Parking

Parking spot outside of my bank in Banfora.  Donkeys and motorcycles only.  Sorry, no camels.

Making Tomato Sauce in a 3rd World Country

Ingredients:

Village                                                      

4-5 tomatos and one 70g packet tomato sauce

2 cloves garlic

1 medium onion

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper

Pasta
Palm Oil
Powdered Spicy Pepper

City
Basil
Oregano


Tomatos
Cut out the center by stabbing a square into both ends.  Boil them for 30 seconds and, when they've cooled, the skins will peel right off.  If you are really fancy, like me, you can scoop the seeds out.  Cut them up into chunks.

Sauce
Heat up some palm oil in the sauce pot, then simmer the garlic and onions for a minute.  Add 2 or 3 cups of water (adding too much just means that you wait a little longer for it to boil off).  Add the tomato paste, a dash each of basil and oregano, salt and pepper (I don't have measuring spoons, I just imagine I'm salting and peppering a plate of fries and stop when I think it's enough).  Drop in the bay leaf and the cut up tomatos.  I also like to spice it up with some peppers.  There are powdered habanero-esque peppers available here.

Cover the sauce and let simmer for 15 minutes, so the flavors can mix up.  Uncover the sauce and let it boil down to desired consistency, it can take 15 more minutes for me sometimes.

If you are in a city instead of a village, you can even add some mozzarella cheese.

I think he came from the Sahara

I hear about volunteers north of Ouagadougou seeing camel travelers often, but this is my first one.  He was stopped in my village with his buddy getting water and maybe food.  I had no idea how huge camels are, I always thought of them as roughly horse sized.  I can't pretend to guess where he came from; I don't think he spoke much of any language I know.  As cool as the idea of tearing around the Sahara sounds, after spending almost 2 years in my relatiely tropical climate, I don't think I would want to go dryer.