Ugali na Sukuma Wiki

I love Kenyan food already and I haven't even been there yet. How can this be you ask? Well last night Caitlyn, Deanna, Danielle, Meredith and I were able to enjoy a traditional Kenyan meal thanks to our Kenyan friend Simon. Simon is pretty much the nicest person around. He has been so willing and open-armed towards us and last night was another example.

What is Kenyan food you ask? Well the traditional daily meal (which Simon made for us) consists of a dish called ugali and sukuma wiki. Both these words are Swahili and the latter means roughly "to push the week". The two dishes are usually eaten together and eaten using your hands. So to be as authentic as possible we chose to do so. The ugali is basically a much thicker and heavier version of grits. It is very simple, made of just water and ground corn meal. Sukuma wiki is generally made with kale (as was the case last night) or other green, leafy vegetables like spinach and then mixed with other vegetables and some sort of meat.

To eat the food, you just tear off a piece of thee ugali in your hand and then scoop sukuma wiki with it and enjoy. I cant say enough how tasty the food was. Suprisingly so, in all honesty. I had heard that it wasn't much to the flavor but Simon's was very good. I am soooo excited to get to Kenya and eat more and more of the food.

Perhaps the best part of the night however was another tradition of Kenyan meals: conversation. The actual meal took all of about 20 minutes to make and then a little longer to eat but the night was much more than that. We sat and talked to hours afterwards, about all kinds of topics. Simon told us that this was very common and actually generally expected of people when they are taking a meal. It was such a great experience and really got us all amped up to get in country (and for Danielle she was longing to be back in Botswana).

One Month and Counting!
-jamie