Chapati, Maize, and Mandaze

(Kitchen)

So, I had a great weekend. I spent practically the entire weekend in the kitchen which is GREAT for me. I have missed cooking SO much.

(Boiled Maize)

I had asked my family to teach me to make Chapati, and it turned into a whole affair of making all the food listen above. We ended up spending a good part of the morning sorting through dried maize to pick out the bad ones. We had a HUGE pot full of it. Then we had to boil it for several hours until it basically looked like corn. Then we laid it out to drain in the sun for awhile. After that we had to fry it. We fried it for what felt like forever, and even had to finish it up Sunday morning. The stuff is so so good, probably one of my new favorite snacks, especially once it is mixed with g-nuts!

(Fried Maize)

While the maize was boiling we made Chapati. It is so simple. All it is, is a LOT of baking powder, salt, flour and water. You knead it altogether and then roll it out. We deep fried it, but most people just put a little oil on the pan to cook it, but you have to have a frying pan for that, which my family did not have. So I rolled them all out and fried them myself! On on open fire :) I am quite proud of myself.

(Chapati and tea - the gave me FIVE in total to eat!!!)

They all thanked me for cooking for them, which made me laugh, since it was they who were teaching me! I told them thanks you for teaching me, my host aunt told me that even tomorrow in the morning she was going to teach me Mandaze. I sat in the kitchen with them, even when I was not cooking. My eyes watered the whole time from the smoke (they do not have a great ventilation system) but it was so much fun.

Sunday morning I got up and went out to the kitchen and she taught me Mandaze, which is also easy. All it is, is lots of baking powder, water, flour, and sugar. You make it so that it is like thick pancake batter and then deep fry balls of it. I am sure it is terrible for you but I love it. It is so good.

(Mandaze)

I am not going to go into too much detail about church, it was better than last week. We missed the first hour, which is the part I had really not liked before, and we were there about 4 hours instead of 8. They had a guest preacher... She was a black woman from Connecticut. I did not like her sermon, as she basically just taught prosperity gospel (that if you believe in Jesus, he will give you everything you want) to a whole bunch of poor Ugandans, who think that she is telling absolute truth. I feel it is very deceptive, however I will not go too far into this topic...

I will put more pictures of church up on the next blog, as I have to go to my practicum meeting in a few minutes!

I have home stays until friday and then that night we have a sundae social, which I am way too excited about having not had a lot of ice cream or anything sweet since I have been here, it shall be good for me, well at least I think so!

OH, and one last thing, I have been having bad allergies, and it has been worse at my home stay. Thankfully for the sake of my nose and eyes, that is only four more nights. However, waking up with swollen eyes has not been the greatest. And I was just wondering if you could all pray for them to at least calm down, if that makes sense. Thanks!