You Can't Have It All

One thing I have learned about living in Uganda is that you can’t have it all, at least not at the same time.

Last night around 11:30 I noticed that the power had gone out, I was in bed so it wasn’t that big of a deal. This morning the power remained out with I got to the BHTF office, fortunately it came back on soon after I arrived. However, we soon discovered that although the power was back our Internet router had a bad wire, so we can’t use the internet.

Right now there are four girls from the UK staying at our house, and we all decided to treat ourselves and make some jello, but once it came time to eat said jello there were no spoons to be found. But we were determined to enjoy that jello, so we all sat in a circle and ate the jelllo with a shared ladle, and it was delicious!

The milk here is pretty non appetizing, it’s raw so I’m sure it’s super healthy and what-not, but non pasteurized milk just does not appeal to me. It is especially unappealing when you see it delivered fresh to your door ever morning, with udder hairs floating on top. All that to say, I finally found a brand of bagged milk that is processed enough for me to drink it, still not by itself, but on cereal and such. I was at a grocery store out of town when I stumbled upon said milk (the brand is Jessa just in case you were wondering), I quickly grabbed a bag and rushed to the cereal shelf to see what I could get to go with my milk, only to discover that the only delicious cereal there was $10 a box! I sadly returned my milk knowing I could not justify spending $10 on a box of coco puffs. (It wasn’t even a family size box!)

This happens all of the time with food a grocery stores, I found a store the next town over that was selling mac and cheese, I have never seen mac and cheese sold anywhere else in Uganda, not even in Kampala, so I quickly bought around six boxes. I am down to my last box, and am saving it for a special occasion because that grocery store has since stopped stocking mac and cheese for no apparent reason; it’s just not there any more. This also happened with gummies, although I think the country ran out of gummy candy because I cannot find them anywhere! I found a store that has started selling bbq sauce, and you had better believe that this weekend I’m going to stock up, because who knows how long it will be there? Stores, however NEVER run out of gross things like, posho flour, and cakes that have the moisture content of sawdust. Shopping side note: There are no stores here where you can find all of the food you might need/want in one place. So a typical grocery run (for me) usually consists of visiting two different grocery stores and a gas station, sometimes the open-air market if I need veggies.

Basically I have learned that when things are good you had better take advantage of it. Also, if you ever find mac and cheese or gummy bears in a store, buy it all out, no questions asked.