Good morning everyone,

On Saturday I had two Ugandan families for tea which we all enjoyed and they were on Muzungu time!

One Sunday I once invited a family to lunch after church, they told me 5 people would be coming at 2pm. I left church early to prepare the meal then waited for them to arrive, and waited, and waited. At 5pm a pickup came through the gate with 9 people on board Ugandan time! I had to quickly cook more rice, cut the chicken pieces in half etc. This is life in Uganda. When you are invited to a Ugandan home for a meal many times the host will only start cooking when everyone arrives as they never know how people will turn up so you have always to be prepared for a long wait, however the host will feed you snacks whilst you wait, sometimes you think they give you so much that you can think that is your meal. I have learnt to sit back, have plenty of time to spare and just enjoy the event. Ugandans are very hospitable people and give high importance on how they look after visitors and many times I have been told that I do not eat enough when with them but I just cannot physically eat all that they serve. I always remember being in a village where a small child in rags came up to me to give me a passion fruit, that is the nature of these people.

Ugandans eat a very high carbohydrate diet, little meat and practically no vegetables. The soil is so fertile here that greens grow wild, the culture has grown up believing that if you eat greens you are poor as they are so plentiful and nobody wants to be labelled poor. The meal will consist of more than 2 different types of carbohydrates sometimes 5 /6, I cooked 2 types for my Ugandan visitors at the weekend and realised that my tiny kitchen is totally inadequate for cooking a varied menu. I went on the hunt for some form of work surface to put on my kitchen verandah to ease the burden of where to place all the crockery needed for such a meal, yes I have a verandah outside my kitchen, the space would be more effective inside the kitchen.  Ugandans mainly cook outside on charcoal stoves so when they build houses to rent to Muzungus kitchen space is not a high priority.

As I have mentioned I went on the hunt for extra work surface to put on the verandah, nothing is that straight forward in  Uganda but that is a story for another time. Have a good day.

Pat