A New Senegalese Celebrity Chef

A few serendipitous events landed me on Senegalese national television. Last semester, I finessed being able to write a 20 page paper on the rise of celebrity chefs, and now I’m on my way to becoming one myself.

Anyways, so it’s Ramadan— and last Friday many of Foundiougne’s residents broke fast together. It was me, a colleague, some of her friends, and like 500 other Senegalese folks gathered in the town square; the heat made me debate whether I was going to evaporate into the air or just melt into the earth. So we’re all just sitting around, chatting, waiting for the food to be ready. Randomly, my colleague’s friend pulls-out a shirt and hands it to me, telling me to put it on. I look around, see dozens of others wearing the same shirt, and so I figure it’s a souvenir or something, then I put it on.

Like 45 minutes pass.

Then this guy comes up to me, saying it’s time to come with him. This triggers this strange, unjustified vision I’ve been having of myself being decapitated in the town square, so I’m pretty reluctant to say yes. I look at my colleague, and she says to go with him. Gulp— yep, my colleague is sending me off to the guillotine.

But no, he gestures that I go to this center platform thing (where a guillotine would be)— where workers are bringing-in the large bowls of food that have been stewing for hours. I kinda meander/get-ushered to the front of the area, where the food is. Suddenly I have utensils for serving food, a huge bowl of seasoned rice and beef, and several smaller bowls before me; I hear that I’m to scoop the food into the smaller bowls.

I do that for like 20 minutes and then we line-up around the food we’ve served.  We’re each handed a bowl, then we go into the crowd and deliver the food to people sitting in circles with their friends/family.

 

Ok so then everything is cool, and I’m eating with my colleague her homies. The food is awesome, as usual, and then there’s a camera in my friend’s face; she’s being interviewed in Wolof, so I tune-out but try to look cool because I know I’m probably in the frame. I’m like oh shit I’m on t.v. that’s so cool.

Then I lose my chill, because I’m like, oh God, I’m definitely next; and yup, I get asked a question in Wolof, and then homegirl from work explains my situation, and then the interviewer starts asking me questions in English!! I barely remember the questions and I don’t remember much about my answers, besides the fact that there were definitely dumb responses to simple questions: what do you think of the event? type questions.

The funniest thing, for sure, is that he asked me what inspired me to volunteer that night— and I laughed a bit when he asked the question, because this all only happened because I put on that t-shirt.

A couple days later, while eating dinner with a family, we saw my interview on the t.v. screen.