FOOD!!

A lot of people have asked me about food here, so I thought I would throw up a couple pictures so that you have an idea of what has been filling my stomach for the past 3 months. 

This is certainly the picture to start with.  There will be a variety of foods shown in the pictures to follow, but I can always count on eating rice, beans, posho (the white stuff pictured here...essentially tasteless and nutritionless, but filling) or matoke (cooked bananas that taste similar to mashed potatoes).

Here is an example of matoke with simsim sauce (prepared on my rural homestay) and a small piece of beef in the bottom left corner.  Simsim is a seed that can be eaten by itself as a side for a cup of tea or mashed into a sauce.

Cassava (a major food source for my rural homestay family) is grown, dried, stored and cooked for a variety of dishes.  These pieces can also be ground into flour to make a food called millet (their bread substitute and also used in porridge or the local beer).

Beans and cassava

Uganda has a lot of different types of bananas including these small, sweet bananas.

Uganda has some delicious fruits...this papaya (called popo) was grown at the home of my rural homestay family.  One morning I saw two monkeys stealing one of the papayas!

This giant fruit is called Jack fruit...my second favorite after pineapple.  Its yellow and full of seeds.

This is roasted maiz (corn)- a common Ugandan snack.

Auntie frying chapti, arguably the most common Ugandan snack.  Used for a variety of foods including a wrap with a fried egg, tomato and onions (called a rolex) one of my favorites.

Sugar cane is also eaten as a snack here.  You bite into the stick on the left and suck all the sugary water out.  When you have finished it looks like the stick on the right which you throw away.

Maria preparing traditional greens.  They have a pretty strong bitter taste...I'm not a huge fan of these.

Any guesses on this food?  I wasn't sure either...:) These are cow intestines.

These little fishies are put in a sauce and served over matoke, posho, or noodles.

A meal of chicken, rice, greens and tilapia.  A meal served on our trip to Jinja.

A special meal prepared by one of our American professors.  Chapti with beans, eggs and guacamole.  Pineapple, apples, coffee cake and and fresh fruit juice.

A new arrival...

When I arrived in Uganda I met very pregnant Harriet who told me that the baby would be born sometime during my stay. At the end of January Harriet began to feel labor pains. Having already given birth to two daughters, the family assumed that Harriet knew that the baby was coming. They stayed at the hospital for a few days and then returned home. The doctor told her to come back in a week. When the labor pains did not return in a week Harriet decided not to go to the hospital. It ended up being another month before she would return. The picture below shows Harriet and Shillow watching out the window for the vehicle that would drive Harriet to the hospital.

Harriet's ride to the hospital...a motorcycle on an incredibly bumpy African road...what a woman!

While her Mom was at the hospital I caught Eriana tenderly playing with her new baby doll (a gift from my mom in the States :)  She must be wondering what the new baby will be like.

My Mama and Harriet stayed at the hospital for a week and eventually Harriet needed to have a c-section. After many long days she brought Angel into the world.

So far, she mainly does the normal baby routine of crying, eating and sleeping.  I love to watch her older sisters interact with her and to listen to Harriet sing to her. Yesterday I saw her smile for the first time.

We are all glad to have baby Angel around...

Now a grandmother of 3

The proud husband and daddy

Maria and baby Angel