Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen

One of the happy bits of information passed onto volunteers is Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen.  Omar is the owner of a small, very reasonably priced restaurant -- can you guess the name?  I use the term restaurant very loosely because it is tiny, my kitchen in my condo may be bigger.  The building is only the kitchen, all of the seating is outdoors.  But from this little kitchen Omar has been able to make some of the best food I have had in The Gambia.  He has a large tree in the courtyard, under which he has placed an assortment of plastic tables and chairs.  He usually has an assortment of friends sitting and kibbutzing in another group of chairs.  Then there is an assortment of chickens of various sizes plus a couple of dogs who also add to the atmosphere.  His food is very reasonably priced.  There are two African specials every day that run about $1.00.  He makes a mean plate of lentils with tomato sauce and cheese, for $1.65.  Other specials run between that and $3.35.  My favorite meal he makes is Ginger Chicken -- yummy.  So, the long and the short of it is that I have yet to cook anything in my new "kitchen".  When I get around to  posting a picture of my new digs you will see the reason for the quotes.

But before that happens I wanted to post a picture of Omar himself.  He is wearing a chef's jacket in the picture, which is what he wears everyday, along with the black cap.  He apparently learned his trade in a hotel kitchen.  You may be able to tell that he has the Peace Corps insignia on his pocket. You can also see some of his tables and chairs and the new overhead screening he recently put up.  He is an incredibly sweet man.  I spent most of my cash before I came to his place last night and he told me that I did not have to pay him until today even though I had the money in hand to give him.  But I paid him, my trusty Gambian ATM card came to the rescue this morning.

The picture below is obviously Omar's Peace Corps Kitchen.  It was built with the help of Peace Corps volunteers.  It is a relatively easy walk from the Peace Corps transit house and from my new house.

One of the things Omar always gives you is a placemat and a bag of water.  Most of placemats are a little worse for wear, but the water is always cold.

Here is a plate of lentils to which I have already done significant damage.  The silverwear is in a cup of hot water, so it has a reasonable chance of being clean.  The bread is the standard tapalappa, the local bread, and excellent for mopping up lentils.

The last picture is of the crazy chickens.  These birds spend a lot of time up in the tree.  And when I say up in the tree they really get up there.  They also run around on the ground so I am not sure what makes them head for the tree.  But it does mean you should be careful where you sit.  One time one of the dogs was lying peacefully at my feet when one of the chickens came up and attacked it.  The dog ran a respectable distance away and stayed there.  I must say chickens have been a real learning experience here.