Would you like some banana with your banana?
Julia, Sam and I work together in the Legal Resources Centre here at the Uganda Law Society. Each day we buy groundnuts (peanuts) from a woman with a stall. You get a generous portion, say a third of a cup, wrapped in a scrap paper cone (right now the paper is an application to join a Kampala Indian association). Each cone of g-nuts costs 100 shillings.
Speaking of shillings, the people at work gasped today when I told them I paid 500 shillings for what should have been a 300 shilling matutu trip. A matatu is a minibus taxi and it’s the closest thing to public transit here. You hop in and cling for dear life while the driver whizzes around town at breakneck speed. When you want to get off, you say “stage.” Anyway, I didn’t know any better and gave 500 shs to the conductor and walked away. My friend was going on and on about how I’d been ripped off. I was annoyed, but then I thought about it and realized that 200 shillings is less than 14 cents.
* *
We get Ugandan food for lunch every day. It’s pretty good. It would take me three days to make all the dishes offered. It’s fairly healthy too, although Ugandans sure do like their starches. There are often 6 or 7 at a meal. Matoke (a kind of banana), cassava, posho, squash, Irish potato, sweet potato, rice and gonja (another kind of banana) all might be included in a single meal. There’s also groundnut sauce, stewed greens, chicken, meat stews and beans.
Matoke is the national dish of this part of Uganda. Apparently it’s an acquired taste. It tastes a little bland to me, but is good with sauce. Most people here absolutely adore it though. In some parts of the country it’s eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The grilled cassava definitely leaves something to be desired. It’s cut into long chunks and grilled. That’s it. It’s very dry. I imagine that eating it is somewhat similar to biting into a piece of drywall. On the whole though, I look forward to my African lunches.
Speaking of shillings, the people at work gasped today when I told them I paid 500 shillings for what should have been a 300 shilling matutu trip. A matatu is a minibus taxi and it’s the closest thing to public transit here. You hop in and cling for dear life while the driver whizzes around town at breakneck speed. When you want to get off, you say “stage.” Anyway, I didn’t know any better and gave 500 shs to the conductor and walked away. My friend was going on and on about how I’d been ripped off. I was annoyed, but then I thought about it and realized that 200 shillings is less than 14 cents.
* *
We get Ugandan food for lunch every day. It’s pretty good. It would take me three days to make all the dishes offered. It’s fairly healthy too, although Ugandans sure do like their starches. There are often 6 or 7 at a meal. Matoke (a kind of banana), cassava, posho, squash, Irish potato, sweet potato, rice and gonja (another kind of banana) all might be included in a single meal. There’s also groundnut sauce, stewed greens, chicken, meat stews and beans.
Matoke is the national dish of this part of Uganda. Apparently it’s an acquired taste. It tastes a little bland to me, but is good with sauce. Most people here absolutely adore it though. In some parts of the country it’s eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The grilled cassava definitely leaves something to be desired. It’s cut into long chunks and grilled. That’s it. It’s very dry. I imagine that eating it is somewhat similar to biting into a piece of drywall. On the whole though, I look forward to my African lunches.
posted by Cara at 8:38 AM
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