LIFE ON A SUNDAY

Before I tell you about Sunday, let me tell you about the food.  Since our family has visited Uganda a number of times before, we are getting used to the different foods and their different ways of cooking.  For breakfast you can have eggs, pineapple, small sweet bananas, mango, bread, matoke (cooked green bananas) or a hot dish with matoke and ground nut sauce (I not have described it right).

Lunch is usually a hot meal with a starch like rice, matoke, and/or sweet potato & pumpkin.  There is usually a stew made of either chicken, beef or fish.  Then the evening meal is served around 8:00 pm and the choice is similar but with added surprises like cooked slivered cabbage & onion.

Matoke can be cooked in a lovely sauce made of water, spices, onions, green & red pepper, and tomatoes.  I really like this dish!  In Uganda there are around 22 different kinds of bananas and a bunch is the large stalk cut off the tree with many clusters.  In Canada we purchase a cluster of bananas.

There are the best peanuts here.  They are called "ground nuts" and are quite small with red skins and very tasty.  They are grown without any pesticides or fertilizers in very fertile soil.  You buy ground nuts in large quantities and can roast & salt them, or you can cook then raw and make a sauce which you put on rice.  Below is a picture of Beatrice roasting ground nuts on a small fire just in front of the outside kitchen at Jolly's home.

The cows I talked about yesterday which are the Ugandan breed. 

 It was also so interesting to see pine trees growing with eucalyptus trees and right beside banana plants (above).  And not that far away are mango trees.  Uganda is a very beautiful country with very rich fertile soil.

Sunday was another full day with a 2 1/2 hour church service...with very loud lively music.  The people are extremely friendly and welcoming - I love being with them.  Then there were meetings and fellowship.  We went home for a few hours then attended a "wedding meeting".  Ronnie will be marrying Eunice in mid November and in Uganda all the friends, relatives and church community have meetings around wedding preparations including how to fund the wedding.  This was a very different experience for me but the idea is to have the couple start their married life without debt.  So there was some business going over all the parts of the ceremony, reception and various other expenses.  Then there were a few activities to raise money and the best one was an auction like I've never seen.  It is hard to explain but it was a lot of fun.  In the end they had raised a fair bit of money.  

On Monday morning we will be going to Masuliita to spend one week at the school.  I am told that the internet service is not always very good so I might not be able to continue with this blog until I am back in Kampala.  Signing off for today...