cornbread on the stove

Sunday is no-work-day which... can get quite boring. Decided to finally try making some cornbread on the stove because 1) cornbread is great, 2) maizemeal is a staple around here, 3) I wondered if white maizemeal would translate into white cornbread, 4) I miss baking (and having an oven!!).

The batter did not turn out white, like I thought it would. I think the egg added some colour to it despite the flour and maizemeal being very white. 

I tried a large spoonful before taking the picture, oops

... and the bottom totally burnt.

But the burnt layer came off pretty easily.

While perhaps not visually exciting, it was quite delicious.

If only I could get the bottom not to burn. I used the lowest heat I could and greased the pan pretty well. I think I was supposed to flip it halfway through. Will try that next time. If there is a next time. There probably will be. 

"God's bridge"

Sometimes work involves going "into the field" and sometimes that involves passing through cool places

the Nile

After Kampala, I headed to Jinja for some white water rafting in the Nile river. I don't have any photos (they were expensive) but wow, what a crazy experience! Especially considering I had zero rafting experience before. Over the course of the day, we rafted about 25km, through eight rapids. My raft consisted of a group of four: two Germans traveling together, a Spaniard traveling solo, and me! Our raft flipped over twice, and I found myself flying out and landing in the water, not really knowing what was happening and with a large wave always ready to hit me, while I struggled to time my breath right. I swallowed a lot of Nile water that day. I'm recovering from the massive sunburns, but still have bruises on my stomach, arms, and legs from the water / flying paddles.

Next, I spent two nights at a hostel/campsite in the nearby town of Bujagali. It was right by the Nile and I could have spent a week there, just relaxing. It was such a fun yet peaceful environment. I met lots of travellers from all over the world, including one man who was doing a round-the-world trip on a motorbike, having started in London and already made his way down west Africa and now coming up east Africa to go to Asia. So cool, courageous, ambitious.

So happy!

Later, I went to Jinja, which as I wrote before, is the most touristy place I have ever been to and probably will ever go to! Still, it was cool to go to the "Source of the Nile". With that said, the claim that the Nile starts in Lake Victoria is false, since lots of rivers feed into Lake Victoria… where the Nile technically starts is complicated and disputed but probably actually somewhere in Rwanda or Burundi. Obviously the guide did not tell me this, I read it in the British Airways magazine on the plane to Nairobi.

For the tourists

Adorable

A small bust of Mahatma Gandhi. Some of his ashes were released into the Nile here.

Kampala, Uganda

I returned yesterday (Sunday) from an amazing week in Uganda. I spent two days and three nights in Uganda's capital, Kampala, and then a day white water rafting on the Nile River, a day hanging around the Nile River in the town of Bujagli, and then one more day checking out Jinja, Uganda's second largest city and the most touristy town I will probably ever go to.

I loved Kampala. It was so warm (especially compared to Nairobi, where you can find mittens, hats, and coats being sold in the stalls along the streets in the city centre). The city is built on hills, allowing for beautiful views of the city. These photos I took from the Gaddafi Mosque, which was, yes, funded by Libya's Gaddafi.

I also visited the Bahai Temple, located a few kilometers north of the city centre. It's a nice, peaceful getaway from the hustle and bustle of Kampala proper. The workers there even invited me to have lunch with them!

I'm not really sure why this photo is so bright... Though the grass was indeed very green.

Stalls near Owino Market, selling everything under the sun.

I knew that much of the West's secondhand clothes went to Africa before coming here, but I never realized the extent of it. In Kianyaga you can pretty much only find secondhand clothes (except for things like socks, formalwear, or custom made clothes/dresses) and there are brands like Gap, Nike, American Eagle... even Uniqlo! I wish I could get Uniqlo in Canada!

In Kampala, secondhand clothes are sold open-air, often sorted in bunches by clothing type (shirt, dress, pants). I saw a lot of Zara and Forever 21. The vendors, largely men, will throw individual pieces of clothes in the air while swarms of women gather round and sift through what's available. My bargaining skills aren't so great, but I still managed a pair of pants for just 4000 ush (about CAD 1.75). Not bad! Not only do they have shoes for sale, they also have things like secondhand kettles and irons!

Uganda is known for its "groundnut sauce". I'm fairly sure groundnuts and peanuts are the same thing because they taste the same and look the same but I'm not 100% sure. The gnut sauce is the pinkish liquid on the lower left corner of the photo. The yellow food is matoke, or mashed green bananas, and it's a staple food in Uganda. Almost every restaurant has it! I'm not a huge fan, but I loooooved gnut sauce over rice. I'll miss it, as they don't have it in Kenya.

Beans, served with rice, matoke, greens and groundnut sauce. 

Inside Gaddafi's mosque.

At the mosque, women must be veiled and shoes are not permitted. They provide veils for the tourists. Though, male tourists are fine in their t-shirts/shorts/tourist-wear.

The guide, a very sweet student volunteer, wasn't the greatest photographer, so the photo is ... slanted. This photo is from the entrance to the mosque.

The view from the top! 

We had to walk some crazy stairs to get to the top. Definitely a workout.

Kampala has a large Chinese population, an even larger one than Nairobi from what I hear. The bottled water I bought, while bottled in Kampala, was produced by a Chinese company. It was the cheapest brand.

THEY EVEN SELL CHINESE CAKES in Kampala! The store was owned by a couple, and only the man knew English. Asians, Asians everywhere.

At the Oasis mall in Kampala.

(the maize) has to be white

Despite being here for a month, white maize (corn) still intrigues me a little, having grown up encountering only yellow corn.

But here in Kenya, the corn in the markets and the cornmeal and corn flour sold in stores is all white. I was talking about this today with the woman who runs the grocery store I frequent. She told me that yellow maize is not only viewed as inferior to white maize, but it actually has a negative stigma attached to it. It is associated with the maize from food aid shipments during food shortages, which is yellow (presumably imported from countries with yellow maize). As a result, yellow maize is seen as something for poor people. 

I did some reading online and found that some scientists are seeking to biofortify maize with vitamin A, to address vitamin A deficiencies in poor African communities that do not have access to natural sources of vitamin A, like vegetables, due to cost and seasonal availability. Kind of like golden rice, which is being explored in Asia to tackle the same problem. Unfortunately, the biofortified maize is yellow, and people don't like yellow maize.

The grand solution: orange maize.

burn, garbage, burn

All the garbage in town is burned. Burn burn burn.

colours. they lie.

What's NOT orange in Kenya? ORANGES!!! 

Let's go to Nairobi (again)!

June 1 is a holiday in Kenya - Madaraka Day. It landed on a Sunday this year, but everyone gets a long weekend anyway. Kianyaga can be a little uneventful so we decided to go to Nairobi... again! 

The original plan was to go to an elephant orphanage, but we lost our way somewhere along the three matatus we took and instead ended up at the Nairobi National Park's animal orphanage. We heard that the Nairobi National Park wasn't too great so we took a taxi to the Giraffe Centre! Lots of tourists (including Asians, of course) but for good reason! That good reason being that giraffes are the best.

Bending down 

Visitors were allowed to feed the giraffes pellets. They have long, grey, and very wet tongues! The giraffes were so incredibly friendly. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of me feeding a giraffe. I resorted to just taking a selfie.

Selfie time

 The hair on the giraffe's tail is almost like human hair. What a funny looking tail.

And lastly, below is a photo that I snapped from the matatu to return to Kianyaga. This is in the busy part of the city - the "Central Business District" or the "CBD". Basically, the downtown.