The Sweet Tooth, A Gambian National Trait
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 25/May/2010 12:24, 34 days ago
(Written 23/05/2010 22:45, My House, Janjanbureh)It’s a generalisation, but as generalisations go I think it’s about as accurate as they get: Gambians have a real taste for sugar. This is especially true when it comes to drinks. I blogged before about the wonjo juice and the baobab-based drinks, and the massive amount of sugar that go into those, but apart from water, I don’t think I’ve seen any Gambian drinks that are any more dentist-friendly. Soft drinks are easy to get on the island, but the diet versions are only available in Kombos where there’s a tourist market, and even then they’re a couple of dalasi more expensive than the normal versions. Further out into the bush, your options would probably be limited to powdered drinks, which taste like they’re about 10% sugar and 90% artificial sweeteners, orataayatea, which is also very heavily sugared, especially when you get to the later brewings.The king of them all though has to be“Gambian tea” as we call it. It starts off normally, with hot water on a teabag, but they’ll then add between 3 and 5 spoons of sugar and a big helping of condensed milk. Often they won’t bother taking the teabag out either, simply drinking it (or, more commonly, slurping it) with the bag still in the mug. And coffee is made in the same way, lots of sugar and condensed milk. On the rare occasions that it’s available at the office, I get some very strange looks as I point-blank refuse to let any foreign substances pollute my coffee.You can even buy sachets of Nescafé here which are called “3-in-1s”: they’re like the single-cup sachets you find in hotels and such, but with powdered milk and sugar already added. I was quite excited when I spotted these sachets on the first morning of CCM, as I thought they were normal Nescafé (Nescafé instant is the best coffee you’ll find in Gambia, apart from the very few places in Kombos which do espresso) but no, the added extras spoilt it completely. And everyone else loved ‘em. *Sigh*. That’s one of the few things I would change about Janjanbureh: I’d put it in a country where people appreciate proper ground coffee.The weird thing about the sugary drinks though, is that you find yourself drinking and enjoying them. Pete’s gone from no-sugar coffee to loving the 3-in-1s, and although I don’t think I could ever go that far, I have developed a taste for the powdered drinks, especially if they’re made a bit weaker than the sachets recommend. And I must’ve drunk more Fanta and Sprite in the last three months than in the previous five years. It must be something to with the heat and sweating a lot: your body just needs more sugar. I don’t go in for sweet things much at home, but here I’ve found that if I don’t keep up a fairly consistent intake, the heat just wipes me out completely. The worst one isif I go to sleep without having had anything sweet in the evening: I’ll wake up the next morning and my legs will be really weak and shaky, like they’re about to collapse under me.The $10m question, of course, is will this acquired sweet tooth remain when we get back to the UK?