MATOKE!

Today “going with the flow” lead me to an afternoon better than I could have imagined!

Cat had planned earlier in the week to go to church with Josephine, our Ugandan friend. I was of course along for the ride but as of Saturday afternoon we were still pretty unsure of what exactly our plans were. It can be pretty difficult to make plans over the phone…language barriers (or maybe I should say accent barriers...) become an even bigger problem when you can’t see the person you’re talking to!  Josephine had told Cat we would be going to Watoto East.

     In Kampala there are four Watoto churches; East, West, South, and Central. There’s also a Watoto North up in Gulu. They have a really great ministry and a lot of the AIM people go to one of them; typically the one they live closest to. You can check out what they do a little more at www.watotochurch.org.

            Anyways, Cat and I are really close to Watoto West, which means Watoto East is completely across town therefore really far away, especially when you take a taxi there! We were confused about why she wanted to go to the East church but decided it would be fine and we’d go anyways. We met down the road at eight and began the commute. Josephine had told Cat we’d be taking taxis so we both wore long skirts thinking we wouldn’t be riding any bodas….wrong. Well, I suppose I was bound to ride side saddle at some point! It wasn’t as difficult as I thought though, a pleasant surprise! We got to church at about 9:20 and waited for the ten o’clock service to start.
The worship was great…if anyone reading this was in church in Hastings the Sunday before I left, Steve was right, they know how to worship in Africa!! =]

Josephine wanted us to meet her mom so after church we walked to her village. Cat fell in a ditch on the way..no big deal, now her knees just match her shins. It was a long (and super dusty!) walk but it was so worth it! After we met her mom Josephine gave us each a soda and some bread and we just chilled at her house for a while. I was really grateful for the opportunity to see life in the village as opposed to the city. One of my favorite things about it was that all the neighbors were out behind the house just kind of hanging out together. The kids were climbing the trees and a few of the women were working on some chores but they were talking too and seemed to be enjoying each other! It was a great atmosphere. =]

We were headed back into town after that when all of a sudden Josephine had the taxi stop and we all piled out again. She told us she really wanted us to meet her cousin’s sister, Pamela. Cat and I were a little confused because we really hadn’t expected any home visits, let alone two, but we weren’t about to turn down another opportunity to get to know Josephine and her family better! Another walk ensued, this one much less dusty! Soon enough we were sitting on a bed in a cute little room of a hostel that Pamela and her roommate Lydia share. They’re both near my age and they go to University in Kampala. They were friendly and the conversation was nice..but also pretty typical. You know, the usual questions and pleasantries and what not. That didn’t last long though…they said something about us visiting Josephine’s house and I was like, “Yeah! She gave us soda and everything, it was super nice!” and both Pamela and Lydia seemed completely surprised and started talking to Josephine really fast in Lugandan. Before Cat or I knew what was going on they had decided they were making us lunch! Apparently they couldn’t believe Josephine hadn’t served us matoke (I’ll explain what that is a bit later) and took it upon themselves to do just that. The truth is, Josephine had tried to serve us lunch but Cat was supposed to be home by three so we had told her it wasn’t necessary and she gave us the soda instead.

Lydia was out the door and back just a few minutes later with some grocery bags from the little stand down the road. I had a blast watching her pull stuff from the bag. It was like Mary Poppins, there was no end to the fresh fruits and vegetables she had bought!

They told us they were making us matoke with g-nut sauce. The dish is called Katogo. She had this strange looking lump that she put in a bowl with hot water and handed to Josephine. That was the g-nut; its ground up peanuts that they turn into a sauce. Then she pulled out this huge bunch of matoke. It looks exactly like bananas except its green and its everywhere here! She started peeling them faster than I’ll ever be able to peel anything! Cat joined her and while they were working on that Pamela peeled some mangoes for all of us to share. Once the matoke was all peeled and was in a pot Lydia added water and put it on their little heater thing to boil. She started chopping tomatoes and onions next and Pamela started making juice. She had a strainer over a pitcher and put two passion fruits and four oranges in it. Then she added some water and sugar. The juice was amazing! Next she sliced up an avocado and “set the table”. I put it in quotes because we all sat on the floor while we ate! We still all had placemats and everything else though, it was so fun! By the time that was done the matoke was ready so they drained it and added the tomatoes, onions, and sauce.

Lydia dished up two plates and set them in front of Cat and I…and we just stared. The portion was HUGE! I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it but I didn’t know what to say. Apparently I didn’t need to say anything; the look on our faces said it all. The three of them just burst into laughter and started talking about how Ugandans eat huge portions and how mizungos would never be able to eat all that they had given us! They cut the portion down then said flat out, “you don’t know what to do now, do you?” They were right! They said that you peel a section of the avocado into the bowl then eat it with the matoke. We did, and we loved it!! It was easily the best Ugandan food I’ve had so far!

We had great conversation the whole time we ate; they told us all the different things we should try while we’re here and all the different places we should try to visit. They continually laughed at all my questions though I didn’t mind because once they stopped laughing they always answered me anyways.

We made plans to meet again next Sunday for lunch then hang out afterwards since we didn’t have time today (as it turned out we didn’t get home until after four!).

The entire time we were there I felt SO blessed by the three of them. They provided an entire meal for us and didn’t seem bothered by it in the least!  I feel so lucky to have met them and I really hope I’ll get to spend a lot more time with them while I’m here!!

I told Josephine that since they’re making us lunch twice I have to make them all lunch at least once (so if you have any good ideas of some “American” food I can make them, let me know!!).

Besides the awesome company, there are some perks to having a Ugandan friend; on the way home Josephine showed me the best place to get nail polish along with a whole handful of other little “tricks” I would have never learned otherwise!

I really just can’t get over how amazing my day turned out to be. As we headed out in the morning I was thinking; trip across town, church, trip back home, nap. I never did get to take a nap, but I would gladly trade a nap for what I got to experience any day!!

Pictures from Week One! (the full album is on my facebook)

The view from just outside my gate. This little road leads down to a bigger one where we can find a boda or taxi.

Cat and I outside the gate!

This is one of the girls from Dawn. She's the happiest child I've ever met (though I suppose this picture doesn't show that very well...this might be the calmest I've seen her!)

In a taxi

Ice Cream!!! The green was pistachio (so good!) and the orange was mango (not good..this and the yogurt I talked about are what finally convinced me that only real mangos are good!)

Me on a boda!! This guy was Jospehine's friend and he got such a kick out of me wanting a picture on the boda!

Pamela and I with some delicious mango

Matoke!

Fresh fruit juice (passion and orange), avacado, and matoke with g nut sauce

Cat, Pamela, Lydia, Jospehine, Me!

a little friend Cat and I found in the hallway =]

My first (real) weekend in Uganda!!

Good news, I now have internet at home!!

That means you'll hear from me much more often, excited?! ;]

Friday was a public holiday, Martyr's Day, so we didn't have to go in to Mukisa. Instead we had a "tourist" day!
It started at twenty after seven when I woke up and couldn't fall back asleep! The dogs weren't barking, the annoying bird wasn't making noise; I just couldn't fall back asleep. I ended up being quite pleased though because I took it to mean I was finally over jet-lag!

I was excited to try some mango flavored yogurt I bought at Nakuumat (a big grocery store downtown) but I soon discovered the only mango flavored things I like are REAL mangoes! It was really quite terrible! I'll have to see if Cat or Florence wants it because I don't think I'll be able to bear it!

Once we were up and ready to go we got a boda into town where we had planned to meet Rachel and Carolyn (other AIM short-termers). We had a few errands to run at Garden City (buying internet!!!) then we headed to "Friday Market". There are markets all over town all week long but on Friday there's a really big one downtown. There are all sorts of crafts and souvenirs that you can buy and tons of mizungos roaming around. I felt like I was going crazy because there are SO many beautiful things to buy, I couldn't decide! Something I really like about the market is that things really are handmade; you can see them making it! It’s cool to see the drums and baskets being made.

Once we were done with the market we got two bodas and were supposed to go to the old taxi park. I don't know if I've explained this already in a previous post but there are two taxi parks in Kampala, the old and the new. The taxi park is a really big area with a million taxis jammed into it; the perfect place to get your toes ran over! I mean it though; it's absolutely insane how many vans there are in one place! There’s sort of a system to it all but it sure doesn't seem like it...there are no lines on the ground to follow or anything like that! I feel like I’m making it sound so terrible but it’s actually quite handy, you can get a taxi to nearly anywhere in Kampala and the surrounding area at the taxi park. You just walk in and ask around about the place you’re looking to go then they point in a general direction so you walk that way and eventually ask someone else until you get to the right place! (If you really know what you’re doing you don’t have to ask around but that hasn’t happened for me yet!) Anyways, our bodas got separated so Rachel and I ended up at the new taxi park while Carolyn and Cat were at the old one. Soon enough we found each other though (thank goodness for cell phones!) and found a taxi to Masaka which was the direction of the equator.

The taxis won’t leave the park until they’re full so we ended up sitting for quite a while. I consider time spent sitting in the taxi park “window shopping time”. Normal window shopping involves walking to different stores and looking at all the things you can buy through the windows, but taxi park window shopping is much easier…you just sit back and relax in the taxi and an endless stream of things to purchase just flows right by the window. People sell everything in the Taxi Park; watches, sunglasses, ice cream, grasshoppers, blankets, even French to English dictionaries! We all bought an ice cream while we waited. Once the van was full we headed out, the trip took about an hour and a half.

We took our pictures at the monuments (you’ll see that in some of them we were joined by some of the children from a nearby shop, so cute!) and walked through some of the shops then had lunch. The tables that were used for lunch were big African drums, very cool looking!

We had been invited for pizza back in Kampala but by the time we were home we were too tired to go out again so Cat and I bought a pineapple from the market and had that while we watched a movie with Florence and her sisters.
 
Saturday morning I got up early to run. It was my second run since I’ve been here and it went much better than the first. (The first was terrible, I tried to go in the evening and it was hot and dusty, not a good idea!) I ran up on the roads behind where we live...I mentioned before that Kampala is really hilly though I didn’t fully realize it until I was running! I had been running about six minutes when it occurred to me that I had been steadily going downhill. There’s hardly a way to avoid the long uphills though so I just kept going. During part of my run a little girl joined me, she was adorable! Later I was joined by a guy that looked just a little older than me. We ran together just a little bit and he talked to me the whole time! He was training for some upcoming competitions in Jinja and was a 400 meter runner.

I had orientation at ten over at the guesthouse that I originally stayed in. It was my first time traveling alone!! Everything went smoothly and the orientation was really helpful. One of the biggest things I took away from it was the importance of setting goals for my time here. I don’t want to get to August 15^th and think back on my time here and realize I never allowed myself to grow. I’ve really got to take some time to think about and pray about what goals to set. I want to avoid setting up expectations of myself and others though, that’s not the point of goals.

After orientation I took a taxi into town (again, by myself…yay!) and met up with Cat, Beth, and Julie at an art festival. It was my first time meeting Beth and Julie and I realized right away how great they are! A while before I left I was given Julie and Beth’s blogs so when I met them I kind of felt like I knew them already!
 
Something else exciting happened on Saturday…I think I finally found “my” boda driver! You can get a boda pretty much anywhere but it’s recommended that you find one you trust that you can use regularly. A lot of the other AIM girls have at least one or two that they’ll call to take them home after dinner or to church or other things like that. I’ve been on the lookout but I’ve had pretty high expectations so hadn’t found anyone until now. My criteria (in order of importance!!): drives carefully, knows the city (or doesn’t mind stopping and asking for directions!!), charges a fair price, understands and speaks English well enough that if I call and ask for a ride he’ll understand where to pick me up!

For church today we went to Watoto East. It’s all the way across town but we went with Josephine, a Ugandan friend we’ve made. Basically, this was the best afternoon I could have imagined. I’ll post about it another day though because Cat and I are going to watch a movie!

Until next time…

All my love,

Molly