It's Gonna Take A Lot to Drag Me Away From You

Okie dokes, folks! This is my last official post from Africa! I leave tonight on the 10:55 flight for Amsterdam. A little more than 24 hours later (oof) I will be landing at Newark. This is the second time I’ve left Africa. In 2010, I left without know when/if I’d be back, but I had 4 crazy days of adventure in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany to help numb the pain of leaving. This time, I know that I’ll be back in just 3 months, and that I will have even more time to explore the wonders of East Africa. In the grand scheme of things, my relationship with Africa and my friendship with the Apostles of Jesus are still in their Spring. And I am in it for the long haul.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed journeying with me through this blog. Thank you so much for reading along. There will probably be a few more posts after I get home (some stuff I already have in the works), and a lot of picture updates to old posts. I hope you'll come on back in June when travels resume, this time with some friends! (Speaking of which, if you have been reading along and think that you would seriously like to come and visit the missions of the Apostles of Jesus, let me know! Shoot me an email @ jo dot pressimone at gmail dot com.)

Without further ado, here are my top 5 favorite experiences from this trip to Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda:

5. Seeing the stars over Lima Farm in Uganda

4. Have a gorgeous view of Lake Victoria from my balcony in Bukoba, Tanzania.

3. Being blessed with Kilimanjaro’s company on the ride back from Arusha, Tanzania.

2. My entire day in Maziba, especially receiving the khanga from Fr. Kamanzi’s sisters

1. Every moment that I got to spend with Fr. Kamanzi

Special shout-out to Fr. John Baptist Nkurunugi, AJ, my dear friend and travel companion. He was with me on every step of this journey, and I am so grateful from his friendship. Lord knows I would have been lost without him!

See you state-side!

This Porridge is Juuuuust Right

I may have mentioned in the past my aversion to the fermented-millet porridge that is served here every morning. In all of my foodventures here in Africa, it is the only food that I have tried and have decided never to eat again.* However, as much as I don’t ever ever ever want to eat it, I really enjoy observing how different people eat theirs. Some add sugar, some add milk, some eat it plain. But no one can compete with how Fr. Joseph eats his.

Most mornings at Mazzoldi I sit across from Fr. Joseph during breakfast, and he follows a very meticulous routine when preparing his morning porridge:

1. He fills his bowl about three quarters of the way with porridge.
2. Then he fills it almost to the brim with milk.
3. Next, he takes a large spoonful of butter and very slowly stirs it into the porridge and milk until the entire mixture is evenly blended.
4. Next, he dumps in 5(!) spoonfuls of sugar, pouring them so that they form 5 little mounds in the porridge in the shape of a cross before they dissolve.
5. Once again, he stirs it all very slowly.
6. If the bowl is too full at this point, he might eat a couple of spoonfuls to make room for step 7.
7. Then he takes a piece of brown bread and breaks it up into dozens of little pieces, giving each a little squeeze before dropping it into the mixture.
8. Now, after once again stirring everything very slowly and deliberately, he eats it.

The whole process takes around 15 minutes (I get impatient waiting for my toast!), and it only takes him about 2 minutes to eat it. He told me he feels like he’s taken lunch after he eats it. I can only imagaine!

*I truly hope this doesn’t dissuade anyone from trying it when they come to visit Africa. I also have a violent dislike of cottage cheese, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

What With the Carbo-Loading, It’s a Small Wonder They’re All Marathoners

While we’re on the subject of food (Jo, are you ever not on the subject of food?!), I wanted to give you an idea of what the meals are like here. Meals are structured very differently here than they are back home. At home, the focus of the meal is usually some kind of protein (unless, of course, we're having Mom’s homemade Mac & Cheese), with lots of vegetables (at least in theory) and some kind of starchy carbohydrate. Here, the carbs get all the glory. From what I understand, when you order a meal in a restaurant, you order the carb first, then say what kind of protein you'll have with it, e.g.: Ugali with Beef, Rice with Chicken, etc. I haven't really eaten in restaurants (I did eat at Carnivore in 2010, but it really doesn't help my case here), so my experiences have generally been at the various Apostles of Jesus Missions I have been staying at. I have never seen fewer than two carb-y dishes offered at a meal, but I am no longer surprised to see 4 or 5. Here’s an example of a meal I had in Uganda:

• Matooke (mashed bananas, but not sweet, and not exactly plantains. Think potatoes that grow on banana trees)
• Ugali (a thick, stiff cornmeal porridge, about the consistency of play-dough)
• Chips (French fries, but they like to credit the British instead)
• Ugandan sweet potatoes (distinctly different from American sweet potatoes)
• Rice (the universal food)
• Beans (the other universal food)
• Boiled pumpkin leaves (not unlike kale (which, for the record, is not chicken))

Of the first 5 dishes, there were huge pots, and everyone took large helpings of each. The beans were in a medium pot, and the pumpkin leaves seemed like they were added as an after thought, and people took the least amount of those. And this is not the most carb-heavy meal I have eaten. Sometimes, they might have chips and roasted potatoes (though they call them “Irish potatoes”, so as not to confuse them with sweet potatoes). Spaghetti is an occasional offering, but never with any sauce. Interestingly, bread isn’t really a thing. There’s usually bread on the breakfast table, but it’s store bought. If there’s going to be anything bread-like at dinner, it will be chapatti, flat bread transplanted from India (there is a huge Indian population in Kampala).

The protein generally depends on the region. When I was traveling around Lake Victoria, almost every meal was Tilapia (no complaints from this girl!). The fish was never fileted. Sometimes it was cut into pieces, but occasionally, I just got a whole fish plopped on my plate. I rose to the challenge and ate the entire thing from head to tail, including the eyes. I think I can say now, without fear of jinxing it, that I have officially made it the entire way around Lake Victoria without choking on a fishbone, though I did occasionally mutter prayers to St. Blaise as I ate.

Here in Kenya, we usually have beef or pork, chopped up into small pieces and either boiled or roasted, or chicken (you already know how I feel on chicken night). I’ve had goat occasionally, but that is one of the most expensive kinds of meat. I know that rabbit makes it to the table from time to time, but not since I’ve been here. Beans, blessed beans, are almost always an option.

However, even with all of this carbo-loading, it didn’t really make me want to run marathons. Mostly, I just wanted to take long naps.

Leapin' Gizzards!

I pride myself on being able to roll with whatever comes up during my travels. My hosts are frequently surprised by my willingness to dive into East African culture. I don’t ask for or expect any special treatment just because I am a guest, and I think they like that. I will eat just about everything put in front of me, no matter how outrageous it might seem to my American sensibilities. I mean I ate grasshoppers for crying out loud! One of my biggest fears is that I inadvertently offend my hosts, which galvanizes me into even higher levels of cultural immersion.

But there is one food I just can’t bring myself to eat, no matter how much I psych myself up for it.

Chicken gizzard.

Now, I know what you must be thinking. “Jo, what an absurdly specific thing! It can’t possibly come up that often that you need to refuse it! Why make such a big deal over a gizzard?”

Here, chicken gizzards are considered a delicacy. When chicken is served, the gizzard is always in the pot, because it proves to those eating that this was a whole chicken before it was cooked. Traditionally, the gizzard is always offered first to the guest of honor, and it humbles me to say that I am almost always the guest of honor. Such is the nature of East African hospitality that the gizzard is usually on my plate before I even have a chance to stammer a polite refusal. I have found that I can usually get out of eating it by insisting that someone else eat it on my behalf. Everyone is always eager to do so because these guys love them some gizzards. Occasionally, I have even seen the priests jokingly argue over who should get to eat it, but in that “I’m-only-pretend-joking-about-this-because-it-would-be-rude-to-outright-demand-it-but-I-actually-really-want-it” kind of way.

Truthfully, I don’t really care who eats it, as long as it’s not me.