Barbecue Weekend!

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.