Sunday, September 11, 2005
General Information about Mbarara
Mbarara is the fourth largest city in Uganda, but that isn’t really saying much. Our area is considered to be tropical, but it isn’t like the rainforest and it’s not like the desert either. We are located near the equator at the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains, so rolling hills surround us. (It is BEAUTIFUL!) Our elevation is about 5000 feet and we are pretty far from any large body of water. Because of this, the humidity here is much lower than many of the other cities in Uganda. The temperatures are usually in the 80s during the day and the 60s in the evening, with only two seasons: rainy and dry. During the rainy season, it can rain for 10-20 minutes in the morning and be beautifully sunny in the afternoon (or vice versa). It can, of course, rain for much longer periods of time too. But so far, it hasn't been too bad.
There are 3 "nice" restaurants in town (I’ve eaten at 2 of them.) It takes at least 30 minutes to get the food, and just because an item is on the menu doesn’t mean that they actually have it. They serve local food, slight variations of "American" food (like hamburgers, sandwiches, and pasta dishes), and even some Indian foods. "Local food" includes the main staples of the Ankole people: bananas, matoke (cooking bananas, which oddly enough taste sort of like potatoes), posho (cornmeal mush, from which you can posho chips—Ugandan-style tortilla chips), rice, and beans. Other foods which they have here in abundance are: sweet potatoes, peas, ground nuts (like peanuts I think), avocados, cabbage, greens, tomatoes, pineapples, mangos, papayas, watermelons, pumpkins, guavas, and passion fruits.
We pretty much have to make everything "from scratch." (I’ve learned to stop saying, "This is so good… is it made from scratch?") It is rare to find cake or muffin mixes; soup packets or even canned soups; seasoning mixes; no frosting, pudding, jello; and hardly EVER ice cream—at least in Mbarara. In the Kampala, the capital city about 3 hours away, you can occasionally find things shipped over from the states—like cocoa puffs instead of just rice crispies or cornflakes. That is where I got a jar of salsa and some taco seasoning, a couple of oranges, grapefruits and some string beans (which I probably should cook before they go bad), along with some meat. The only meat really available in Mbarara is hanging up outside in the open air market—sometimes with the tail still on! Also, let me tell you about the bread here. Apparently, Ugandans like stale bread. They actually poke holes in the bags for it to get hard quickly! Isn’t that strange!?!
Let’s see...what else can I tell you? Power is scheduled to go out every 3rd night for several hours, roughly from 7 – 11pm. This is because Uganda sells electricity out to some surrounding countries and the nation’s electrical source (the dam at the source of the Nile in Jinja) just doesn’t produce enough electricity for those countries and for us. I believe they are still working on the construction another dam, but until then it looks like we will be "power-sharing" with some other cities/towns in Uganda. For this month, they actually put the schedule in the newspaper. I guess we will see what happens in October.
There are 3 "nice" restaurants in town (I’ve eaten at 2 of them.) It takes at least 30 minutes to get the food, and just because an item is on the menu doesn’t mean that they actually have it. They serve local food, slight variations of "American" food (like hamburgers, sandwiches, and pasta dishes), and even some Indian foods. "Local food" includes the main staples of the Ankole people: bananas, matoke (cooking bananas, which oddly enough taste sort of like potatoes), posho (cornmeal mush, from which you can posho chips—Ugandan-style tortilla chips), rice, and beans. Other foods which they have here in abundance are: sweet potatoes, peas, ground nuts (like peanuts I think), avocados, cabbage, greens, tomatoes, pineapples, mangos, papayas, watermelons, pumpkins, guavas, and passion fruits.
We pretty much have to make everything "from scratch." (I’ve learned to stop saying, "This is so good… is it made from scratch?") It is rare to find cake or muffin mixes; soup packets or even canned soups; seasoning mixes; no frosting, pudding, jello; and hardly EVER ice cream—at least in Mbarara. In the Kampala, the capital city about 3 hours away, you can occasionally find things shipped over from the states—like cocoa puffs instead of just rice crispies or cornflakes. That is where I got a jar of salsa and some taco seasoning, a couple of oranges, grapefruits and some string beans (which I probably should cook before they go bad), along with some meat. The only meat really available in Mbarara is hanging up outside in the open air market—sometimes with the tail still on! Also, let me tell you about the bread here. Apparently, Ugandans like stale bread. They actually poke holes in the bags for it to get hard quickly! Isn’t that strange!?!
Let’s see...what else can I tell you? Power is scheduled to go out every 3rd night for several hours, roughly from 7 – 11pm. This is because Uganda sells electricity out to some surrounding countries and the nation’s electrical source (the dam at the source of the Nile in Jinja) just doesn’t produce enough electricity for those countries and for us. I believe they are still working on the construction another dam, but until then it looks like we will be "power-sharing" with some other cities/towns in Uganda. For this month, they actually put the schedule in the newspaper. I guess we will see what happens in October.
# posted by beth @ 3:20 AM 
