Senene

Senene are considered to be an especially delicious treat here in Tanzania.  "What are senene?" you ask.  Why, they are grasshoppers.  Wings and legs pulled off and fried to perfection.  Mmmm.  During a big rain, they come out in droves and our house feels like it's in the midst of a good ol' biblical times plague.  Since Brett and I in general do not partake in the eating of sanene, we allow the neighbor kids to come over and gather them: from our porch, on top of the car, hanging on the windows, in a pile on the ground from where we swept them out of our house.  You get the picture.  It's like Halloween to them (without the costumes).

It is currently dry season so we have not seen senene in quite some time.  However, earlier this week our friend James, who grew up in Kenya a missionary kid, came to stay with us on his way through back to Mwanza from Bukoba.  Now, Bukoba is a town further north and is a very green and beautiful area.  And this green lovliness comes from rain, and rain leads to senene.  So up in Bukoba they have sanene year round and James brought us a bag of them.

Baylor seemed intrigued so we let her have a taste.  But Baylor's new-found senene love was not satisfied by just a morsel.  She ate and ate and ate to her heart's content.  It wasn't particularly strange to me that she liked them.  What was strange was that later in the evening we had chocolate pudding for dessert and Baylor took one bite and didn't want any more.  My child prefers grasshoppers to pudding.  She's truly a Tanzanian child.