling much better. We did manage to go to the cooking class here is Dakar.
Dakar is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.9 million people. Senegal and Dakar are situated on the western-most point of mainland Africa. Cape Verde Peninsula was colonized by the Portuguese in the early 15th century. The Portuguese established a presence on the island of Gorée off the coast of the Cape Verde Peninsula and used it as a base for the Atlantic slave trade.
France took over the island in 1677. Following the abolition of the slave trade and the French annexation of the mainland area in the 19th century, Dakar grew into a major regional port and a major city of the French colonial empire. From 1959 to 1960, Dakar was the capital of the short-lived Mali Federation. In 1960, it became the capital of the independent Republic of Senegal. Dakar will host the 2026 Summer Youth Olympics.
At first glance it looks similar to all the other west African ports we have visited. Clearly it has more depth than Walvis Bay. In fact, there really aren’t any sand dunes to be seen from the ship anyway. What you do notice, right away, is that everything is covered in dust. Leaving the port you have to wonder just how long some of the vehicles have been parked. The layers of dust are everywhere.
The motor coach is nice. As we reside along it looks much like everywhere else. Then we turn off the main roads and enter the “town”. Our first stop is at Le Marche Kermel. The Kermel market is classified as a historic monument. The original market was built in 1860 in wrought iron and brick. It was once a beautiful round market in the heart of the historic Plateau district. It was destroyed by a fire in 1993, it was rebuilt the the same identical style in just three years.
First of all, it looks like a round house used for changing the direction of trains. Yea, built in 1860, one could buy that easily. It is hard to see much of the building. There are “stalls or stands” surrounding the entire building. The dust is everywhere. The street is covered in it. Or…. Is the street even paved?
Inside the market there was a number of stalls. Half are closed because it is Sunday. They are wooden tables, full of vegetables, and other items for sale. We find the area where the meat is sold. Yes a wooden table. No water or other sanitation available. A guy with a box of chickens, cleaned and plucked. Pulls one out of the box and quarters it, then throws it in another box. Flies anyone?
The chef who is “doing” the cooking class picks out ten or so chickens, some onions, garlic, sunflower oil, chilies and other things she needs for the recipe. And we return to the motor coach. Now, the street may have been paved once, but it is covered now in a layer of this fine dust. We stumble over what may have been paving stones or stones from the edge of the road. We stop in front of a stall selling all types of things. I ask the guy is he has a 2032 battery? We need one for the handheld luggage scale back on the ship.
He rummages though a box and finds a card with three of them. I only need one. He only wants to sell three. The excursion leader is leading people back to the motor coach, now or never. How much? 10. No not for three, just need one. He calls over another vendor, who may or may not speak some english. They repeat 10. Now I am sure it isn’t 10 West African Francs. That would be about $0.02 US. A five pack at CVS is probably $7.50. The chance of another stop where I would find one is slim. Ok, all 3 $10 US. Ok? Ok! Now walking quickly to catch up with the excursion group. Don’t want to get left behind.
The guide book provided by Regent suggests that the market dates from the 19th century. Well, ok maybe the sight does. The area is a kaleidoscope of noise, people, colors, scents and sounds. An excellent location for purchasing wood carvings. More tourist crap no one needs. Google says: in Kermel, you can find all the food products at “European” prices, that is to say expensive since the market is frequented by “toubabs” looking for the best products from Dakar and the regions of Senegal. A "Toubab", "Toubabou" or "Toubob" is a Central and West African name for a person of European descent. Used most frequently in The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, and also in Ivory Coast. The Kermel market has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978.
Back on the motor coach we begin to wind our way through the neighborhoods on our way to the cooking school. You have to give the drivers of these motor coaches gold stars on the way they weave through the streets. These are two way streets, as far as one can tell. The streets vary is size from twenty or so feet wide, to sixteen. They are, or at least look like, dirt tracks more than streets. You identify them as streets because there are houses on each side of the path, and cars parked on both sides next to the same houses. There is an occasional stall selling vegetables, fruit, fish or meat.
The available space between the sides of the street, when you add the parked cars on either side, the people walking along, added to the width of the motor coach is zero. The cars are parked, but they all look like they have been there for years. But there is a BMW X3, which is probably newer than our 2016. There is another one which is up on blocks, where one of the blocks is a transmission housing. Nothing is necessarily parked parallel to the non-existent curb and sidewalk.
Now the real skill comes in turning a corner. The streets aren’t exactly as 90 degree angles. Do you know the layout of the flat iron building in either New York or San Francisco? So, basically you are driving down the street you reach an intersection. There are streets to the right and left at about 90 degrees. So far so good. Ahead of you the street forms a Y with you coming up the stem of the Y. That is what is ahead of us now. It wouldn’t be a challenge if there wasn’t a car parked at the base of the Y.
There is no way this motors coach is going down there. How far is the school? Don’t worry he can do it! Ok, but when he gets there are we going to be able to open the door and get off the motor coast? No problem! Well he did it. How is impossible to explain. But there is a reason there are no mirrors on the exterior of the cars.
We have arrived at The “EFHORE” Hotel and Catering Training School, Liberté 6 Extension in front of Machala school, Dakar, Senegal. Just so you don’t think this is simply someone’s house, you can look the address up on the internet. There are types of things around it. You would never know it looking at it. It looks suspiciously like all the other buildings around it.
There is a wall around the building, only about 4 or 5 feet high. We enter through a gate stepping over the threshold and into a 3 or 4 foot wide courtyard. Yes, everything is covered in the fine light brown dust. Then we enter the building. IT could be any front door anywhere. We step down into the “dinning room”. There are three eight foot round tables with folding chairs around them. These fill the room.
There is a small alcove which had a rectangular about 3 by 6. Off the alcove there is are two small rooms which appear to be offices. Then a set of stair leading up somewhere. The third wall is open and leads down a short hallway. On you left is a bathroom, we’ll get to that later. Then a very nice looking modern kitchen. Looks like it might be out of house beautiful, in 1965. You can see in because two of the walls are glass.
You then step down into what one might call the traditional Senegalese kitchen. A three burner propane industrial size camp stove. With recycled copper tubing leading to the propane tank. A large 4 by 10 wooden table. Miscellaneous pots and pans stored along the walls. Just outside, in the four-foot-wide courtyard along the side of the building is a 55-gallon barrel drum, cut in half so it can be used as a BBQ with a lid. Inside there is a grill made of rebar and a pile of coal which has been lit. This is where the chicken will eventually be cooked.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves. After we enter, we are offered a bucket of water to wash our hands in, nearly everyone took out hand sanitizer. Then they distributed hair nets and gloves. Hygiene is important when cooking.
Being good tourists, we don our hair nets and gloves. They pass out tea towels as aprons. There isn’t one person here you could wrap even two tea towels around. They chef comes out and begins making the marinade. We sit and watch and “wait out turn”? She puts the ingredients into a wooden mortar and pestle. It is about three feet high and a foot around. The pestle is a baseball bat shaped instrument. She pounds the ingredients together. We watch.
Once it is turned into a paste, she scoops the paste out with a spoon and puts it in a bowl. They bring the chicken in. She begins by forcing the meat apart and placing a bit of the marinade into the chicken meat. Once she has demonstrated it once, she makes on effort to have us try. We sit a watch.
They meat goes into a stainless steel tray and then in covered with some more of the marinade. She then exits the room and goes off into the traditional kitchen. She returns a few minutes later with a plastic bucket and a 5 Kg bag of rice; one which we bought in the market. She then shows us how to wash or rinse the rice.
In prior cooking classes it has often been explained that washing or rinsing the rice is a god idea. Washing the rice, where the barn has been milled, washes off the excess starch, and oxidized rice bran oil, which can add an unpleasant flavor to cooked rice. Washing the rice also removes any dust or debris and helps the grains be more separated, rather than sticky. There was no logic behind the operation given, just this is how you wash the rice, which she did three times, we were all ok with washing the rice.
She then returned to the traditional kitchen where she showed us how she steamed with rice over the burner. We went back and sat down. A different chef cleaned the table and began peeling the onions. After peeling them he began slicing them. There was at least 5 Kg of red onions. They are the ones with the purplish-red skin and white flesh tinged with red that are commonly used in cooking or making salsas. Mild to spicy in flavor. They can even be little sweet. Again, information from prior cooking experience. We got to wait and watch.
Then the chef told us to return to the traditional kitchen so she could show us how to boil the rice. The steamed rice what placed into the large pot of boiling and salted water. We were told to taste the water because it has to be properly salted. We were returned to our seats. Once the rice was finished cooking it was placed in a large stainless-steel bowl and covered. We got to watch!
Then we were invited back into the traditional kitchen to see how to sauté the onions. Only a couple people moved, or even looked up from the game on their phone. Most of the hair nets and gloves had been removed. It was getting on the 15:00 and we were all fairly hungry by this point. Then someone asked if there was a bathroom we could use.
A short line formed outside the bathroom. Watching from the table where we were sitting, one person went in. Several minutes later then emerged and spoke quietly to the next person. The telephone system was working. A few minutes later the bathroom line had shrunk. Curiosity, it killed that damn cat. Standing in line, it had to be asked. Why were people leaving the line? The response, they didn’t have to go that bad. Oops!
Upon entering the bathroom everything seemed normal. A toilet and a sink. There have been worse looking bathrooms. A second look at the toilet revealed there was no seat. Ok, I can stand. Did my business and pushed the flush button. Nothing. Looking at the wall there was a sign that informed me that you need to use the bucket under the sink to flush to toilet. Ok, found the bucket, found the faucet handle, filled the bucket and “flushed” the toilet. Hand washing! Use the same bucket, fill it from the same faucet and wash, and put wastewater in the toilet. Now I understood. Whipped out the hand sanitizer. Opened the door, used the hand sanitizer again.
Again, we were invited into the traditional kitchen to watch them mix the now cooked chicken with the onions. Lunch, or dinner, was served. Bravely we stood in line, and each took a portion. They tried to give us really big portions, but everyone said they weren’t that hungry, maybe just a little. Honestly, it wasn’t half bad. Properly cooked would probably have been better. Use boneless chicken, too much work with the bone.
It was time to head back to the ship. We took a different more direct route over a highway. Why didn’t we come this way? Maybe it was the Ned to see the market? Don’t care want to get back and wash my hands and maybe use the toilet.
Got back to the ship. They pulled up the gangplank shortly after we boarded, and we were off. An interesting day. Still feeling fine and hoping it was last. Tomorrow is a sea day to rest and recover. Move the clocks back again tonight. Tuesday will be day 130, the beginning of the last week of the cruise. Mindel (Porto Grande), Cape Verde. Looking forward to adding another country to the list. Cape Verde will be number 60.
Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria.
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