Pumpkin, Anyone?

I think that when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and overworked and pulled in too many directions, I like to eat.  I'm sure Oprah would have a few things to say about this tendency.  The thing about having that tendency in a place like this, though, is that if you want to eat, you have to cook.  And you have to be creative.  And there's just not that many things like chocolate chips or other deliciousness around with which to cook.  So I end up cooking a lot of vegetables.  Today was the day of the pumpkin.  My day started first thing with people asking me for things or to do things, and it ended in the same way.  There are just some days when it seems everyone wants a piece of me.  So I figure I'd better make sure there's more of me to go around by... you guessed it... eating :)

I got quite a lot accomplished today (though still a lot NOT yet accomplished!), but by about 5:30pm, I was pooched.  The heat was sapping my strength, as well as the constant requests for my time and efforts.  So I called it day and went to attack a pumpkin.

Richard had brought this huge pumpkin all the way in the back of a pick up truck from the town he visited a few weeks ago.  It was a beautiful pumpkin that he got for a fraction of the cost it would have been in our city - only problem was that he had to sit on it for 2 days to get it here!  But I'm sure glad that he did.  He helped me break into it initially, because I have come to realize that I just don't have the upper body strength it takes to chop one of these local pumpkins.  But once it was in sections, I went a bit nuts with it!

From 5:30pm up until about 10pm, I was in the kitchen with my pumpkin.  First, I roasted a bunch of it for supper tonight - just drizzled a little oil over it, chopped some onions and garlic and put it all in the oven.  Mmmm... turned out so sweet and delicious!  While I was doing that, I was boiling some pumpkin to make up a huge pot of pumpkin soup (which I'll start eating for lunch tomorrow).  After enjoying my roasted pumpkin for supper (just with a simple tomato and carrot salad - all out of cucumbers), I did more chopping of the chunks of pumpkin.  I fried a bit in my skillet for the cat to eat - he LOVES pumpkin, and I think he likes it slightly harder and chewier.  I also put a bunch in the oven in big chunks to cook it up into puree.  From the puree, I plan to make a pumpkin loaf tomorrow, as well as pumpkin tart things for supper.

And while the pumpkin was cooking in the oven, I cleaned up the seeds and toasted them in my iron skillet on the stove.  Have I mentioned how much I love my skillet?  It toasted the seeds so perfectly.  With a bit of salt... mmmm.... so good!

I think Zane and I will certainly not be hungry for the next few days!  We might turn orange, but at least we won't be hungry...

Holiday Hootnany Part 3

So I realize that yet again, the ending of my last Holiday Hootnany post was less than stellar.  In fact, it doesn't even seem to make much sense.  But instead of going back and fixing what you've already read... I'll just continue and pretend that I didn't proofread what I wrote :)

I ended just as we were walking through the forest, though, in search of this:

Seriously, the photos don't do it justice, but it was an entire cave full of bats!  It was so fascinatingly disgusting.  Really, I hate bats.  There are so many around my compound and even living in my house, and I see them all the time here in Jb, but I just hate them.  Flying rats.  Gross.  So to see an entire cave full of them... yech.  Some were flying in and out of their cave, but most were just hanging around and squeaking.  I sure didn't want to get too close, especially when the guide told us about the python that lives among the rocks at the bottom of the cave, just waiting for one of those little flying rats to lose his grip on his rock.

Anyway the rest of our holiday basically consisted of driving around the park, searching for animals! 

I also got to take my turn at the wheel, which was kind of fun.  It also allowed Grace and Liz to ride with their heads out the window, searching for creatures in the forest.

 We also found a real visitor's centre!  I'm such a sucker for visitor centres, even if it's full of mangy old stuffed animals that are half eaten by moths!  They did have a neat topographic display of the area, though, which was nice to see.

After a few more animal sightings, it was time to go back to our little lodge.  Of course, what road trip through a national park would be complete without stopping by the side of the road to reassemble a warthog skull?

That particular night we got home quite late.  In fact, we almost didn't make it home at all!  There are a couple of gates to the park, but of course, very little information given at any of them.  As we were driving at dusk towards the gate that we needed to exit through in order to get back to our lodge (outside the park), the thought crossed my mind... hmmm... I wonder if they lock the gates at night.... Sure enough, we made it to the gate just before dark, and it was closed.  And no one was around.  But generally, in Africa, there is always SOMEONE around.  So we hooted our horn.  Sure enough, in a few minutes, the gate guard game sauntering out... with his baby in his arms.
First, he got a little upset with us for hooting the horn - that is not allowed in the park (even though Grace had hooted at a sleeping hippo earlier in the day and the guy didn't even bat an eyelash - thankfully!).  And he also informed us that the gate was closed at locked at 6:30 pm (it was now about 7).  Ugandans being the friendly sort that they are, though, heeded our pleas of ignorance, and just opened the gate for us.  No problem, and out we went!  Again, I was experiencing a little bit of culture shock, since that would NOT be what would happen in this country!

Anyway, driving down the "highway" (which was actually a paved road!), Grace's good eyes were able to slam on the brakes in time to avoid hitting a huge bush pig that wandered across the road!  That was the only one of those that we saw the whole trip, though we had seen too many warthogs to count already.

Back at the lodge, we were rather a tired bunch of tourists, but we managed to stay awake long enough to have some food, and for me to fall asleep (yet again!) during an episode of "House" on my computer.

The next day we woke up with the sun (again - what's this I hear about people actually being able to sleep in on their holidays?!), in order to get an early start on the long drive back to Entebbe.  Once again, it was a beautiful drive - I still can't get over the amazing state of the roads in Uganda.  The kids were great in the car and we all just enjoyed the scenery and the singing and chatting and snacks.

Don't we look like we were having fun?  I think the highlights of the trip home were the "wild peeing" and searching for bushes and termite mounds big enough to squat behind, as well as the section of road where we went over 164 speed bumps (and missed about 40 more!).  Of course, we had to stop at the roadside stalls to do some more shopping, which I am proud to say I did in record time (and was wonderfully successful, I found out, when I brought the gifts back to their intended recipients here in Jb!).

Back in EBB, we all went out to the Golf Nest for a bite to eat (no food in the house and no desire to forage in the kitchen after 8 hours in the car!). We also decided that Liz needed to sample some of the local brew before she left the country.

The following day (Saturday), we all just had a bit of a relaxing morning and went off to do some shopping - both for food for the weekend, as well as for a bunch of stuff that I wanted to get to bring back to Jb.  I absolutely love the little Saturday market in Entebbe.  They have so many wonderful fruits and vegetables... and they cost next to nothing!

I just kept shaking my head at the prices... and buying more and more things to bring back to Jb with me!  I mean, you can't go wrong with a whole bag of oranges (14 of them!) for less than $1.  I also got 4 huge avocados for about $1, and splurged on 6 apples for $2. I figured that even if they didn't let me on the plane with all that fruit, I'd only be out $4.  The same fruit here in Jb would have cost me about $20, and it's not even all available all the time.

I think Liz was getting a bit bored of all my shopping, so we went for a little afternoon stroll in the Botanical Gardens.  So lovely.  The weather was just about perfect - not too hot, not too cold. There were lots of beautiful flowers to take photos of, of course.

We tried at one point to take a little break on one of the benches.  Of course, we had brought some bananas with us for a little snack.  Not too smart to bring bananas into a botanical gardens full of monkeys!

Notice the banana peel in this guy's little paw.  We sorta got chased off the bench by this monkey.  So much for a relaxing snack!

The gardens were really beautiful, though, and we had a lovely time wandering around.  It's so nice to have a park to be in, and a place to really just enjoy nature!  I've been missing walking and strolling and seeing nature since being in Jb.  It just brings me so much refreshment, it's like soothing balm to the soul to see beauty in the creation!

The following day, we spent the morning sleeping and relaxing and packing, and it was back to Jb, my cousin Liz in tow!

Today's Cross-Cultural Adventure...

... revolved around Twizzlers!

In case you didn't realize, I AM back home in Jb (sorry for the pitiful lack of blogging - too much going on at the moment!).  Yesterday, a work team arrived from the US.  It's a group of 6 who have come to do some serious manual labour to help us with some practical renovation etc here on the compound.  It's always fun to get to know some of these groups who come and go, as well as to share their treats with them :)

Today at tea time with all the staff, they brought out the Twizzlers.  Of course, everyone had to try one.  But imagine if you were a 50-something year old man who had never in his life seen licorice or anything even resembling Twizzlers.  What would your reaction be to them?

It was so funny to watch the reactions around the room!  Most of my African colleagues had no idea what to think of these crazy things.  And you could see on their faces that they weren't quite sure they were ready to try!  So they proceeded to egg each other on a bit, encouraging each other to take a bite, and actually finish their Twizzler!  Funnily enough, not one of them asked for a second one.  We won't talk about how many I ate.

Holiday Hootnany Part 2

So my cousin thinks my blog ended much too abruptly yesterday... which means I'd best do some writing tonight and try to find a good resolution to the hootnany...

Following our drive to almost the Congo [I just can't say that word without thinking about that Raffi song that we used to sing along to ... "nothing can go wrong-o, I'm in the Congo..."], we spent a bit of time in the pool with the kids.  The pool there is fantastic - a lovely "adult" pool which overlooks the savannah far below, plus a little kid's pool with a slide!  You can guess where we spent most of our time, with two wee ones with us!

Yup, good fun was had by all.  Best part about it was that there were hardly any other people around!  Seriously, not another soul in either of the pools the entire time we were there.  It was almost like having a private lodge all to ourselves (until dinner time came and then all the Germans with interesting haircuts came out of the woodwork from somewhere...)

Anyway, in the evening, we ate our dinner outside while watching the sun set.  The wee ones got steins full of milk that were bigger than their heads.  Considering we sorta skipped lunch again that day, though, it wasn't such a bad thing :)

All the while, we were rooting through Grace's Brandt Guide to Uganda, to try to figure out what to do the following day.  We decided that we would not get up quite so early, and try to take a little meander through the forest to see what we could see.

Driving down the "4WD Only" road in our Corona, we saw a few more creatures, but of course, still no lions!

We were headed to a particular forest part of the National Park called Maramagambo Forest (had to look up the spelling of that place on the internet just now!).  Of course, by the time we got there, the "guide" had just gone somewhere.  And the remaining "guide" was loathe to let us wander through the forest on our own!  So we decided to keep driving up the road a bit to a place called Jacana Safari Lodge, just to see what we could see while we waited for the guide to come back from wherever he had gone to.

The Lodge turned out to be a lovely place, on the shores of a lake.  It would be a very nice and relaxing place to hang out for a few days for a quiet holiday, tucked away in the middle of the forest for a while!  Of course, we had the Tourist...

... the Cowgirl...

... and the Wee Ones...

... plus, of course... ME... but they still gave us a little tour of the Lodge and even let us crash on the pool side loungers for a little while!

Seriously, you don't get nice-ness like this in Jb, folks!
After a while, we figured that perhaps it would be a good time to take our leave of the posh-ness, so we headed back to the forest headquarters place to see if the guide had returned yet.  Just our luck, he had!  But as soon as the Wee Ones (and I think the not so wee ones!) jumped out of the car, the guide took one look at us and quite firmly told us that he was doubting that we could make it very far up the trail.

We assured him that even though three of us [who shall remain nameless] were wearing plastic shoes and had legs that were shorter than his gun, we still wanted to try to meander down the path!

So we paid our fees, the guide slung his gun over his shoulder (for protection, I guess?!) and off we hiked into the forest.

At which point, I also became a Tourist.  Have I mentioned how much I like my hat?

While we didn't see many creatures crashing through the forest (though we were a lot quieter than I originally thought we might be!), it was so wonderful to just be walking through a forest!  It was incredibly beautiful and I just enjoyed seeing all the trees and plants and various creepy crawly which inhabit that forest and crater lake!

The kids did amazingly well, even in their plastic shoes!  I think one or two of the big people in our group were not complaining when Frankie sat down to have a drink and a breather!

We walked around the big crater lake there, but then walked back a little ways down the road and through the forest to...                                                                                              Stay tuned for me!

Holiday Hootnany

After a rather busy few weeks of work, it was time to have a little break.  And lucky enough for me, my globe-trotting cousin had decided to come to visit me over in these parts!  I was working right up to the last minute to try to get everything ready and taken care of before it was time to go to the airport for my big trip out last Sunday!  The airport was so simple – everything went so smoothly and quickly, and before long, I was on the plane to Entebbe, Uganda.  Once there, my buddy Grace and her two wee ones, L and F were there waiting at the airport for me.  It was SO good to see them again! 

We went straight to the Golf Nest restaurant for some supper (mmm… roasted pork!).  Later that night, I took Grace’s little Toyota Corona back to the airport to pick up my cousin, Liz!  I experienced a bit of culture shock in those first few hours in Uganda – first of all, the bathroom in the airport was so clean, complete with toilet paper, and the folks were SO friendly!  I wasn’t quite sure how to react to the soldiers at the airport gate – they were joking and laughing about finding the guns in the car, and, of course, about marrying me, but it was all in a different tone than the folks back “home” in Jb! 

Anyway, I found Liz already out and waiting for me, as her flight had landed a bit early.  I felt a bit bad, as she was standing there with her luggage, fending off the kind taxi drivers.  And really, the taxi drivers there were kind!  They insisted that she used their phone to call us to make sure we were actually on our way. And that was just the start of many, many times where I marvelled at the niceness of Ugandans!

Monday was spent doing a few “housekeeping” things, like going to the office to make sure Liz got a travel pass, doing some shopping for a few bits and pieces and packing for our road trip!  Liz and I also enjoyed a delicious meal of steak sandwich and nachos (with guacamole and cheese!) at a beautiful new restaurant near Grace’s house.  Quite an enjoyable first day out of Jb! 

Bright and early on Tuesday morning we all packed ourselves into our safari vehicle – the Toyota Corona – and started on our long journey West.  With Grace, Liz, me, two car seats filled with their accompanying children, and all the necessary road trip snacks and water, there wasn’t all that much space to spare!  But in fact, it was quite comfortable!    Being the gracious hostess I am, I let Liz sit in the front with our chauffuer, while I entertained the wee ones, comfortably crammed between the car seats in the back!  Someone had to be the pillows for the sleeping children!

I’m amazed and astounded by how beautiful Uganda is!  There are good paved roads, groves and groves of matooke, and beautiful green rolling hills and mountains.  Really some stunning scenery here in this country.

 We made a few pit stops on the way – some in the bushes, others more indoors.  One pit stop happened to be at a place which had some lovely “fart” food (something you get a LOT of mileage out of with a 5 year old and a nearly 3 year old in the back seat!).   

Of course, a holiday wouldn't be a holiday if there wasn't a bit of shopping involved!  The first shopping stop was at the basket and loofah section of the highway.  I wanted a loofah (I guess I was already feeling slightly grimy from the road trip!), and Grace ended up buying a beautiful mat.  In fact, the mat was so beautiful that we had to stop on the way back to Entebbe and buy me a few to cart home to Jb... where I also ended up buying a couple of beautiful fruit baskets - all for the low, low price of about $6!

Our second [shopping] stop came when we crossed the equator!  How cool was that to actually cross the equator?!  Well, actually, I've crossed it several times, but never by land, where I could get out of a car and get my picture taken at the cheesy tourist sign!

Of course, there was more shopping to be done here.  At this place, I spent a dollar or so on a scarf to keep my hair out of my face and looked for a piece of fabric which I knew Sean wanted (we'd seen it in the market back in Jb, but I knew it came from Uganda originally, so I was on the prowl).

We only got slightly lost in one main town.  There are a few road signs in this county, though the vast majoirty of them are put up by the local cell phone companies!  So should you find yourself lost in Mbarara, look for the MTN sign to Busenyi!  It’s not a Zain sign or a Warid sign, but a yellow MTN sign.  That’s where you turn to get to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  After 164 speed bumps, you will finally reach your lodge – a great place which gives amazing missionary rates :) The lodge overlooks Queen Elizabeth National Park, and it's really built right into the escarpment over the park, so you have an amazing view and some fantastic sunsets!

Even though we left early in the morning, it was pretty late in the afternoon when we finally arrived.  So there was just time for a quick swim (which really was quick for me and little F, because it was FREEZING in that water!), a cold soda and a little walk to explore the lodge surroundings before dinner.  Hot showers were had, an episode of “House” was watched, and snoring ensued. 

The next morning we woke up bright and early once again to go hunting for some creatures.  Turns out, there main “highway” to Congo runs right through the National Park.  So we all jumped in the car at daybreak and started driving to the Congo.  We saw some Bushbucks and Kob on the way, as well as lots and lots of birds.   

Without a guide, and just the Brandt Uganda travel book, we were a bit clueless as to where we were going, but after a little ways, we found a little road which didn’t seem to be on any maps.  But we figured our little safari Corona could handle it.  If the guys on bikes loaded with matooke could make it, it seemed there was nothing stopping us!

So off we went down this little track through the forest.  Little F had been talking about seeing elephants for days and days before we had even left on the trip.  And Grace, for some odd reason, really wanted to see buffalos.  But without a guide… well, who knew what we were going to end up seeing.

But with God as our Guide (which was a motto we saw on a bus earlier… we figured maybe we’d see at least something.  And sure enough, we hadn’t gone far down that little track when we spotted our first buffaloes!  That was really cool.  They just stood there and looked at us. And we sat there in our Corona and looked at them.

After a little while, we mosied on down the track.  Then, in in her calm, cool, air traffic controller’s voice, Liz mentioned that she saw a dark shape in the forest.  I guess she didn’t want to get our hopes up until she knew exactly what it was… but it’s big floppy ears and tusks soon emerged from the forest.  Wow.  Two huge elephants were loping through the forest… right next to the little car!   

 

These creatures were so beautiful… and so huge!  They came through the bush and crossed the road right in front of our car.  Yowzers.  They were rather close.  At one point, the big guy was really, really close to the car and turned his head to look right at us.  He flapped his ears a few times and I just had visions of him getting just a little upset with us and ramming into our car… and he was on MY side of the little Corona and looking RIGHT at me!

But, of course, they just wandered into the forest and left us completely alone.  But wow, we were all a bit giddy after that close encounter with the elephants!

 After a little while, a motorcycle with a suit-clad man came roaring up behind us.  Seems he was some sort of big-wig in the district government, and he welcomed us to visit his village at the end of the road.  The road was great and dry, so we did keep on going, and what a great decision that turned out to be!  We ended up at a little fishing village, right on the mouth of the channel between two lakes.  Seems these folks in the village co-habitate very peacefully with the buffalos (who are supposedly really dangerous!) AND the hippos, who are even more dangerous (supposedly!).

We all piled out of our safari vehicle, the might Corona, much to the interest and astonishment of the fishermen who were all just coming back into the village with their morning catch. One guy took a liking to us, and decided to be our little tour guide for a few minutes.  Again, amazingly nice guy.  Just started chatting with us and telling us all about their village and answering our funny questions - without even asking for any kind of tip or help of any kind!  Amazing.

The hippos were just hanging out in the water right off the bank near where all the fishing boats were coming and going.  

 

And there were a ton of birds and other little creatures hanging about, as well. And of course, the day's catch was sitting there, waiting to be sold or packed up and taken to a market farther afield.

Of course, we didn't actually buy any fish, but we did end up buying some bananas and little donut balls for a snack - there certainly weren't any restaurants on that road to Congo where we could get any lunch!

Anyway, the little village was a definite highlight of the day.  The kids were great at watching out the window and being patient while we drove around all day looking for animals!  While we never did see the tree-climbing lions, we saw quite a few other creatures, which was really amazing.  

One of the most disappointing parts of the day was when we saw a nice new billboard/sign on the side of the road, advertising a lodge which had a restaurant (and therefor, we were hoping, cold Cokes!).  So we followed the sign down this little track in the mud which seemed to keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller... in fact, there was a guy working at the site of the sign, and we asked him where this restaurant might be.  He just pointed in the direction of the small mud path that we were on, and say it was near there.  Um, well, we certainly didn't see anything that looked like a lodge anywhere near by.  And it was getting a bit muddy for our mighty Corona.  So we cut our losses and started driving back to the Kingfisher Lodge.