I think I’ve mentioned once or twice the orphanage in town.  I had been hearing about the children there from Shantelle nearly since I first arrived.  It is clearly a place close to her heart.  I had met some of the older boys a couple of weeks ago at the Boone’s house, but that was all.  Although I had wanted to visit for a while now, I hadn’t had a chance until this week.  Shantelle, the Boone family, and their friends Chris and Emily, were planning on spending the afternoon with the kids and I decided to tag along.

The orphanage is run by Catholic nuns.  It is a mid-sized rectangular building set around a central concrete courtyard, with a playground out back.  The children are all pretty young.  If I had to guess, I would say they were all under the age of nine or so.  Truthfully, to our eyes, it looks pretty sparse, but it was clean and all of the children appeared to be pretty well taken care of.  As soon as we pulled up, children were at the door of the orphanage, yelling out greetings.  It was clear my friends were favorite visitors.  We greeted the nuns on our way in and paid our respects, but as soon as we crossed the threshold, we were pulled into a whirlwind of energy.  The kids gathered round, shouting out for their favorite adult, demanding hugs, eager to start games.

One of the first things we did was to gather some of the babies and toddlers from the nursery.  Given the number of children, this age group often does not get as much affection and attention as it should.  I don’t mean to be critical.  It is a large job and the nuns clearly care about their charges.  But the reality is that the older children are naturally more vocal about their needs and have each other to play with.  The babies and toddlers are often in their cribs most of the time.  So we each gathered up a little one to cuddle and feed while the older kids ate their lunch of rice and beans.  The kids would periodically come over to help with a bottle or stroke a baby’s head.  It was clear that nuns had taught them to be gentle and careful with the younger ones.

I had brought stickers with me from the States for kids that I met.  In the past when I’ve traveled, I’ve found that having a little something like stickers or coloring books can be a good way to break the ice with kids I meet when we don’t speak the same language.  I had this image in my head where I would take out the stickers and be able to tear off a couple from each sheet for each child in a calm orderly fashion that would ensure everyone got a roughly equal amount.  (Anyone who has children is probably laughing at me right now.  Actually, given the size of my extended family and all of the children I’ve spent time with over the years, I am laughing at myself).  Of course, the minute I pulled the stickers out, they were pulled from my hands  by the biggest of the kids, who rapidly started peeling them off and sticking them to anything (or anyone) standing still, including themselves.  Chris and I managed to re-establish some semblance of order to oversee the distribution, and I will say this, I was so impressed with the older kids.  Although they weren’t going to give up control of the sheets, they did make sure that all of the little ones got stickers too, sometimes going so far as to pull them off their friends and re-stick them on those who had fewer.  It was a feeding frenzy for a bit but you really can’t blame them.  Stickers are awesome and toys are definitely scarce.

The fun then moved outside to the playground, where the adults were very quickly worn out and the kids showed off all of their moves on the jungle gym with boundless energy.  The playground is the kind of bare bones metal death trap-looking structure that no American parent nowadays would let their child near…and that I and my friends had an absolute ball on when we were kids.  (I remember when my former elementary school rebuilt their playground after I had moved on to Middle School and all I could think at the time was how boring it looked).  Now, as an adult myself, I tried to focus on the joy in watching the kids, and pushed down the rising panic every time a child almost flew off the merry-go-round.

Eventually, it was time to go and hugs all around were given.  The kids saw us off to the gate, yelling goodbyes.  Just a great, great day.

Unfortunately I don’t have much time this week so this will be short, but I wanted to give this organization a plug.  There is a local group here in town, Ngoma Afrika Performing Arts Co. (www.ngomaafrika.blogspot.com), who holds monthly cultural events in town.  A couple of representatives came out to the school the other day to invite us to attend and explain the mission of their organization, part of which is to teach traditional East African music and dance styles to local young people so that the knowledge is not forgotten.  Once a month, they hold a community event that includes not only traditional music and dance but also Afro Jazz and fusion styles.

The venue

When we first arrived, I have to admit that my heart sank a little bit.  I’ve traveled enough to have experienced my share of hokey re-enactments of “traditional” activities put on for tourists.  And this venue was empty.  Only the language school students were there, along with a few former students, and as the drummers set up I was afraid that was what we were in for.  But in the end, we had just arrived too early.  As the music got going and more people came in, the atmosphere livened up.  Soon Tanzanians and wazungus alike were up dancing.

Once the event really got going and people were spilling out onto the lawn, a dance troupe came in to perform a series of traditional dances and delicious smells started to waft in from outside, where a small canteen had been set up.  I wandered out among the food tables and art exhibition that had been set up, enjoying myself immensely.  Most of the teachers from the language school came, and it was the first real chance we’d had to just hang out socially without textbooks looming over our heads.  It was like a block party under the stars.  If you’re ever in Morogoro, I recommend checking this group and their events out!

One of my favorite things in the world is to spend a day cooking.  Nothing makes me happier than piling the ingredients for a bunch of recipes on the counter and whiling away the next few hours peeling, chopping, mixing, seasoning, and just generally acting like a mad culinary scientist cackling away in glee.  I’m certainly no gourmet; I probably wouldn’t even qualify as a “foodie.”  But I do love it and typically think of myself as a fairly proficient cook.  So ever since I was first served it, I have wanted to try my hand at cooking ugali.

Ugali, for the uninitiated, is a staple of Tanzanian cuisine.  Made of maize flour, the best way I can describe it is that it resembles what you might end up with if polenta had a stickier consistency and was made with finer milled grain.  It doesn’t have much of a taste- it is primarily a vehicle for moving food to your mouth.  When served, it looks like a large white blob of dough; the diner pulls off a piece, rolls it in his or her right hand to form a ball, makes an indention with the thumb, and then uses this to scoop up various other foodstuffs.  Most meals in Tanzania begin with either ugali or rice as a base, served with meat alone or one or more various stew-like sauces (containing some combination of beans, meat, and vegetables).  In fact, the Swahili word for food, chakula, typically actually refers to ugali or rice.  The rest are considered side dishes.

However, despite its ubiquitous nature among Tanzanians, it is rarely served to wazungu.  It is assumed that we won’t like it.  In most cases, unless you specifically ask for it, the default for dishes served to foreigners will be rice or French fries.  The first time I had it was two years ago, when I made a special request to Seki, the housekeeper at the guest house where I was staying.  She asked me several times if I was sure I wanted it, with an incredulous look on her face.  When I reassured her that I was in earnest, she complied, and then sat down at the table to watch me eat it.  Given its mild but pleasant flavor, I can only assume that it is the clumsy, fumbling spectacle of a first-time eater trying to time the rolling of the ugali for just the right moment between “perfect consistency for scooping food” and “crumbling mess disintegrating into the side dish” that makes Tanzanians think foreigners don’t enjoy eating it.

Anne and Eliudi, waiting for water to boil

Since that first time, I’ve had the opportunity to eat ugali a few times and it has grown on me (not least because I’ve gotten slightly more coordinated with it).  So just as with all foods I like, a small itch has been growing to try making it myself.  Unfortunately, all of our meals are made for us by the kitchen staff here at the language school and they haven’t made ugali yet, so there has been no time to ask for instruction.  But this week, I finally had my chance.  Anne was going over to the house of one of the language school staff members, Eliudi, for dinner and asked if I wanted to join.  Of course I said yes.

On the menu was salted fish served with a tomato sauce and ugali.  I was psyched.  I figured the process of making ugali couldn’t be that different from rice, oatmeal, couscous, quinoa, or any other grain + water concoction.  Turns out it’s not, but it does takes some serious muscle!  We cooked using a small charcoal stove in the corner of the kitchen.  Water boiling, Eliudi poured the flour into the pot.  At this point, I tried to figure out what the proportions of water to flour should be.  The conversation went something like this:

“How much flour do you add?”

“It depends on how many people you are cooking for.”

“So for the three of us, how much did you add?”

“Enough for how much water is in the pot.”

“How much water is in the pot?
“I didn’t measure.  I just poured it in.”

“So how do you know how much flour to add?”

“You just add what you need for the water.”

“So how do you know how much you need?”

“Just watch it.  If you need more, then you add more.”

Needless to say, I never did really figure out the flour to water ratio.  I understand this.  I don’t measure everything when I am cooking either, especially when I am cooking dishes I’ve made hundreds of times before.  But despite watching that pot closely, I couldn’t tell you what signals the pot was giving off to indicate another handful of grain was needed or when.

Fish stew

The cooks in action

Next came the stirring.  Oh man, the stirring.  Forget kettlebells, this will be the next hot workout in trendy gyms nationwide.  With a large wooden spoon, more like a paddle really, you have to almost whip the ugali into shape.  Eliudi let Anne and I each take a stab at it before laughing and stepping in.  It’s a little galling to fall short of making what is essentially thick polenta.   So Anne and I primarily played the role of spectator, chopping tomatoes and stirring the fish stew, while Eliudi handled the ugali.

It was all worth it in the end though.  We had a lovely dinner, together with my first taste of Tanzanian wine- a red from Dodoma, said to pair nicely with “game meat.”  After a little more trial and error, I know I will be able to create my very own fusion cuisine.  I’m thinking ugali would go well with a nice thick Guinness-infused meat and potato stew.  Now where to get the Guinness…

Tah-Dah!

Demonstrating the ugali-rolling technique