A Small Portion!

I spent last week in Lira and Gulu, travelling to Lira last Sunday and back to Kampala on Friday. There was quite a sizeable team travelling with 5 of us in the car including the driver.

As usual on these trips I ate a mixture of local food, mainly at lunchtime with the rest of the team, and more European hotel food. Generally in Uganda people tend to eat one large meal, either at lunchtime or in the evening and a lighter snack of chapati or fruit. The one main meal is enough and you really don't want a second meal in the evening.

A meal in a local food restaurant consists of a choice of meat or vegetable dish with a range of carbohydrates, usually referred to as 'food' to go with it. There are rarely menus as what is available changes on a daily basis. The waitress just lists today's menu, fresh fish, smoked fish, pasted beef, chicken, goat stew, boyo, beans etc. and you make your choice. Then you choose the 'food' from a range available, typically, matoke, rice, posho, cassava, chapati, potato (sweet potato) and Irish (plain boiled potatoes). It is usual to choose 2 or 3 of the carbohydrates.

After 18 months I'm quite used to eating in local restaurants and the food arrives very quickly. But the portions are huge. You get a large plateful of carbohydrates together with a large bowl with your choice of chicken etc. If you choose fresh fish it is not unusual to be served a whole fish including the head and tail in a bowl of 'soup', basically a stock of tomatoes and vegetables. It's impossible to finish the plateful.

A bowl of Boyo, a green leafy vegetable, a bit like spinach, mixed into a peanut sauce.

On Tuesday we were eating at a very good local restaurant in Lira before heading onto Gulu. I thought my colleague asked for a small portion so I did the same in the hope of getting a manageable plateful. A couple of minutes later the food arrived and my plate included a large dollop of posho, a mix of cornflour and water. My colleague had asked for 'a small posho' and I had the same!

On Thursday in Gulu I had decided on chicken when another colleague asked if the 'beef' came from a cow! The answer should be obvious but apparently not, in this case it was from 'some wild animal'. Not surprisingly my colleague also decided on the chicken!

When I'm away from Kampala I enjoy the opportunity to meet up with other volunteers around Uganda and we usually go out for a meal together. This week I was in both Lira and Gulu so I had 2 opportunities. On Monday night I had a fabulous meal at the flat of a volunteer from India and on Wednesday joined 5 other volunteers and staff at an Indian restaurant in Gulu.

I have a favourite stopping place on the road north about halfway to Gulu called the Kabalega Diner. It has good coffee and a reasonable menu of sandwiches and treats such as brownies.