goat roast

Yesterday I went to a goat roast with kit and crevi. I don’t know quite how kit met these people. Somewhere in the course of her research she came into contact with Powel (pronounced pao-wool) and he wanted us to go over to his family’s compound so they could roast a goat in our honor. So around 3 yesterday some rando guy named erick pulls up to our hotel and drives us to the village, to this ADORABLE, peaceful little compound. They automatically welcome us as their daughters, so we quickly acquire a new taata (father) – Sam; maama – Joy, brothers – Erick, Dick, Powel, Tom, and Mark; and sisters – Maria, Martina, and Melissa. My back is so sore today because Melissa basically spent the entire evening sitting on my shoulders. It was the only thing the two little girls were interested in about me, because all they really wanted to do all night was play with kit and crevi’s muzungu hair. (Multiple times every day I get Ugandan women coming up to me and asking, in the most mournful and confused voice imaginable, “muzungu, why did you cut your hair?” They’re so fascinated by muzungu hair I think they see it as a sin to cut it off.)

Luckily we arrived after they had already killed the goat and chopped it up into delicious little goat pieces on skewers. It roasted for about an hour and then taata proceeded to separate the bits into pieces appropriate for muzungu teeth and pieces appropriate for African teeth. (ugandans seem to think that muzungus are weak in just about every way. I’m not sure that I disagree with them, considering the things they do.) OMG THE MEAT WAS SO GOOD I think it was some of the best meat I’ve had in my life. And we ate SO MUCH, along with roasted cassava. They brought us beer and waragi (Ugandan gin – SO DISGUSTING) and marua (the local brew that they put in a pot and add hot water to and sit around in a circle drinking with really long straws – not as disgusting as I would’ve expected but had a really weird temperature and texture). Here’s me drinking it next to my new taata and trying not to vomit:


Then kit and crevi and I went into the house to go to the bathroom and the 2 little girls (Melissa and martina) followed us in and when we finished peeing they trapped us on our way out and forced us into an impromptu dance party. (Ugandans LOVE impromptu dance parties.) then all the other family members came into the house and we all danced to Ugandan music in a tiny, hot room. Pretty random and awesome.

Here’s a picture of maama wange breastfeeding mark while drinking a beer!!!!! Melissa snapped this gem with crevi’s camera. Public breastfeeding is totez acceptable in uganda; women do it anywhere and everywhere and no one looks twice. Though this is the first time I’ve encountered it alongside beer-drinking.

And here’s some pictures of me and kit and crevi at the goat roast.


(the little girl isn't actually drinking the beer she's holding, btw; i don't know why she has it)

p.s. bobby that poem is a masterpiece. i never saw you getting any of your poetry published in the st. catherine's yearbook, so lay off.