Gabon Unit

Our Gabon unit wasn’t super long, and I’m sure there is a lot we could have done, but it was an interesting geography lesson. Sorry, this is a super short introduction to the latest addition to our Africa Unit, but after 100 or so country units it becomes hard to create super interesting introductions.

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Gabon Unit Resources

I’m rewatching the Gabon Geography Now video and I have to laugh as it starts off with a “Please keep watching this video about an obscure African country,” and I get what he’s saying. It is a bit harder to find information on, or pictures for it.

So, here we go, the websites I’m going to claim I found for this. Wow, there are not so many useful sites on Gabon…

• CIA Gabon facts– it’s interesting that is the first to show up on my search
• 7 “interesting” facts– really included because of the pretty pictures
• 26 Interesting facts– when you start with surfing hippos for your facts, that’s a good sign

And here come the videos from Geography Now.

Once I finish watching this video, I’ll come back and add in the Flag Friday video. Video done, now watching the super short Flag Friday video.

Gabon Unit recipe: African beignets

Okay, I have to admit I primarily decided to cook this not because I thought it was super representative of the country but because I thought, “I can find those ingredients,” and “I have a decent chance of being able to cook it.”

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 cup warm water (think a hot shower)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoon butter softened
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• oil to fry it in
• powdered sugar for dusting

It’s kind of amazing to me how expensive groceries are on Amazon.

Making beignets

1. Mix the yeast, sugar, and warm water. Allow to sit for 10 minutes until the yeast starts to froth. Then mix in the egg and milk.
2. If using a stand mixer switch to a dough hook, and add in the butter, flour, and salt. If not use a spoon to mix it or a hand mixer. Mix until it becomes a dough that pulls away from the bowl.
3. Oil a bowl and place the dough in there and cover. Allow it to rise for an hour, it should double in size.
4. Heat a deep frying pan with oil. While the oil is heating roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and cut it into 2-inch squares.
5. Drop several of the squares in to the oil and cook for a few minutes until golden brown, then flip and repeat. Continue this with the remaining dough.
6. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

African beignets

Print

These African beignets are a delicious way to learn more about Gabon.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 cup warm water (think a hot shower)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tablespoon butter softened
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• oil to fry it in
• powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

1. Mix the yeast, sugar, and warm water. Allow to sit for 10 minutes until the yeast starts to froth. Then mix in the egg and milk.
2. If using a stand mixer switch to a dough hook, and add in the butter, flour, and salt. Mix until it becomes a dough that pulls away from the bowl.
3. Oil a bowl and place the dough in there and cover. Allow it to rise for an hour, it should double in size.
4. Heat a deep frying pan with oil. While the oil is heating roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and cut it into 2-inch squares.
5. Drop several of the squares in to the oil and cook for a few minutes until golden brown, then flip and repeat. Continue this with the remaining dough.
6. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Gabon Unit: animals

I skipped ahead to this portion because he just mentioned some animals, and I wanted to make sure I wrote them down while I remembered.

• black panther
• forest elephant
• sitatungas

What’s really interesting is I went back and looked up more animals, and didn’t find anything really interesting. Like they don’t even talk about the surfing hippos, so I don’t know what type of hippo the surfing hippos are.

Much sadness.

I know the black panther is the animal on their crest, but surfing hippo! So I chose to grab a cute little hippo with its mom picture.

But, grab my mini-animal report for this part.

Gabon Unit: notebooking pages

We filled out the Africa notebooking pages.

The Artist came in as I was creating the images for this post. Apparently, my color choices and my font choices cause her pain.

I am also wildly amused at their style of government. Look at that, it’s five words long. It’s practically a sentence.

Unitary dominant-party presidential republic. That’s insane.

But, let’s get to the fun facts I found.

• aside from my amusement over the ridiculously long type of government
• or the surfing hippos
• gorillas are 80% of the wild animal population, and yet when looking up animals I did not find a specific type of gorilla
• they are arguing with Equatorial Guinea over who owns several islands

Well, that’s our Gabon Unit. I’m one country closer to getting my ridiculously over-stuff geography post folder finished.

Covering almost one country a day alternated occasionally with a state, means I have around 50 posts to write. So much to write, so little time.

But, now to give you some

More Learning Ideas

I’m grabbing a truly eclectic assortment of fun.

• Falling card game
• Frankenstein book club
• Pasta dinosaur dig
• Charlemagne lesson
• Alaska Unit

David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Thecodemachine, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons