There's tiny little fish in my greens!

Tonight we had a meal with some neighbors... people we've gotten pretty close to in the last few weeks. They are African-Arabs, and it is reflected a lot in their cooking. We usually get some of the staple foods that we loved in Tanzania when we visit with them: rice with coconut, beans with coconut, breads, tea...

Sometimes we get some other African "delicacies" that we were fortunate enough to miss while in TZ...

Goat Stomach 

(It's the big thing in the front of this picture that's kinda got honeycomb-looking things on it. It's chewy and oh, so gross.)

Dagaa, or as my Alabama relatives would call it, Dried Minnows.

(We had this tonight mixed in with the greens they always serve. I usually love these greens, so I got a big scoop full and mixed it all in with my rice and my chicken... only to find out, a bite into it, that there were tiny little fish in there. They are dried and gross. OH, did I add that we only used these fish, Dagaa, in Tanzania for DOG FOOD? Our African friends would eat it. We managed to avoid it for 2 years in TZ... yet here we are, being served those little buggers.) 

Oh, the joys of living cross-culturally.

Thankfully, the cousin sitting next to me didn't like hers either... and she's a local... so when she got up to take her plate, I whispered for her to take mine, too! AND, when I was forced to take a bite of the goat stomach... which, I'm certain I would have eaten maybe 2-3 bites of if I hadn't been told beforehand that it was in fact goat STOMACH... I also had a cousin who refused to eat it. She wouldn't even look at it!

And for all of you who think this is gross.... just remember, MOST of you have never had anything like this put in front of you. And know that my stomach is totally turning writing all this. Blah.