When reflecting on cooking 'etoj ekaama' with Khady, I realised that she mainly used estimation skills. Time was measured
approximately, and for measuring rice and other ingredients she used pots of various, not interrelated sizes, spoons and 'handfuls'. It struck me how women all over the world use similar techniques when cooking. Whilst most written recipes available in the UK measure quantities in grams or litres, experienced cooks often do not measure quantities using scales or tables. Daily practice and experience have taught them to estimate how much water to put into a pot, or the amount of spices to add in
order to give the dish just the right flavour, and how much time to plan for the various ingredients to be just perfectly cooked.
Mariama sits under a mango tree on an upturned bucket behind her goods, which she has laid out on a plastic sheet on the ground. She is a market vendor, selling vegetables and other food items in small quantities. Women come to the market every day to buy just enough ingredients for the daily rice dish. Mariama has never been to school, but is amazingly able and swift to calculate mentally. She tells me that she has never taken a pen to calculate, but that she makes fewer mistakes than other people who do written calculations. She adds that she tries to avoid errors because it is she herself who has a problem if she miscalculates.
Amongst other goods, Mariama sells a dried fish
called 'd¸gg¸rbopp'. She bought 1kg for 800 1
Khady and her family eating 'etoj ekaama’ Selling Vegetables
and the UK also show some similarities. Here is a Multiplication strategies she has used here are short description of my participant observation with Mariama, a market vendor. I have spent several days observing her and asking questions about her mental calculation skills.
Mental calculation techniques used in Senegal
memory (she knows the multiples of 100 by heart), doubling and doubling again instead of multiplying by 4 (75x2 + 75x2), using near numbers and adjusting (instead of calculating
6x50, she calculates 5x50+50). Multiples of 5 are very much used in her culture and language, with 5 being one of the bases used and Senegalese money being based on 5.
Mariama Sambou selling vegetables 4
Mariama also explains how she calculates her profit from selling onions. She sells them either per kg or individually. She buys a 25kg bag of onions for 7,500 CFA in the nearby town of Bignona. Transport costs one way are 200 CFA for the bag and 900 CFA for herself. She calculates only one way transport expenses into the cost of the onions, and the return trip she will calculate with the other goods she bought. When she gets home, she first weighs the bag with her scales. Sometimes there are 26 or 27kg in a bag. She weighs out a kilo at a time and then counts how many onions she has in each 1. 1,000 CFA francs equal £1.33 (8 March 2013), so 800 CFA is roughly £1.
CFA at a wholesaler in a nearby town. 1kg equals about 15 fish. First she sorts the fish. She sells the big ones for 100 CFA, the middle-sized ones for 75 CFA and the small ones for 50 CFA. She gives me an example: She sells 5 big fish at 100 CFA, which makes 500 CFA, as she tells me without hesitating. She has 10 fish left. Then she sells 4 medium-sized size fish at 75 CFA. For this she calculates in her head, “75 times 2 makes 150, and again 75 times 2 makes 150, so the total is 300 CFA”. She has 6 small ones left, which she will sell for 50 CFA each. She calculates with 5. If she sells 5, she gets 250 CFA. The last one makes 50 CFA, so the total is 300 CFA. She calculates that 5 for 500 CFA and 4 for 300 CFA makes 800 CFA. 800 CFA is the price
she paid for the kg, so she knows that the rest, the income from the 6 small fish, is her profit. Mariama is quick with simple mental additions.
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