This past weekend was pretty exciting. This is how it went:
Saturday…began with the washing of my clothes, which
resulted in blisters on my knuckles – I guess I’m still not used to itJ
Then I was invited to help immunize the 100 chickens at my house…which resulted
in my running around after chickens and finally figuring out a strategy of
creeping up on the small fearful ones in the corners or on the one’s busily
eating food. After approaching chicken
after chicken like this…the fear of picking up animals was slowing going
away…though I still wasn’t able to grab three at a time as my sister was doing
– to whom I give big prompts to!
After that, it was then time to go into Kampala (the big city) to buy food for our
big February birthday BBQ that was going to happen the next day. The ride there was definitely full of
surprises. After thinking that I was
hearing chicken noises from outside the taxi, suddenly from out of no where the
head of a chicken dropped down from the top of the van. I soon found out that not only were there
chickens on top of the roof, but there were also chickens under my seat! And then a bed came out of no where from the
top of the car as well…so pretty much I think our taxi came from Mary Poppin’s
bag. The rest of the day was really fun,
got to go to an actual grocery store that I pushed around a grocery cart in and
bought meat that was pre-made and packaged!
I felt like I was back home, going grocery shopping with my mom for the
weeks supply of foodJ Oh, and I
also ate pizza – so good!
The next day the barbeque had finally come upon us. After going to church, so began the hours of fun
preparation with my family. Throughout the house were people squeezing
fresh fruit into juice, cooking meat on a charcoal stove, making salad, rolling
out chapateis, and making egg roles (hard boiled eggs surrounded by a layer of
irish potatos, then fried). And my job
as the American of the house, was to make hot dogs. This was pretty exciting – after showing them
that we could fry them on the charcoal stove and add ketchup and mustard into
it to make it tastier (thanks mom!!), though that didn’t work out in the end, I
was then able to produce the full effect of a hotdog in a bun with ketchup,
mustard, and relish (lettuce and onions).
As I did this with Prudence, my American cousin, and Angel, my Ugandan
cousin, I felt like I had transported back home just for a moment. The music was playing, people were dancing,
and I was making hot dogs, what could be better? The day was great – people started arriving
around 4, and hence began hours of talking, dancing, and above all else,
eating!! We had fancy sticks with
grilled pork and beef, chicken and sausages, hot dogs, salad with “salad
cream,” watermelon (which I insisted we had like we do at home), and then soda,
juice, and to top it off, cake!!!! And this cake was chocolate with insanely
good homemade icing and covered with sprinkles…my mamma can sure bake a cake –
even without chocolate chips! (The
secret ingredient is a chocolate drinking mix.) By the end…I was stuffed. And so began the dancing to work it all
off! The birthdays of each month had a
dance off with the other months, during which there was elimination of the
struggling dancers with a tap on the head…it was pretty funJ So if you’re reading this – thank you, my
family, for the best barbeque ever! It
was so special and such a joyful, fun-filled time. The night ended with farewells to all of my
extended family, a little more chocolate cake, and then a bit of just sitting
out under the brilliant stars with my sister.
It was a good day.
