mzungu?

Hello fellow Americans...and maybe some who are not. I do not know. We are taking a little break after our downtown market adventure before we head to dinner. Last night we had a cultural lesson and Ugandan meal at one of the hosts we are staying with. (Jen & John). Oh by the way...this is Lisa & Kirsten. AKA Platy and Pengu!

It started out with all of us in a line outside washing our hands. We had to scoop the water and take some soap and then rinse the water again. We then went inside where we first took off our shoes. Our appetizer was coffee beans and we had to bite the beans. I love beans. WOo woo woo. We then ate the inside of it and it had a lovely flavor. Our next appetizer was something quite unusual. SOme of you may think this is gross but we ate grasshoppers. Lovely little buggers with two piercing black eyes that were staring right at us right before we bit off their heads. I had 5! I loved them..me being lisa. Kirsten had one but the eyeballs were a little too much...The meal was traditional Ugandan food a lot of it being food we would not normally eat...greens, cabbage, chipattis, rice and meat, motoke & g-nut sauce. It was alll yummy!!

During our dinner which we were eating on the floor using our hands (Ugandans who live in the villages do not use silverware), we got a lot of cultural lessons from Jon who is working on his doctorate in Ugandan History..and relations...or something like that. It was really interesting!

Today we got to spend time in the markets and our favorite parts were interacting with the shop owners and people of Uganda. Juliet was one of our favorites. She loves Obama...and our hair. We heard over and over how she would love to have hair like ours. She was so sweet and we would love to take her home with us!! Some of the girls got to walk on the street while others were shopping and we ran into a little girl and her dad. The dad was saying "take a photo of her!" and "she wants a photo"...her name was Irene and she was probably about 5 years old. She was so cute and had the biggest smile on her face. We took pictures and showed her our cameras and she loved seeing herself on the screen. Seeing people on the street even while driving is probably the most interesting and heartbreaking part of this trip.

Ok off to dinner. G'day mates.