Page 135 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

and rolled into balls to make a type of sauce called sumbala. Ngòyò looks
like a small, hard, green tomato with a bitter-tasting interior, like a cross
between eggplant and tomato.
In the market there are always women and their daughters selling
prepared food. A favorite meal is boiled rice with sauce, seasoned with
peppers, onions, and spices. The dish contains bits of meat, dried or
smoked fish, or leafy greens. In some markets, goat heads with the eyes
still in are a favorite, boiled and served with a very peppery sauce.
Sweets include moni balls made from millet flour flavored with
tamarind or lemon. Another popular treat is takura, which is a mil-
let cake made with five balls of soaked millet flour that are baked or
steamed in a clay pot buried in the ground. Dègè is a kind of porridge
made of pounded millet or rice mixed with sweetened milk. It is often
served in a large calabash bowl and drunk with a calabash spoon.
Another form of dègè is made by pounding millet or rice into a fine
white powder. It is then mixed with a small amount of water sweetened
with honey or sugar and rolled into little balls.
The takura or moni, and dègè balls are sometimes used by women
as a sacrifice when they want to conceive a child. Little girls go around
the market with loaded trays on their heads selling mangoes, bananas,
and peanuts, or treats prepared at home, including moni and dègè balls
or takura and other small cakes made of sesame seeds, peanuts, honey,
and other savory ingredients.

a BrillianT paST, a BeTTer fuTure

Like people in many African countries, the citizens of Mali and Guinea
once had great faith in the ability of their modern political leaders
to create better standards of living. However, by the 1980s they had
become disappointed. They suffered great poverty and saw corruption
at every level of government. Their leaders seemed only interested in
self-enrichment. Plans for development usually resulted in more disap-
pointment and hardship for the ordinary people.
At the beginning of the 1990s, both Guinea and Mali faced ter-
rible economic problems. But during the decade, international trade
began to increase, bringing gradual improvement in living standards.
Nevertheless, the countries of West Africa, including Mali and Guinea,
continue to suffer from a harmful reputation. Because the media places
such emphasis on issues such as corruption, wars, and the AIDS/HIv
epidemic, people in the United States and Europe tend to think of Africa

134