Living Conditions I - Warning: Contains Pictures of Bathroom

Being in Uganda reminded me of being at camp. We were each assigned a bed with a bug-net, in one of the orphans' dorms. (The orphans were away staying with relatives during the school holidays.) The boys tookover one room and the girls used two. There was very little privacy.


In the back room, and behind the dorm there were "showers". These were actually small concrete rooms. If anybody needed to bathe, he would have to fill a jerry-can with water from the rain-reservoir, and lug it down to the dorm. If he (or she!) was lucky, he would be able to bathe with somebody else's leftover water, and then he wouldn't have to carry it. A full jerry-can weighed 50-60 pounds.

Besides the showers, we were also afforded a little privacy in the two bathroom stalls. However, the walls were thin, so any person who was embarrassed to let another person hear them pee was out of luck.

Most Ugandans use pit toilets, which range from simple holes in the ground to elabourately flushing toilet bowls that you simply have to squat over. These thrones were built especially for us, and boy did we appreciate them! From my few experiences with pit toilets, I can equivocally say that they are not for me. However, they did help me understand why Ugandan women wear skirts; they are extremely practical.

Now that you're sufficiently grossed out, I'll show you some food, starting with the grasshoppers:

This is a very typical meal. We dined on potatoes, rice, sweet potatoes (which are white in Uganda - there is one on my plate), pineapple, mango, watermelon, bananas, peas, stewed meat (usually beef), pasta, grasshoppers, and vegetables (carrots, green peppers, onions, avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers). In the mornings we were given eggs and chips (fries). One time we had maize, which you can see on my plate. It tastes like starchy corn.

Ugandan cooking contains a wide array of ingredients, but almost no spices.

In Tabiro, all cooking is done over coal or gas burners. There are no ovens, and there is limited refrigeration. To break up the culinary monotony, we baked some cakes in a frying pan we brought from Canada. They tasted like cakes.