Food

Food

One thing I love about East Africa is the food. It is simple and heavy in starches but I enjoy it. I do

not enjoy it as much as my good friend Pastor Lewi though. I have seen some big eaters over the years and many of those were within my own family. Our clan could put away some groceries. How our poor mother kept up with a husband and 5 voracious eaters I will never know, but I digress. When Pastor Lewi orders a meal it is enough to feed the troops and I believe he could eat that size meal three times in a day. Now before you think my good friend is a glutton, I want to set the record straight. I said I thought he could eat three of those meals per day, not that he does.  Yes, when we are here on a visit for a week he eats quite well, but when he are not here food is much less available. And even when we are here we normally only eat two meals per day. We usually have a decent breakfast at the hotel and then a late lunch or supper, depending on when we return. But when the Pastor lights into a half of a fried chicken to is a sight to behold. When has finished there is nothing left on the plate except for a few pieces of the

larger bones. He man does love to eat chicken.

I actually eat a lot of fish when I am here. That is the one thing I’ve found that will be fairly consistent from place to place. Normally they will have a minimum of two fish selections on the menu; one will be a fish fillet which will be served with rice, chips (French fries) or both. The other will be a whole fish fried up and looking at you on the plate. It is very good but some people have problem with their food looking back at them. 

Other menu options are pork, beef and goat. I had beef for dinner today and it was tasty. It was chunks of boiled beef, the Lord only knows from what cut it came from, here beef is beef, you may get some tender pieces and you may get shoe leather. Today mine was not bad, a little chewy but

at least I could cut the large chunks into smaller bite size pieces.

Last night I tried the pork chops. Now I have to believe it really was pork and it was definitely chopped, I believe probably with a machete. What ever sauce or marinade they used was very salty and then they must have put it on the fire and then went out for lunch themselves. Let’s just say I will not be recommending the pork chops.

Our driver had the goat stew today over matoke, a cooked green banana that is mashed. I do not mind it in limited quantities. He had options, other than the matoke, of potato, rice, chips or lugali (posho). 

There are many restaurants around here but they all have very similar menus. Some will have pasta dishes or Indian, but most are the normal

East African dishes.

A couple times a week I’ll have a chapati for lunch. A chapati is a flat bread fried in a shallow pan of very hot oil. Some places will fry them with less oil than others but they are pretty greasy no matter where you get them. There is a small shop on the way to Nakivale that we stop at almost every day to buy chapati. As I said I only eat one a couple times while I’m here but I always buy a few everyday to give out to the cow and goat boys we pass on the Nakivale Settlement. Maama Ssonko is the name of the shop, did not misspell it that is how it is written on the shop. Maama Ssonko is a heavy set lady who sits on the ground and takes the money for the chapati. She sits because she is missing one leg. She is a very friendly person who loves to joke around with Pastor Lewi. She has a crew of three or four helpers around that are all busy either pulling the dough into just the right size balls,

or rolling out the dough to the exact thickness, which is very thin. Then placing the thin sheets of dough into the pan of hot oil. The technical part comes now with the person who knows when to raise the edge of the dough up enough to let air get in between dough and hot fat. That makes the chapati puff up and the thin dough becomes a thick fried bread, then he knows when to turn them over and the correct doneness. And he does all this with a long stick like you would roast a marshmallow with. Anyway, Maama Ssonko does a very large business, people are stopping all day long and come from miles away for her chapati. They go through 75 kilos a day of chapati dough. Oh, when I said shop you may have the wrong impression. There is a shop of kind it is about a 10 x 10 building, mostly

filled with young kids and babies. The cooking operation takes place in front on a dirt floor, under a tin lean-to, the under side of the tin is so thick with black smoke that am sure you could scrape it off. It is one of the days highlights to stop and listen to banter between Lewi and the crew.

While we are on the subject of food and I am in Uganda to try and help about 600 orphans, I, as part of the team at Poured Out For The Nations, am looking for so help. We would like to feed these children a morning meal. That meal would consist of a cup of sorghum porridge. That doesn’t sound like much of a meat to most of us, but when you’re used to having nothing that cup of porridge can make a huge difference in the way you face the day. I do not have exact figures as yet but the best I can tell right now is that we could feed those 600 children for about $70 per week. Now there would be some other start up costs, buying 600 plastic cups and a very large cooking pot to cook the porridge in. Even if my figures are off by some margin, I still am pretty sure that $100 a week would be the top of the margin of error.

That is where you can be an vital part of this ministry. These children need your help in getting them a morning meal that they desperately need. The Bible tells us not to store up treasure houses here on earth. I know right now there are some of you that need to open your store houses and give to God’s work to these children in Uganda. Will you help the Lord to bless these children with a cup of porridge?

Remember that you cannot take it with you, but you can “SEND IT AHEAD”.

If you can help we have a way for you to donate to these children’s needs. Go to www.watchtherefore.tv click on the donate button at the top of the page and please make sure you designate your tax deductible donation to the “Send It Ahead” program. You can further designate your funds by adding; Water, Teachers, or Food. While you’re at the web site please click on the Send It Ahead button at the top of the page to look for more updates and photos from the school.