Eats and Sleeps

 

We’ve had a request for a description of food and living conditions.

The Guest House!

While I am taking the course, we are staying at the hospital’s guest house.  It’s definitely not a great deal…rent is borderline American rate, but it is very convenient: I don’t have to commute to class from town (6km on a very dusty dirt road), it is clean, it is safe (there are guards at the hospital gate), the water is safe to drink, our meals are provided, and they do our laundry.  There are some quirks however.  For example: (1) The first time we send some laundry in, we saw it drying on the line the next day, but then it was in no-man’s land for the following 3 days before it was magically returned to us. (2) Towels are difficult to come by.  When we felt that we had sufficiently used our towels (and they were red from the Gulu dust), we folded them nicely on the toilet seat for housekeeping assuming they would be replaced with fresh ones.  When we came home, that was not the case, so I had to ask for them.  No big deal, but since then, our towels will randomly be taken and again not replaced.  I discovered where they are kept (which is locked in a cabinet in a locked linen closet) and have been stealing (when the door is left opened) and hoarding them ever since. (3)  There are many chickens, a rooster, and a turkey wandering around the grounds.  The first few nights the turkey would wake us up with a distressing call.  We were told he was mourning the recent loss of his mate (turkey dinner?).  The rooster is especially obnoxious.  He does not know when to perform, so he announces morning starting at 3 am and continuing through to 8 am.  I swear he stands right under our window, but some of my classmates make the same claim…maybe he walks back and forth to make sure we all know “it’s morning”.  Honestly, every night when we sit down to dinner, I secretly hope that we are having chicken soup or turkey dinner.  In addition to the livestock disturbing our sleep, the past few mornings, we’ve heard a very load alarm clock from another room in the guesthouse.  It goes off around 2 am and either no one is sleeping in that room anymore and it just got left on, or that person is a VERY deep sleeper.  It just goes on and on and on for at least an hour or two.  Fortunately for me, I’m a good sleeper and can usually tune it out, but it’s been causing Jim a lot of distress…last night he actually closed the window and curtains in hopes that they might muffle the noise; I’m not sure it helped.

Having said all of that, I do realized that we are living very luxuriously as compared to most people in the area who live in huts.  The few that have houses usually don’t have electricity or running water so they must walk at least 1 km for bathing, cooking, and drinking water.  

Booming metropolis of Lacor!

Ugandan taxi: Matata

Entrance to St. Mary's Lacor Hospital

Lacor Hospital's ED and entrance to inpatient wards.

Classrooms (where we spend most of our time).

Mike (course leader) outside the guesthouse...the only spot where there is good internet access.

Road into guesthouse.

swimming pool that is safe to swim in "as long as you can see your fingers on your outsteatched hand"

Guesthouse side view.  Our room is about where the tree is (top floor).

Our bedroom.

Dining room.

Food!

Before we came, we were warned by one of my friends who was here last year that the food was nothing to write home about.  He went on and on about how bland and generally awful it was.  He said there were no spices and the meat was nearly impossible to eat and to bring A LOT of floss with us.  Heeding his advice, we purchased a travel spice kit and another roll of floss.  We were also told by MANY people that there would be a lot of “suspect” meals and to bring “a Costco-sized box” of Pepto-Bismol tablets with us to take prophylactically before one of these said meals.  After being here for over 2 weeks, I feel like I am ready to make a fair assessment of the food.

Breakfast: Ugandans don’t know what breakfast is.  As far as I can tell, they adhere to the traditional “tea and toast” diet introduced by the English.  The first morning we were asked if we wanted toast or fresh bread and we ordered toast, which was probably toasted the previous morning, but no one finished it.  So the next morning we asked for fresh bread, which was actually freshly toasted bread.  There is always “Blue Bon”, which is essentially margarine, but I haven’t tried it yet.  Sometimes we get jam and bananas.  The good thing is that the cook does make some very strong coffee, which she also roasts out front of the Guest House.  For the first time in my life, I’m actually starting to think her coffee is actually too strong, however, and I find myself adding as much sugar to it as Jim normally does at home (which for those of you who don’t know, it is quite a lot)

Tea:  Ugandans LOVE to “take tea”.  Even if class is running an hour behind schedule, we will still take tea, which seems to be getting longer every day and takes at least 45 minutes.  Tea consists of milk tea or coffee and some snack: banana, donut bread (maandazi), samosa (sambusas), or chapatti.

Lunch/Dinner: Lunch and dinner are the major meals here and really only differ in the time of day in which they are served.  Ugandans are very social and this is a very interactive process.  Traditionally the people eat with their right hand, but I’m finding that many people today use western utensils (although napkins are often difficult to find).  There are always multiple carbs/startches (I’d say at least 3/meal) including rice, potato (including yams, sweet potato, cooked potato, and chips), plantain (matoke), posho (maize or cassava flour), chapatti (essentially a thick tortilla or flatbread), and cassava.  There is often another vegetable such as cooked carrots, baked beans, green beans, peas, zucchini, “greens” (which are cooked down much like collard greens), and fresh tomatoes.  Some sort of meat is always included.  We’ve been served beef, chicken, pork, goat, liver, and “wild game” or “smoked meat” (which I think may have been water buffalo) as well as tilapia.  You can also find many different kabobs (pork, goat, beef) which are usually way over cooked, but have great seasoning.  Ugandans love their sauces, too.  I think they have to have a sauce to make all the starches edible.  The sauce I like most is called boo (say, “bo”) which is made from the ground nut or “g-nut”.  It tastes very much like a peanut.  Ugandans are not big on dessert, but there may be pineapple or maandazi served with tea. 

So far, I have only had one “suspect” meal.  The meat was cold and Jim advised against eating.  I did eat the rice and sauce in which it was served and had a bit of an upset stomach the next day, but nothing major.  We’ve actually come to the conclusion that the food here is quite good and flavorful.  We haven’t had to use our spice kit once, but we did buy some chili sauce (spicy catsup).  I think we are actually gaining weight!  This is unfortunate because I was justifying my holiday eating by the fact that I was going to Africa where I would lose a lot of weight from diarrhea.  Even though we do like the food, I can see how we were advised about how bland it is.  All the starches day after day with the same sauces are starting to get a little old.  The main problem is the lack of variety.  Every meal is essentially the same, so while it might be good, it can get old rather quickly.  I think we will try two restaurants in town for some variety this weekend: Ethiopian and Indian. 

Beverages:  You can find sodas everywhere, but the ones unique to Uganda are Stoney (ginger beer, which is my favorite), Krest (bitter lemon…the name says it all), and Mirindia (grape or cherry flavored).  Did you know that Ugandans drink the most alcohol per capita of any other nation in the WORLD?!  This really surprised me especially because you can’t find hard alcohol at most restaurants, they don’t really drink wine, and I haven’t seen very many clubs or bars.  Beer is not hard to find.  Basically if there is a town with a refrigerator, you are bound to find a cold beer!  Ugandans import a few beers, but mostly brew there own (there are 2 breweries: Ugandan Brewery and Nile Brewery).  We’ve tried most of them including Club (a light beer, which is our favorite despite every bottle tasting slightly different) and Nile Special (a bit stronger at 5.6%) are brewed at the source of the Nile, Bell (a light, sweeter beer from the waters of Lake Victoria), Moonberg, South African Castle, Tusker Malt from Kenya, Pilsner, and a few others.  The local alcohol is called waragi, although I have not tried it.  It’s supposed to taste a bit like gin, mess you up, and give you a nasty hangover.