Mangos, Bananas, Matoke, Mmm!

Ugandan chicken on a stick!

I can honestly say I have thoroughly enjoyed almost every meal I’ve had in Uganda. The one that did not sit too well with me was a dish of goat intestines for breakfast... But aside from that, its been quite delicious! Breakfast is usually eggs, toast, fresh fruit, coffee or tea, freshly squeezed fruit juice and sometimes avocado. Though I usually just have instant coffee in the morning, I have had the locally grown beans and, mm, this coffee lover is in heaven those days.

I actually prefer the little bananas to the big ones, they have a sweeter taste.

I usually eat lunch from MU-JHU (Makerere University-John Hopkins Research Collaboration Building) or a close by canteen. They serve local food every day for a very reasonable price. We usually get rice, matoke, g-nuts, beans, and sometimes a meat "soup" take away. All that filling a Tupperware costs 3,500 shillings. Lunch is often the largest meal of the day.

What lunch usually looks like (and it's actually really good!)

I actually crashed a party on my front lawn for this dinner. Goat meat on a stick, chichen, pillou (rice cooked with meat), two kinds of salad and roasted matoke (still in the peel)

Meat soup is more like a gravy with meat chunks that goes over the rice and matoke. Matoke is technically in the same family as bananas, but since I prefer them steamed in banana leaves, they remind me more of a mashed potato. Potatoes here taste very similar but are called by different names. A roasted baked potato is called an "Irish Potato," the french fries are called "Chips," and the chips are called "Crisps." Very British, I'm learning. Maize is also a big food source here. You can find it growing almost anywhere. Many people enjoy buying the roasted corn from the street vendors.

They really do grow it anywhere.

Honestly, I don't know if it's banana or matoke. My coworkers laugh at me all the time becasue I can't tell the difference between the trees...

Because lunch is so big, dinners usually consist of toast with peanut butter and a mango. Sometimes I’ll run to a market and get veggies for guacamole and days where I am very hungry I’ll make up pasta or run to the Good Samaritan Canteen. Some nights the other guests in my house and I will order dinner off Hello Food. This website has tons of restaurants that you can order from and a boda-boda will bring it to your door within the hour! It is a great thing we’ve discovered. We even had pizza the other night!

I think that will be one of the hardest things about returning to the states. I will really miss being able to buy bananas, mangos, avocados, onions, tomatoes, chipati, and any of the other foods I have become so used to buying on the street. Sure, I have to soak it in a cleaner to make sure I won’t get sick, but when a full load of groceries usually costs me a dollar at most, I’m happy to let it soak for 20 minutes.

Enough to make guacamole for days (and a banana) for ~$.65!

As yummy as the food has been, I will say I'm pretty excited to come home and have blueberries and a hamburger. It has been very fun to jump into the culture and try new things, but as home gets closer and closer, I find myself looking forward to things I haven't had access to over the past few weeks.