An African Evening

George, the headmaster, of a neighbouring private senior school invited all the volunteers to his home.  He acts as advisor to our school and has been assisting in providing to teacher training to address the fast expansion of the school in the last term.

We set of in good time to arrive at his school up the hill, we saw a newly constructed fish pond which is used in agricultural studies and fish should be ready for harvest in April, so I look forward to that as we haven’t had any fish here since I arrived.  

We then went to the school which is for 16 to 19 year olds, which if they complete the national exams they can go on to university.  We had an interesting question and answer session, explaining all our work experience.  We have a life guard in our midst, as land locked Ugandans, don’t swim or have many swimming pool, the purpose was difficult to explain, but when it came to describing what a water skiing instructor does… well the best we could come up with was rollerblading on water!

We were then treated to a performance of the school choir, which was fabulous, the pitch, rhythm and harmony was perfect all seemingly effortless and delivered with sincere enjoyment, there was a traditional welcome song, gospel music and a finale of a tribal song and dance, with innovative drum and pipes from what ever was around.  Just real good fun. I am sorry I can't upload a video so you can get the full enjoyment

We were then invited for a ‘cup of tea’ at the head masters house.  We arrived to be introduced to his immediate and extended family.  We had tea, biscuits and yellows (little sweet bananas).  The house is situated further up the hill in the plantation and vegetable gardens commanding and amazing view of the hills all around, further from the road and so really peaceful.  It soon became apparent the there was a lot of other activity going on, with two fires lit and cooking various dishes, pealing and chopping of many ingredients and another two fires burning in the cooking banda.  As the house is so far from the road, there is no electric power and so although the house is beautifully appointed and furnished, food preparation is still done in a traditional way.  Propane gas is available locally and is used for lighting, but it is a steep hill to  carry many gas canisters up and eucalyptus wood is readily available nearby.

Georges family comprises of at least three generations, and in the youngest, several pairs of twins.  Each member seems to have there own job and each gets on with it with ease, some chopping wood, others vegetables, cleaning pots and others cooking.  I know when I am trying to put together a family meal, there are times I feel it is necessary to hide all sharp implements to prevent internecine warfare braking out.  Here all was running so smoothly, which is essential as darkness falls and there are so many fires and sharp implements about, axes, pangas, skewers, as well as the normal knives etc we would expect.  The boys were preparing BBQ bananas over a charcoal burner, and the were stuffed with Cadburies dairy milk chocolate!  Hence the interest of all the small children in preparation of this dish

The Cooking banda  and inside

We had a lovely time sitting around the fires watching and occasionally helping with the preparation, chatting with the children and grandma, showing them photos of  gorillas, zebra, warthogs, hippos which they have never seen, even in their own country.

  Grandma loved having her photo taken

We then went indoors, to eat; the amount of food was mountainous, (the photo was taken as I was going for seconds) but the flavours were so marvellous.  All locally produced, except the chocolate.  Mashed plantain, something like mini kumquats, ground nut sauce, sweet potatoes, maize meal rice, meat stew, bean stew……. And the banana desert perfect, when ever I try this the bananas remain hard and the chocolate melts and runs out.  How do they do this in the dark, over open fires and charcoal.

We had a wonderful evening and when we left in the dark, we hadn’t expected to stay so long and so had no torches, we were escorted by most of the family, down the hill across stream in the rain, with grandma at the back wondering why we were going so slowly!

If anyone does ever venture in this direction, George and family do have rooms available to extend this African experience, you can email georgekaramira@yahoo.co.uk.  It will be a really uplifting and warm welcome from the whole family in the most beautiful and peaceful setting.