I was very worried that my Thanksgiving plans would fall through and I would end up eating either chicken stew with mixed vegetables or splurging to go out for mediocre Indian food. However, Thanksgiving ended up being a complete success. I showed up at my director's house with a bottle and wine and before I knew it, 15 other Ugandans from work and town showed up to join us. Many of them had never had Thanksgiving before and they were very curious about everything. Although they were mainly saying it in jest, they were giving me a hard time that Americans only "give-thanks" once a year where as here they give thanks all the time. There is a lot of truth to their jest as many people here are very religious and pray and give thanks everyday for their food. While the people I am working with are able to afford meals everyday, I have come across many who only have 1 or 2 meals a day. Anyway, I will avoid delving into that for now as I have a lot to cover.
The Thanksgiving meal was the largest I have every seen. As I had said, my Director lived in the States for many years and she would not settle for a Thanksgiving without a turkey. Many of my other mzungu friends who had Thanksgivings around town, did not have a turkey, so we were very lucky. It didn't taste quite as nice as Momma Kahane's, but it definitely was fresh... We also had ham, beef, sweet potatoes, irish potatoes, green beans, spiced rice, corn bread, everything you can think of. On top of that, they had baked 6 different desserts including chocolate cake, apple pie, and pumpkin pie (x2 but the dog ate one of them). We also took turns (some of us) speaking about all the things we are thankful for which was interesting to do with Ugandans and not just my family. It was really a nice way of celebrating Thanksgiving because I realized it was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, and needless to say, I did miss them all. I was able to stuff myself and impress all the Ugandans with my ability to eat. I even impressed myself, but it was a very nice change from beans, matoke, and stews.
Which reminds me, many people have asked about the food here. The food has been decent. The good parts have been that they have delicious fish, well, only tilapia, but it is really good here. Also, the beans are very fresh and taste much better than back home. There is always fresh fruit available including pineapples, mangoes, paw-paw (papaya), watermelon, bananas (referred to as "yellows" because they also have matoke...), avocados, and several others. Eggs are readily available for breakfast as well. The pineapple is some of the best I have had and is very cheap. It really does rival the pineapples from Costa Rica in both price and quality. A medium (good sized) pineapple costs 1000 schillings which is about 50-60 cents depending on the exchange rate which is hovering just under 2000 schillings per dollar. The avocados are plentiful and very large. They are about the size of a softball and baseball placed together (to account for the tear drop shape). The other, when in season, delicious treat is grasshopper. Large green grasshoppers intrude Uganda in late November until mid- to late December. They are caught with nets and are sold on the streets. The wings and legs are plucked off and then fried (while still alive). They are very fatty so you don't even need oil to fry them. They are delicious. I had about 15-20 at the bar last week as I drank some interesting local brews for about 75 cents per beer. The grasshoppers really just tasted like french fries, except they also had some antennas which made you remember what you were eating...
The staple food year round though is matoke. It is a green banana that is not at all sweet and has very little taste. It is prepared either by steaming it in banana leaves or roasted over a grill or fire. It is bearable with some g-nut sauce (ground nuts, similar to peanut sauce) or with some of the sauce from the stews which are either beef, goat, or chicken. They also rely heavily on pocho which is made from millet and is another starchy blob of tastelessness. Occasionally you get lucky and get sweet potatoes, irish potatoes, or rice. They also have great chapati which is like naan. The food really hasn't been bad at all. I have managed to do just fine with no major food-sicknesses.
The amount of starch in a meal far outweighs the amount of protein or other vitamins, and that is a major problem in the area. You will see young children living on banana plantations with enormous bellies, and somewhat counterintuitively, these kids are actually suffering from malnutrition because all they eat is matoke and bananas and that is the cause of their protruding belly, not because they are well-fed.
The rest of that Thanksgiving weekend was good. I didn't take any time off of work on Thursday or Friday and actually had to do some work over the weekend. However, that weekend I did get to go to the home of one of the doctors in the HIV Clinic. He had graciously let me observe him in the clinic one morning, which while it was interesting, made me realize I do not want to work as a doctor in a clinic. Even he said he often gets bored. His wife also works for the study and I have worked closely with her on several occasions. Unlike in the States where the norm is to save up enough money to pay for the complete construction of a house, in Uganda they build in phases. This couple bought the land 2 years ago and last year were able to afford to build a small living quarters. This year they have been able to start construction on their actual home. The majority of the walls have been put up, but there is still a lot of work to be done. They hope to do a little more work in April '09 which will include paving the driveway and doing some additional work on the walls.
While we were sitting and waiting for lunch to be prepared (prepared by the women while Dr. Bosco and I drank sodas and chatted) two of his friends called up and joined us for lunch. This is apparently very typical and based on what I have seen, just part of the culture. Hospitality is very important and if someone turns up at your house as you are preparing food, you invite them to join. Lunch was a typical meal prepared for "special" guests. By special I mean Mzungu. It was matoke, rice, chicken stew, mixed vegetables and followed by fruit for dessert. It was delicious and filling.
Continuing the trend of hospitality, before I had left that morning to join my hosts for lunch, I had been invited to attend a wedding that afternoon by one of the guys who works at the place I am staying. When I returned from lunch, the wedding was just about to begin, an hour and a half after they had said it would start, which wasn't a bad delay considering African time. As soon as I got there I had at least 3 other strangers invite me to join the wedding. Sure enough, I went down to the wedding and watched as there was a performance of traditional dancing done by a group of young men and women and then an apparently popular pop-star took the stage and sang a couple of songs. Soon afterwards, the bride and groom arrived. They walked hand and hand across a plastic tarp that had been laid down. However, before each step, there were people laying down clean newspapers for them to step on. I am still not exactly sure why they did this, but it was interesting. The bride and groom then sat down and the speeches started. This was when I left, temporarily. I listened to one or two speeches but they were all in Runyankore (the local language) so I couldn't understand a word. Also, I had been told they could last for several hours... So I went to do some work and play basketball.
Sure enough, I returned to the wedding at 8 oclock (3 hours late) to find that the speeches were just wrapping up. I chatted with some of the wedding guests and had dinner with them. The party only went until about 11 or 12 because people had traveled from very far. If weddings occur in the villages, they will continue to dance and party until dawn. This wedding did not have much dancing, however, I ended up attending another wedding last weekend with some of my friends this time, and we ended up dancing all night long and having a great time. The dancing here tends to be different from back home in that men will commonly dance with other men and instead of having circles of girls going out dancing, it is the men here that take over the dance floor and dance in circles themselves. Hopefully I haven't made too much of a fool of myself, but they haven't seemed to mind.
The following day was a chance for me to get to go back to the orphanage I have helped out at, however, the guy I usually go with was in Rwanda. I still decided to go over there, despite not being able to talk to them in advance to let them know I was coming. I brought them two soccer balls I had bought and they were extremely excited and grateful. It turned out that the U-14 boys team I had mentioned were having a game so no practice for the girls. We walked down to the field and that's when they informed me that I was going to be the ref. I had a blast with it. Got to re-use the skills I had used when I was 16 and reffed all of two games. Obviously I am very familiar with the rules of soccer, but there were no out-of-bounds lines, intermittently there were people helping me with the sidelines and calling off-sides. But it was a challenge. It was a fun game and I ended up doing alright. Not too many botched calls, although one of the goals was questionable with regards to off-sides but oh well.
Well, I have to run to meet some people for a birthday dinner. I am still at least a week and a half behind. I will try to catch up. My time here is running out. I leave my town next Tuesday and leave Uganda next Friday. I am still figuring out whether or not I will be back. I may not decide until I get home, so we will see. Take care everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment