Tea

One thing I enjoy about Senegalese culture is tea.  The tea they make here is called "attaya".  It's concentrated green tea with lots of sugar.  Here, you don't make tea to drink it, you make it for the process of making it.  It makes me happy every time I hear someone say "On va faire du te" ("We're going to make tea").  It takes a couple hours to make attaya.  There are three rounds of brewing, and with each one the leaves get more bitter and you add more sugar.  There's a whole process of making foam for the tea by pouring watered-down tea back and forth from one cup (shot glass, actually) to another, lifting the glass high up as you do so.  The pouring process makes foam, and the more foam you can get, the more skilled you are at making attaya.

It's great to spend a couple hours with friends watching tea brew, chatting, and periodically slurping at hot, delicious tea.  The last two nights, Youssou and Alyssa and I have made attaya.  It's calming, which has been especially good the last couple days, when I've been pretty stressed out.

(More to come later, I think)