Monday, September 21, 2015

Food in Uganda!

Here in Uganda, we don't have quite the same variety of food as what we are used to eating at home. When we cook for ourselves, we eat a lot of rice, pasta, eggs, and vegetables like cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and onions. For breakfast, we have cornflakes and oatmeal. We also eat fruit – mostly bananas, but we've also had fresh papaya, oranges (which are green here), and avacado. For snacks, we eat a lot of shortbread cookies.


This was one of our first meals in Uganda, from a restaurant called Burungi's. It's a chicken broth, and we mixed in rice and sweet potato (matoke).  There is chapat on the left.


This is the menu at Burungi's. “Offals katogo” is a kind of intestine. “Chapati” is like a flour tortilla. “Muchomo” is goat meat.


“Milk tea” is a big thing here. It's tea steeped in milk and it's served hot. You can also put sugar in it. It's wonderful! This picture shows milk tea along with a typical lunch of banana, eggs, and bread.


They sell peanut butter here, but it is expensive. Instead, we buy G-nuts Paste. G-nuts stands for “ground nuts” - nuts that grow in the ground, aka peanuts. So it's made of peanuts, but doesn't taste as good as actual peanut butter.


G-Nuts are also made into a purple sauce!




One day, our Ugandan friend Michael made for us a delicious feast for dinner. This plate has chicken, rice, and vegetables. He had to actually kill the chicken to make this meal. I was glad I wasn't at home when that was happening!


Sugar cane is a treat here. People chew the soft center portion of the sugar cane and then spit it out.


A “rolex” is a flour tortilla (called chapat) rolled into a kind of burrito with egg, cabbage, and tomato inside. It's probably my favorite thing we've eaten here so far.


This is passion fruit juice. I've only had it once, but would definitely drink it again!


“Chips” here are more like thick french fries. They are delicious!



That's all for now!
Love,

Miss Jacobs

Monday, September 14, 2015

Greetings from Uganda!

Uganda

Well, it took an 8-hour plane ride from Atlanta to Amsterdam, another 8-hour flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, Uganda, and an 8-hour drive from Entebbe to Rukungiri, but my team and I arrived at our house for the month on Friday morning! Here are some things I've learned about Uganda in the past couple of days.

Weather
Right now, the weather in Uganda is beautiful. They have a dry season and a rainy season. The rainy season begins in October and lasts until December. Right now, it feels like the beginning of fall in Pennsylvania. It gets the hottest in June – up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest it ever gets is between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit, which feels very cold to Ugandans!

Scenery
When we go out driving, we see lots of mountains. They are different than the ones in Wyalusing because not all of them are covered with trees. We also see a lot of banana trees, cows, and goats.

Language
Most (but not all) of the people I've met speak English. They also speak a language called Runyankole runkiga in southwest Uganda. Here are some important words and what they mean:

Webale munanga (way-bah-lay moo-non-gah) – Thank you so much
Agandi (Ah-gahn-dee) – Hello, how are you?
Ndyaho (Dee-ow) - Fine
Apana (Uh-pah-nah) – No
Ego (like Eggo waffles) – Yes

Food
For our first dinner, we went to a restaurant and got chicken broth, rice, and sweet potatoes and mixed them together to make a delicious soup. We also got a dish called chapat, which is basically like a flour tortilla. There is also a popular food called matoke, which is sort of like a potato combined with a banana. They sell peanut butter at the general store, but is much cheaper to buy G-nut paste, which is also made from peanuts and has a similar taste.

If you have questions, please write them in the comments below!

Miss Jacobs



PS Internet here is pretty slow, but I will try to post some pictures when I can!