The water melons are in season. They are delicious especially when it is hot and you are thirsty.

1. Greetings From The Gambia. Its early November and the rainy season is just ending and it wont rain again until April. We have had a lot of rain so the farmers are happy –the ones growing rice are really happy.

2. The water melons are in season. They are delicious especially when it is hot and you are thirsty.

3. The bananas are ready too. So we are eating lots of bananas.

4. And the Gambia fruit bats are arriving to eat the fruit. They have a wing span of almost half a metre.

5. Today we are going to show you how to make Gambia’s three traditional meals. Fish Domoda – which is fish served with peanut paste. Meat Benichin. Benechin is a wollof word and means “cooked in one pot.” And Chicken Yassa – which is chicken cooked with strips of onions. All three meals are served with rice. We eat rice twice a day in The Gambia – at lunch time and in the evening. Its only the women and girls who cook.

6. We are off to the market to but everything we need. I have bought some cooking oil. We tend to shop every day and but small amounts. We bought the meat and fish that we need. And all the vegetables we need, like peppers, potatoes, garlic and carrots.

7. We bought spices to make it tasty. And stock cubes like Maggi or Jumbo. We also bought some ground black pepper. We eat lots of black pepper with our meals

8. We need lots of water for cooking to wash the vegetables and to boil the rice. We are off to the stand pipe to bring water.

9. Our compound buys rice in big sacks. We have to check the rice to make sure there are no small stones in it.

10. This is our kitchen. We use sticks of wood to heat the cooking pots.

11. We use a mortar and pestle to grind the black pepper and mix it with the onions and garlic

12. Benichin means cooked in one pot. We cook the meat and vegetables in oil then we add water and then put the rice. The tomato paste colours the rice red.

13. For fish domoda you fry the fish whole. Then you boil the rice. And finally you heat up the peanut paste and serve.

14. For chicken yassa you chop us the chicken into medium sized pieces. Then you cut up the onions into long strips and fry together. You boil rice and mixed vegetables and serve together.

15. Here are our finished meals. Can you see there is lots of rice? We serve them in large bowls .

16. That is because we all eat together.

17. Well we hope you enjoyed learning about what we eat in The Gambia. We are sending you the recipes in case you want to have a go and cook them. Do you eat Bananas? We love them. Good bye for now. We will be in contact again soon.