Apple Cider Smells like Skittles

In exchange for the fantastic fish heads, we offered to invite Marian’s family of five for a good, American dish- Tacos! They arrived later than expected, but were very gracious and “looked smart”, as they say here when you look nice. They sat down and we set out place settings and taco toppings. This was our first mistake. Technically, our first mistake was not offering a washing basin to clean their hands, but we explained that we had a sink for exactly that purpose. But we shouldn’t have put out the toppings because they didn’t understand the concept and just ate the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and our precious guacamole as appetizers! It wasn’t really a problem because we had more but it was difficult to explain how they would use the vegetables and cheese to fill their tortillas. Guests make their own food? Americans are odd.

We also gave them the “honored piece of beef”.  No, not the head of the cow!  We gave them the bone that was sitting in our new crockpot all morning.  The fat that clings to the bone is a Ugandan’s paradise, they practically licked it clean.  The only difference between the fish head gift and the cow bone gift is that we really didn’t want the cow bone.  Ugandans salivate at fish heads and were probably a bit jealous that we got to eat the “best part” of the fish… we really could have not cared any less what happened to the cow bone.  In fact, we would have thrown it away if we hadn’t known that they would be really offended that we didn’t offer them the best part.  So really, it was a win/win in this case.

For dessert, we bought a special treat from the Vocational Training School that the YWAM base hosts.  This school teaches girls how to do things like tailoring and cooking to help them to get better jobs.  We purchased from them a chocolate cake!  Ugandans love sweet foods, sometimes we joke that the real reason Marian visits us so often is because we have a continuous supply of Nutella on our shelves. We also brought out all the fixings, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a packet of apple cider.  There was almost an order of how things were tasted.  We would make up the drink and it was passed around so everyone could have a sip, starting with Isha, the mother. None of them really liked coffee. We learned that the Lugandan word for coffee, “Kawa” is the same word for bitter. Then we showed them how the Americans make our coffee, lots of milk, sugar and chocolate! That got much better reception. American tea was next; we gave them Ugandan tea with lunch so now they got to try the flavors beyond ginger. Raspberry and chamomile were the two they chose and though Isha was extremely confused with tea bags, she seemed to enjoy raspberry best. “Apple Cider smells like squittles,” Marian says before she tastes the autumn drink. We had shared some Skittles with her from our care package but she can’t pronounce it quite right.

We learned our Lugandan nicknames when dishes were finished. Zoe is “Omukulu” (pronounced Oh-moo-koo-loo) or “Bhabha” meaning eldest. Dora is “Omusawo” (Oh-moo-saa-woh) meaning nurse. Xander is “Omusomesa” (Oh-moo-soh-meh-saa) meaning professor. Jax is “Enviiri Emwufu” (this one is harder to pronounce, En-vee-ree E-mew-foo) meaning red head. Liesel is “Epesa” (pronounced exactly like you think) meaning button, or our favorite, “Kima Kima” (Kee-ma Kee-ma) meaning monkey! In exchange, we taught them some classic boredom games like staring contests, arm wrestling, thumb war, etc. They are very strong! Then they had to leave so we got to practice our Lugandan goodbyes. We gave them some “Squittles” as a parting gift.

All in all, it was a good visit. We learned a lot about Ugandan culture in the few hours we spent together. We prayed for the relationship and the mother is Muslim. Jesus has plans for our families and it will probably involve a few more meals together. Maybe next time we’ll have pancakes…