Lunch is served and my mother Tabara tells me again and again to eat until I’m full, eat until it’s all gone. With her henna stained hand she tears pieces of fish, potato, and squash and places them in front of me, her giant bare breasts practically spilling into the bowl as she insists that I eat, eat. Next to me my four year old brother Silly carefully squeezes his rice into a ball before popping it into his mouth. The Wolof language as a verb for this very activity- dank. Silly kepes danking his rice while across from him our father Adama watchs over all as he makes loud lip smacking and sucking sounds, carefully extracting bits of food from between his teeth with the suction. Our neighbor Ndeye is over with her little girl for the day to have my sister Rama braid her hair. By lunch she has about 2/3 tight and beautiful corn rows, the last 1/3 a puffy afro. Her daughter won’t eat because she is too busy staring at me, probably wondering what in the world I must be until Ndeye moves her to her lap and tells her to eat up.

In my family, and in all families in Senegal I would venture to say, there is no such thing as the clean plate club, leftovers, or the enticement of dessert to get the kids to finish their meals. Every last bit is eaten, bones are sucked free of every morsel, cartilege and all, juices are slurped away, and whatever remains is given to the sheep, goats, chickens, or cats that live in the compound.

If I have a guest over for a meal, my moms will usually serve us separately with our own bowl of rice and fish or rice and beans. Whatever we don’t eat the kids polish off after their own meals which means that food is too precious to waste, they’re still hungry, or both. There is no variation in our diet in the village except for special occassions like holidays, baptisms, and funerals. No pizza night, no chicken night, no spaghetti, no steaks or burgers on the grill, no tossed salad or real greens, just the predictable two meals that happen without fail each and every day. Not all families in Senegal eat such a limited cuisine. While thiebujen (rice, fish, and vegetables cooked in an oily tomato sauce) is the standard for lunch everywhere, my host family in Thies served many different meals for dinner.

In my village and the Saint Louis region we are lucky because the ocean and the Senegal River provide plenty of fish, hence plenty of protein. Every day in Saint Louis the pirogues, or local fishing boats, come into market with tons of fish, filling dozens of freezer trucks headed for Dakar and other cities to sell the daily catch.

Many regions, particulary in the Southeast of the country, aren’t nearly as lucky. Most families rely on millet for most of their nutritional needs, with fish a sporadic treat. The volunteers in villages where even a bowl of plain rice can be come and go are tough. They’re skinny too, at least the men. Somewhat surprisingly, most women gain weight thanks to the overload of carbohydrates in the Senegalese diet, while men waste away for lack of protein.

I am nearly the same weight as when I arrived thanks to weekly trips to Saint Louis and the meat and beer it affords. But damn, what I wouldn’t give for a bacon cheesburger, a fresh salad, and pint of Terminal Gravity.