Much of the food that people in the village eat comes from their farms. They grow wheat and sorghum for their bread, as well as vegetables, beans, fruits, and dates. Most families raise chickens, ducks, pigeons, goats, sheep, and cattle for meat. In addition, chickens and ducks provide eggs, while goats and cows provide milk for drinking and for making butter and yoghurt. The villagers buy sugar, tea, coffee, spices, cooking oil, and rice from small shops in the village or nearby markets.

In the kitchen, girls and young women bake thin flat bread, called "kisrah." Older women cook other foods. Any event or social gathering in the village includes a feast, so part of the event for the women includes gathering to help with the cooking while they socialize. Meals consist of whole-grain bread made from wheat or sorghum with sauces made from okra or other vegetables and lamb, beef, chicken, or as a special delicacy, pigeon. The women arrange the food on trays which are carried out to the guests. People love to share their cooking, so before meals you see children carrying food from their mothers to other families, especially to old or sick neighbors. They also carry food out to the farms, where people working in the fields stop their work and gather to eat.

My grandmother Sakinah (God bless her soul) was still baking her own bread when she was over 100 years old. In the photo above, she is making a very common type of whole wheat bread called "ghurrasah." With different kinds of sauces, it is the everyday staple food in the village.

Until two years ago, stalks, wood and dung were the only fuels for cooking. Now the villagers have access to bottled gas and the women enjoy using gas stoves for some of the cooking.

The woman above is folding the "kisrah," thin rounds of whole grain bread, which will be placed on trays for the guests. Each tray for the guests includes a variety of foods. This one includes: boiled eggs, cheese, salad, meat in sauce, felafel, eggplant puree, macaroni, yoghurt, halawah (a sweet) and jam, bread and "kisrah." People often take trays of food to their neighbors.

Every social event includes a feast, so numbers of women of all ages gather to help in the cooking while they chat and drink tea or coffee.