How To Have a Party!

This Saturday I got to help my family cater a graduation party! It was so neat. Let me remind you that we don't use any electricity to cook food here. So no mixers, or ovens or stoves. Just fire.
They started cooking the matooke (a type of banana that is cooked for a really long time in bundles of banana leaves) on Friday. I was gone because I had a field trip then a missionary dinner so when I got home they were done cooking for the night. But when I got up in the morning the cooking had started up again.
The cooking started at 7 o'clock. I think I cut up like 50 plus tomatoes. Um yah they don't have counter or cutting boards. You just use your a knife and the two hands that God gave you. I cut up some eggplant but mostly tomatoes from like 7:40-11ish then everyone took a break for tea and escort (that's what they call food you eat with tea. its usually some form of bread.)
It was so crazy to look at the back yard! They had 9 outdoor stoves. Which were constructed of three stacks of brick spaced out evenly in order for dried tree branches to be placed in between and meet in the middle where they feed the fire.Then giant pots that were probably three feet in diameter and two feet tall sat on the bricks with food bubbling away on the inside. They made boiled and fried Irish potatoes, chicken in sauce that they call soup, beef in a soup, matooke, fried rice , plain rice, greens, cooked cabbage, chippatis (their flat bread),and g-nut sauce (its like a peanut sauce but its purple).
They made enough food for 200ish people! We cooked until around 12ish.
I got to ride in one of those big African trucks that the beds are long and have a metal frame of sorts that goes over the bed. Then the cab is really small. We put all the pots of food in the back to take to the party.
Then I got to serve food! They put me at the "high table" its where the nicer food is served for the special guest like the graduates and their family, and pastor and other important people get their food. They had another table for the less import people where they served the not as nice pieces of meat and chicken and they didn't have greens or cooked cabbage. I was at the end of the line serving and when people got to me they were really surprise to see a white girl serving them food.
Funny thing... they didn't have forks, so everyone just ate with their hands. It was fun. You just had to use your matooke which is little like really think yellow mashed potatoes to pick up your other food. They also don't have paper plates so after everyone was done eating we washed 200ish plates and everything else. Oh just as a little reminder, we don't have running water and we didn't have a kitchen to wash. They just used some of the big pots and filled them up with water. One was for washing and the other was for a rinse bucket. hahaha it took a couple of hours. There were three women who came and helped my family cook, they were all teachers but if they weren't there I don't think we could have done it.
I would have brought my camera but something is wrong with it :( and next week is my rural home stay in Kapchorwa which it suppose to be one of the most breathtaking places in all of Africa.
Well that's all for now. I hope everyone back home is enjoying the snow-hahaha

This is my favorite part of my walk to school. The picture doesn't do the reality justice

A little taste of Ohio in Uganda

So I made some buckeyes for my family last night. They really liked them I think they don’t say much but they ate like half of them last night! At first it was a little challenging to try to explain to my host mom what I wanted to make and how I was going to make them. She was really mystified that I wasn't going to need to use the charcoal stove to make them or that I wasn't going to have to roll them out on a chapatti (Ugandan flat bread) board? They took for every to make because halfway through dipping them into chocolate they started falling apart cause it was like 80 out and the refrigerator stopped working so I couldn't put back in to get cold again. I just started putting the chocolate on top. To make peanut butter balls with chocolate hats. My host dad and brother seemed to really like them. They were definitely worth making. Not to mentions I love eating themJ I told my host brother that we like to eat the buckeyes with milk. He responded by saying “no wonder Americans are fat.” Hahaha I told him, though, that we don’t eat these tasty treats everyday only once in a while. I think I might make salsa for them next if I can find some tortilla chips.

I haven’t been on any trips this week but on Friday we are going to a Buganda King’s tomb. And on Saturday I think I’m going to a pottery studio to learn to make ceramic from some locals. I’m really excited and I hope it works out.

A few pictures from this past weeks adventures

Trip to the Ssezibwa Falls with USP and UCU Students

The Market in Mukono

Merry Go Round Uganda Style

The Falls

USP and UCU students at Ssezibwa Falls

So I think I met Jesus this weekend. Let me clarify that I met a man so dedevoted to Christ and what it means to love people that if you looked past the physical person and time and looked at this man's passion for people you would see the gospel being played out. Oh I'm sure he is not perfect. He would probably attest to that fact. You just see Christ channeling through him. His name is Father Gerrie. He is probalby only in his late 20's maybe 30. He is one of the priests for the Luwerro diocese. He is in charge of the HIV ministry for the diocese. He came to talk to us on Saturday night about what he does and he told soooo many stories of people with HIV and then we got the chance to go to mass with him.
He told us stories of his work in the villages. One story he told was of a group of people with HIV who had been ostracized from their villages (which is the worst thing in African culture- to be ostracized or not allowed to be part of the communityr. Relationships are so valued. They have a saying "I am because we are") He was so sad that the people of the church had abondoned these people that he got down on his knees (a big sign of respect in Buganda culture) then he proceeded to wash their feet to show that he valued and respected them as humans. This is a very big thing in this culture because a priest is so respected and put so high up there for him to do that is such a big deal. He said that these men and women began to weep because it was the first time someone cared to see them as people and not just as a disease. He went on to say that one time in the airport in America some man saw that he had a tag that said HIV+ on his briefcase and got up and moved away. Father Gerrie was so upset about this. He said that when one member of the body of Christ has HIV then all the rest do. We are all part of one body; we all are affected (infected). He had so many other stories. So I will tell you them later.
The mass was awesome too. It was so neat! People were so welcoming and friendly. They sang so much during the service. They only used their voices and two drums. Even though I didn't understand a word of Luganda, it was the best church I've been to in Uganda. Ironically enough, but not surprising it was a one room school house out in rural Luweero. Wtih nothing but benches and a table wit a table cloth, two candles on plastic plates (not the disposable kind) and a crucifix.
I don't think you have to be Christian to see how Father Gerrie has affected this community and all the good that he has done. He desires all the praise he gets because the burden that he carries of the thinkgs has has seen and experienced is so immense. His congregation truely has big needs and he does what he can to help. Many people that he goes to minister don't have the basis necessities.
I have other stories from this trip, but yet again the clock is against me so we'll see what next week brings.
I think I might make buckeyes for my family this week. Oh yeah, I also went to some Sseziwaba Falls this week on Wed- check out the pictures on facebook. Super fun trip too. (I didn't really proof read this one so there might be been a few typos, but what's new :)).
Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers.
Debbi