Roasted Ants and the Choleric Slums

This week I have been further acculturated. I danced traditional dances with my sisters while the help were cracking up laughing at me. I also ate ants at tea time the other day. During the rainy season, so many flying ants are disabled, and you can find them in swarms on the ground after the rain. In fact, while they were cooking the ants, I walked around to the side of the house and found thousands of wings lying on the ground from where Kiisa had been preparing them. For those of you are interested in trying them the recipe is simple:

Roasted Ants:
Ingrediants: Ants (dewinged)

First, put the ants in a pot. Roast over a charcoal stove until they cease looking like maggots and turn brown (about 45 minutes over low heat). Remove from heat, put in a bowl, and gross out your friends or your foreign exchange student. Watch them eat the ants for your own entertainment.
Warning: the dismembered insect heads, legs, and bodies get stuck in your teeth. You may choose to pretend that the thorax caught in your molar is popcorn. To each her own.

While we are on the topic of food… I will talk about traditional Ugandan food. Food is only food if it is cooked and served with sauce. Otherwise it is not food (example: fruit is not food nor is chicken). Food includes rice, matooke, cassava, posho (millet), and potatoes. The sauces include beef, chicken, fish, gnut, and beans. I learned that chicken is not considered meat pretty quickly. When I moved into my home, I told my mom that I did not take meat. Fine. A couple days later she began serving me pieces of one of our chickens. I pawned them off on our siblings thinking she had forgotten. She was offended and asked me why I would not eat chicken. I think we were both confused, so she asked me why I told her I didn’t want meat but I neglected to mention I didn’t want chicken. Anyways, meat is a sauce, because it is mixed with water when cooked and the stew like liquid is poured over food. Gnut sauce which I have grown to love is ground peanuts cooked with water and salt (it doesn’t taste to much like peanuts). These meals are eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in HUGE proportions. I can stomach a dinner finally, but an African lunch is still ridiculous for me (I tell them I want little more than the amount given to Buwembo- the almost three year old who lives with us. I can barely finish that). Here no one ever leaves any food on their plate after a meal. The plates are left looking almost clean.

The meat (and chicken) is another story. I have been told that the beef tastes 10X fresher than America’s. None of their food or animals are given any kind of chemicals or pesticides to grow. However, meat here isn’t refrigerated when sold. It hangs everywhere in little stands without windows along the dirty streets and traffic fumes. Meat can be brought to the butcher from the trunk of a taxi, from a boda boda man, from someone walking with a couple cow legs thrown over his shoulder. Boda bodas can tie 30 chickens to their motorcycles. Some hang in front of the exhaust pipes. Another thing I learned is that most other countries don’t refrigerate eggs. Here, we have about 5 dozen eggs that sit outside my home until we decide to eat one.

Also, Ugandan tradition is to make extra food in case visitors come. In Uganda, visitors aren’t usually scheduled even if they plan on staying overnight. People just stop in and are always fed. For example, the town drunk frequents my home and gets a little food each time. Also, I will never forget being scared almost out of my seat on my second night in the homestay when our auntie literally popped her head through the curtained window in the dark dark night during our dinner to say “hi.” People are much more trusting and inviting. There is a saying that “In a house, there is no road.” Meaning people don’t come to your home in order to get something or go somewhere. They come to socialize, just to be there. I love that quote.
Okay, enough about food. This week was a real learning experience for me. As part of my gender studies course that I took last week with 5 other girls, we went to the slums this week with the Slum Aid Project. Many of the shanty houses I see on the side of the road are already worse than anything I have seen in America. But the slums are so much worse. They are buildings with about 5 or 6 one-bedroom homes. The homes are 10ftX10ft. We talked to families that share these rooms with 11 kids. Most of the families have at least 5 kids.

One of the first things that struck me about the slums was the awful stench. They smell like rotting food, burning trash, and the sewers that run through the slum which you have to be careful not to fall into. SAP does advocacy and counsels people involved in domestic violence, child sexual abuse, drugs, prostitution, etc . We talked to the community leaders and to citizens who lived in the communities. We saw hungry children, battered women… spoke to a former prostitute, to internally displaced persons from Northern Uganda, to refugees from DRC, Eritrea, and Somalia.
That’s all for now. I am leaving for another week of traveling yay!!

Fun Facts and Ugandan Traffic

“oli otya” (olyo-tia) – how are you?
Response: “gyendi “ (jen-dee)- I am there.

So far in Uganda we have stayed at a hotel in the capital. We have walked around for hours each day, bargained at markets, and eaten goat and samosa. The city streets are insanely crowded!!! It is fun and exciting … but sometimes you cant even move, and the sidewalks can be dangerous. You have to watch where you are stepping in places so that you don’t fall into the sewage system or a manhole or get run over by a boda boda (motorcycle). Shops and vendors line the streets. Kampala has no ground level offices along the streets (save when you get to a nicer area where embassies and parliament are)—it is all commercial. People do live behind some of the shops though.

We just found out who our homestay families are!!! I am living with a princess and a software engineer!!! Just like my family at home! (except my host mom comes from real royalty). I have not met them yet. I have been told that they have around 6 kids, and they live in Kisaasa. Their names are Christina and Henry Tukke. Streets in the suburbs and most city streets are not named… so I don’t have an address at home. I am so excited for Sunday when we get to move in with them!!!

When we Americans walk through the streets people yell “Muzungu!” which means “white person” at us. It is not a slam or anything, they generally love us. Most Ugandans so far think that we are tourists, and their faces brighten so much if we greet them back in Luganda. They love talking to us and if we ever have questions or get lost, someone will kindly stop what they are doing to show us the way or to take us there themselves. People here are generally extremely friendly and welcoming to everybody.
Yesterday we had a “drop off” where we had to walk about the city. Two other Muzungus and I were researching internet cafes and newspapers. People at the primary school who were practicing their traditional and tribal dance performances started yelling “Mazungu!” and invited us to come watch them perform a ritual marriage dance and an Acholi dance from the north. The singing and drumming was so powerful and their dancing so energetic that it was hard to just sit and watch (My lack of booty shaking skills would have been a riot to them I am sure). I also had my first taste of bargaining from the market for my cell phone and purse.

Other interesting facts: My boogers here are black. The streets are covered in dirt (and trash,) and the huge number of diesel engines pollutes the air considerably. My throat burns after walking around for a long period of time.

Uganda—like Ohio—has lots of birds. Uganda’s birds--unlike Ohio’s—are 4 feet tall storks. They are huge, nasty, ugly birds who scavenge for trash and seem unafraid of humans. They are also toxic to eat.

Uganda has an endless supply of bananas. Most Ugandans eat “matooke” at every meal. Matooke is boiled and mashed bananas. It doesn’t taste too much like bananas, and it is very bland but good. They also have so many abundant and cheap varieties of tropical fruit, and I will certainly miss passionfruit juice back in the states. It is incredible.

Now I am going to tell you about another exciting part of Kampala life: the traffic!
The traffic here is unbelievable compared to what we have in the states. It is absolutely amazing. On our way to the city from the airport, I thought we almost got into a couple of car accidents. It turns out that we didn’t… that the drivers know exactly what they are doing.
First of all… Ugandan traffic is not organized like American traffic. And I don’t mean that it is dissimilarly organized… I mean that it lacks almost any form of organization. Only the main roads in the capital city have names… all other directions are given by landmarks… [ex) I live in this village on the Western side of the road that is behind two churches.] Only a couple traffic lights are in the city and these are usually turned off. Speed limit signs do not exist. (I think I have seen one road sign so far and it was a ‘no entrance‘)Cars travel on the left side of the road… but of course I have been in a line of cars surrounded on both sides by oncoming traffic. Taxis (Toyota Hiaces filled with 16 people), motorcycles, pedestrians, animals, bicycles, beggers and peddlers all share the road way, and pedestrians do not have the right of way. Motorcylces, walkers, and bikes maneuver through all “lanes.” I have heard that hurried taxis drive on the sidewalk. It is an absolute free-for-all. Cars do not stop and wait to cross the road… they move into the roadway perpendicular to oncoming traffic, right in front of oncoming cars, and pull in front of other drivers. The more energetic driver makes it first. When you keep in mind that Kampala is a huge, extremely crowded city and that the roads are COMPLETELY PACKED, the traffic seems like madness. It is. What we consider “bumper to bumper traffic” in America is a complete joke once you have seen the truth that phrase holds here.

The amazing thing is… I have not seen a single accident. Probably most cars have scratched bumpers, but they are so used to driving this way, that they are very good. All drivers must be at least 18 years old and have taken drivers education classes. They are aggressive drivers, but at the same time, they are all extremely calm and patient. Sometimes the cars make it into the spot they want immediately, and sometimes they block traffic for a few seconds… but no one seems angered. Unfortunately a huge number of motorcyclists and some pedestrians are not always lucky. (don’t worry I am not allowed on motorcycles for that reason).
It is also interesting that our advisor has come to the states 3 times and is absolutely mortified of our driving. She says that we have so many road signs that she can barely concentrate on driving. Also, she says it is hard for her to waste so much time waiting… for lights, stop signs, etc. Drivers do not wait more than a couple seconds here for anything.

So far life in the bustling capital has been very exciting!!!