Beignets....pronounced benyays.
My papa works for the university of Dschang, a good job but one which must feed 9 mouths. Here the women contribute as much as the men, if not more. Traditionally, the women cultivate the familys land (pretty much a huge huge garden), but my family lives in a very compact residential neighborhood. So, to supplement the family income, my maman and aunt make and sell beignets. There are two kinds; one is like a doughnut (flour and sugar and yeast) and the other is made from bananas and a half and half mixture of maize flour and white flour. Each night my aunt peels about 70 bananas into a huge wooden bowl and then smashes them with a 'pillon' or a large wooden bat like smashing utensil. To make the corn flour she also must remove the kernels from the cob (and this takes alot of cobs!) and let them soak in hot water overnight. She pours the already soaked kernels into a bag and carries it on her head to the neighborhood market half a mile away to have it ground into flour, which depending on whether the machine decides to work or not, may take about an hour. She carries the flour home and mixes it with the white flour and then mixes the batter together (in an even 'huger' wooden bowl) by hand. Actually I should say 'by back' because its truly and aerobic workout....like performing the job of an industrial blender! The batter then sits overnight with the yeast to rise and my maman and papa rise at 3 30 in the morning to start frying the beignets in palm oil. Each batch of batter makes approx 600 beignets, which are then sold for 10CFA apiece. So, if nearly every beignet is sold, my maman and aunt make about 20 dollars a day, a very significant contribution but for an unbelievable amount of work. For the time Im with my family, Ive taken on the job of banana smasher, teasing my brother that my aim is to become stronger than him (the size of my upper arms seems to be a culturally universal source of humour!). And, tomorrow morning I am rising at 3 30 with my maman to observe and hopefully help with the process. So, life is difficult, but it is also filled with laughter and teasing and...the most recent source of amusement...pipecleaners! I brought two bags of the fuzzy wires and broke them out last night. My family had never seen them, and I will end by saying that when I got up this morning, all of my little siblings were still sporting bent neon furry glasses!! (when asked, my 3 year old brother explained to me that he can see the television better with them:)
I love hearing from everyone, so thanks
bisous
Brianne