The Food of Uganda!

Guess what? I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while but have been putting it off…now that I’m fixing to leave in just a few days, I reckon I better get it written….or it may never happen!

So here goes: a post about the typical Ugandan food I have experienced.

The Institute kitchen staff has done a marvelous job of feeding us, especially considering that they’re trying to provide for people from at least two primary cultures…and actually even more than that because of the several cultures represented within Uganda!

Breakfast

Some things that would be typical in America too – oatmeal, bread/toast (the latter when the power’s on!), scrambled or hard-boiled eggs, bananas (see below). Occasional treats are “baked oatmeal” (more like an oatmeal bread) and banana bread.

We also sometimes have sausages (that don’t taste like American sausages) or fried salami. But there are also a couple things that are not American: rice porridge and (a couple times) millet porridge, and a high importance of having tea made from hot milk. The kids who live here eat maize porridge for breakfast, and it’s just made of the same type of cornmeal that is used in posho (see below).

Lunch

Our meals—especially lunches—have followed a pretty regular menu, so that’s the easiest way for me to think of everything I’ve had. Every lunch/dinner also includes some sort of vegetable (usually cooked or raw cabbage, avocados/guacamole, or sometimes eggplant) and a fruit (pineapple, mango, papaya, watermelon, or some combination of the above. Passion fruit once or twice, I think).

The soup/sauce is always served over the carbohydrate. And all the food is hot, which combined with the warm temperatures can sometimes make simply eating a meal cause one to sweat!

Monday lunch: Steamed rice, posho, beans.

Tuesday lunch: Sweet potatoes/yams and lentil soup. (Second favorite J)

Wednesday lunch: Steamed rice, matoke, g-nut sauce, vegetable soup with beef.

Thursday lunch: Chapatis, rice/boiled Irish, beans. (Personal favorite!)

Friday lunch: Steamed rice/posho/spaghetti (two of the three), lentil soup.

So…a lot of those are probably new foods that you’re scratching your head at…….here’s my attempt at an explanation of each J

Posho is a staple here (the kids who live at Kasana eat posho and beans at both lunch and dinner every day). It is made from ground maize (like cornmeal—but white instead of yellow like sweet corn), mixed with water, and cooked so that it’s a very stiff—well, I was going to say mush…but the consistency is not anything like mush. There’s not really anything good to compare it to….  {A month later and I finally figured it out: the closest thing here to posho is really thick grits.}

The sweet potatoes and yams here are not much like American sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes here are white, though the shape is longer and skinnier rather than round. I enjoy the taste and texture of those ones. The yams (if I have this right) are white with purple streaks. They are a much starchier texture and don’t have a whole lot of taste. I don’t prefer those ones…

All of the soups listed above (minus the g-nut one) include carrots/bell papers/onion and sometimes tomatoes, zucchini or eggplant.

Matooke is a special kind of bananas (most like plantains) boiled in a very particular way, then mashed, I assume…because it kind of has the consistency of mashed potatoes—though more sticky.

Here’s a good place to briefly mention the types of bananas here. They have at least four types, possibly more! And I don’t remember all the local names for them, so I apologize. My favorite are the small sweet bananas that we usually have at breakfast (maybe called finger bananas or something like that in the States?). Then there are what I consider “regular bananas” – but I’ve been told they’re still different than typical American bananas. Matooke bananas are the third. The fourth type is a pink-ish banana that they’ve served us a couple times at lunch. Steamed in the peel, they are sweet & pretty yummy in small quantities!

G-nut sauce is kind of made from peanut butter (peanuts here are referred to as g-nuts). But it’s somehow watered down so that it’s a runny, protein-packed sauce. Served over the matooke, but it’s good over rice too.

Early on they also served us yummy pumpkin squash as one of the staples on a weekly basis. I really liked it….but evidently others didn’t like it enough because they quit serving it L

Chapatis are basically a really super thick flour tortilla, including shredded carrot and onion mixed in the dough. More like a half-way point between tortillas and flatbread, if that makes sense. So whenever we have them it’s almost like a Mexican meal!

Boiled Irish is simply boiled potatoes. But what are considered “regular” potatoes in America are called Irish here!

The lentil soup is yummy. It reminds me of my mom’s split pea soup, except for it’s made with orange lentils rather than green and is less runny.

Dinner

The evening/weekend meals can sometimes tend to be a bit more Western. We still nearly always have a carb and some sort of sauce to go over it, as well as the vegetables/fruits listed above. Some of the regulars are spaghetti and ground beef/tomato sauce, rice and chicken soup (big pieces of boiled chicken + veggies & broth), fried rice (with lots of yummy veggies and chicken or scrambled eggs), and a repeat of the Thursday lunch (YAY!).

We’ve also had things like pasta salad, and a couple of times have been treated to an {iceberg} lettuce side salad! I’m always pretty excited about the latter – I’ve really missed a good robust green salad here. It’s going to be my first meal when I get back to the States…that and ice cream! ;)

Miscellaneous

The sweet things are pretty much restricted to breakfast (we go through a jar of Nutella in a day or maybe two, and people add sugar to both porridge and tea!), fruit, and birthday cakes….so no regular dessert here! Thus I have gotten into the habit of maintaining a chocolate stash to occasionally satisfy my sweet tooth. Oh, and the ice cream here tends to be more like either frozen cool whip (fake dairy) or slushy/snow cone-ish (more like sherbet rather than being creamy).

Thankfully they have soda (soft drinks) here. The first week I was really craving one, even though I’m not a habitual drinker of them back home. I think that was probably my sweet tooth talking, and my desire to have something cold in the heat! So yeah – Coke, Pepsi, Mt. Dew, and Fanta are all available here. A unique one is “Krest” that is basically a fizzy lemonade that’s bitter instead of sweet. They also have this amazing one called “Stoney” (think a really strong ginger ale). Hmm…I’ll have to try to smuggle one or two home so my family can taste it!

I haven’t had traditional snacks here as much….but I do know a few. Mendazis (no idea if I spelled that right…) are a little bit like donuts—more dense but just as fried and unhealthy! The taste reminds me of funnel cake. They also have things like popcorn (which I haven’t gotten to enjoy nearly as often as I wish!) and they eat g-nuts plain too. Since the British are the ones who colonized here, “biscuits” (think a type of crispy cookie that are only lightly sweetened) are widely available. They also eat sim sim (sesame seeds) by themselves and a snack that looks like (but doesn’t taste like) sesame sticks. Jackfruit and mangoes are also common snacks in the family groups. Jackfruit...I don't know what to compare it to. The taste reminds me of dried bananas. I need to take a picture of it.....

Street food is the Ugandan version of fast food (I don’t think McDonalds has reached here yet…..). Chapatis are common street food, as are mendazis (I think) and an empanada-type food filled with chick peas. Chips (steak-cut French fries for you Americans), fried eggs, rotisserie chicken with cooked cabbage, roasted maize, and pineapple by the fourth and with the stem still on are also available. There are also “Rolexes” – chapatis with a fried egg and sliced tomato rolled up inside!

So yeah….I think that about covers it! Hope you enjoyed this “tour”/cultural lesson J

The Institute Kids

Four months ago, I arrived here at Kasana….and shortly thereafter the other people who would be going through the Institute began to arrive as well. They live in what I affectionately call the “Institute village,” and we share all of our meals together. There are others who have already been on staff here at Kasana and who live in other areas of the compound…sadly I haven’t gotten to know them as well.

Our Institute village consists of five bandas (round huts) and a duplex down the hill, plus a kitchen and the dining hall/classroom. The residents are as follows: three single guys, one single gal (my roomie!), one young married couple, a couple and their daughter from Liberia, two Ugandan couples with children, and a new missionary family. There’s also a gentleman who has a family back in Kampala…he lives in one of the family groups but comes to eat meals with us.

I’ve been writing the rest of this post in my head for a while, and am finally sitting down to actually do it. I wanted to talk about the five African kids who have stolen their way into my heart these past weeks. When I leave, I’m going to miss everyone I’ve met here a lot….but especially these kids. {Here at Kasana, “Auntie” is used as a prefix before women’s names as a sign of respect}

Those first few weeks the kids were understandably shy. But now, looking back…it makes me chuckle inside. Because now they are anything but shy!!! Going to school here where English is the common language has helped that too—now they are actually confident enough to speak in whole sentences. J So I dedicate this post to these kids….and I pray God’s blessing on their life journeys.

There is the set of three siblings (a girl and two boys) who came with their parents from NHU’s other location. They have an older sister, but she stayed home for the sake of schooling. The daughter who is here helps a lot to take care of the littlest fella, and she still tends to be reserved. But there have been several times recently when I’ve seen her beautiful face light up with joy and excitement, and just last night she was teaching me how to say “moon” and “stars” in her mother language J

When I got back from the Institute break of four days, she and a classmate were just getting back from a day at school. She ran up to give me a big hug and the traditional Ugandan greeting to one who returns from a journey: “Auntie!! Welcome back!” Adding on, “this is my friend who is in my class!” I think that might have been the first time I heard her speak two whole sentences in English…

The older of the two boys was missing his two front teeth when I first met him. Now they are mostly grown in. The whole time, he’s had the most adorable grin. A few weeks back I taught several of the kids how to play “Go Fish,” and now this fella’s favorite question is “Auntie, we play the cards??” After I started working in the afternoons, my roommate told me he kept coming to our hut asking to play cards with me when I was gone.

He’s also our most frequent meal bell ringer. And he can play the djembe drum with better rhythm than I can! I tell you what, these kids just have rhythm in their blood! I love how concentrated he is when he does it, his mouth partly agape…his head usually tilted to one side J

Their little brother has me wound around his little finger. Man, those first couple weeks he was so whiny and so withdrawn….but now! Well, now he’s like the baby of a great big family J And I think I’m probably his favorite auntie… :D I don’t even remember how it started…but he taught me how to give a piggy back ride African style. The little kids here know how to hang on tight! After our meals, he almost always runs up behind me and grabs onto my skirt and we go through a whole routine of piggy back riding traditions that have developed over the past weeks. And even though he’s not far out of the toddler stage, he is perfectly capable of feeding himself (though it does make something of a mess) and washing his hands regularly (though he does need lifting to be able to reach the sink!). His name is perfect for him, because his laugh is probably the cutest I have ever heard.

He’s also started talking while here, kind of all of a sudden one week in the past month and a half or so. And now he talks up a STORM! On mornings when he’s in a good mood (about 50/50), I can tell it’s breakfast time when I hear his adorable little voice singing “happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday to yooooou.” When we pray, his “AMEN!” is usually the loudest (and occasionally a wee bit premature…). “How are yooou? I’m FINE!” is another favorite, especially at breakfast. And when I have him on my back and go sit down in one of the cushioned chairs (to signal that I’m worn out for the day), he says (with the biggest grin on his face) what he’s evidently heard me say a few times: “I am tIReddd.” He’s also taught me some of his language! Akipi is water, Iya is again, and Inya is there (the last two I had to have his mother explain to me because he kept saying them during our piggy back riding times!)

Two other girls round out the little group. Both are between the ages of the two boys in the three-some

The older one is something else. She’s probably the most spunky, out-going little kid I have ever seen! She’s just a firecracker, always on the go, always in motion…sometimes to the point of minor calamities (I have no idea how many cups she’s spilled or pieces of silverware she’s dropped here…. ;-). My first clear memory of her is the day the first week when I was the blind man in Blind Man’s Bluff and she opened the closed door and ran into a stranger’s house, grabbed my hand, and tried to lead me to the kids I was trying to tag. That’s just how this little gal operates.

She definitely acts like she’s a little princess and certainly isn’t afraid to make her wants and desires known…and expects them to be met! And her high energy level can be hard to keep up with sometimes. But she is also definitely a blessing, with her joyfulness and her vivacity. The only times I’ve seen her close to “calm” is when she’s just gotten up from a nap. That’s the one occasion when she’s sporting a gloomy face and not running around laughing and chattering away. I love her facial expressions too…I can definitely see her dad in her face and in her voice J

The other little girl was the second most reserved of the group. I met her right after she and her parents got here, and she was hiding behind the door. I watched her interact with the friends from home who had brought her family down, and I knew it would take some time before I was able to interact with her that way. Sometime in the first couple weeks I went over and sat talking to her parents for a little while…and that was the first time I heard her speak a whole sentence…but in her native tongue. But just like all the others, she has since blossomed into quite the cheerful little lark. Quite often, she’ll be singing at the top of her voice rather early in the morning (good thing I’m an early riser!).

She and her parents are my closest neighbors, and I love all the little exchanges we have. Like her brushing her teeth outside and showing me how she can make the water squirt out of her mouth. Like her announcing to me “I am washing!” in her sweet little accent when she is doing her laundry (by hand, of course). Like just today her hollering from outside of my hut: “Auntie Esther!” “yes?” “Hi!” But boy, this little lady has some shrill vocal cords! If you tickle her or startle her (both of which happen to most of these five kids on a pretty regular basis…), you better be prepared to have a loud scream split your ears! In the past couple weeks she’s really attached to me, running up whenever she sees me and practically jumping into my arms. The funniest thing to me is how on nights like last night, when the temperature is maybe 60 degrees, she walks around wearing a coat/jacket lined with cozy warm fluff. Weather is certainly relative!

So yep, that’s the description of my five little “nieces and nephews” here. I’m so thankful that they have good families and parents who love them and care about them (including coming to the Institute partly to learn about parenting their kids)! It’s a good thing they do….because if they didn’t…….well, it would be a lot harder to leave them behind. It will be sad anyway, but I’m thankful to know I leave them in the most able hands of God and the good hands of their parents.