Beth's Adventures in Mbarara Uganda

As part of the internship, our interns had to cook dinner for the missionaries. Sounds pretty simple, right? The catch is, they can only use ingredients and things they could find here in Mbarara town.

SO, Lindsey and Bethany decided to kill a chicken--even though you CAN buy them in town already killed and frozen...if the power is working! It sure was an adventure! Jessica and Courtney (the interns staying with the Naramores) also killed a chicken in our backyard. It was actually quite "agusting!" I'm not sure if the ax was sharp enough. It took Bethany 3 or 4 hacks at our chicken's neck before it actually lost its head. And then the skinning and gutting and all that other gross stuff...almost made me NOT want to eat dinner that night. (Did I mention it was raining!?!?) Both Jessica and Bethany had killed chickens before, so they made it look easy--agusting, but easy. I was shocked at how much the insides of the chicken looked exactly like the packages of chicken breasts I usually buy at the grocery stores in Kampala! (BE SURE TO SEE ALL THE PICTURES FROM THIS CRAZY DAY ONLINE AT MY PICTURES WEBSITE:

As it turns out though, dinner was pretty good--although the chicken was really tough. I guess you need to let it sit longer or tenderize it somehow. They slow cooked the chicken in bbq and honey--both of which you can get in town!. They also made mashed potatoes and even found green beans in town! Baking soda biscuits and a yummy chocolate-flavored dessert topped off our delicious dinner.

For the most part, they made it look simple...I think most dinners were ready around the normal dinner time. (Some interns made mango cobbler, pizza--homemade sauce of course, fruit pizza, spinach salad--because they couldn't find lettuce, etc.) They didn't seem stressed out by having to cook without the conveniences of America or packaged and pre-seasoned things. In fact, I came home from a 3 hour meeting to find my girls lounging around and watching CSI, just waiting for the time to start the green beans and potatoes. Of course, they did all of this on their day OFF, where the ONLY thing they had to think about was preparing dinner!