{{popup treeAndCow.jpg treeAndCow 640×480}} Ukambani is Kamba Land, the area of the Kamba tribe; it’s where I live. Tala is on a flat plain and somewhat dull from a landscape perspective. But out where I visited on Saturday, it’s quite beautiful.
Upon arrival in Machakos I headed for the T.Tot Hotel. Everyone knows it; it has the best Mandazi. It was there I had arranged to meet Dominic, and there I planned to eat my lunch.
The choices for vegetarians are not great. I’ve mentioned before the fact that there is one stew with either chicken or beef. Last time I fought with Chicken bones, this time I went for beef on the basis that it would be already cut up and mostly separated from the bones. I told the waiter I wanted beef stew and…
“Rice?”, he suggested.
“No, not rice, ugali“, I replied, “and a chapati”.
He stared at me in disbelief.
“Ugali?”, he intoned.
I nodded and smiled.
“And chapati?”, he added, incredulously.
I continued to smile and nod authoratatively.
“And mango juice”, I added.
I assumed that he just thought I’d ordered a bit too much, and since my appetite that had been sharpened by the bus ride, I didn’t mind.
When he brought the food he stopped short of the table and tilted his tray slightly; I thought the stew was going for a burton.
“This is chapati”, he said, indicating first one dish and then another, “and this is ugali.”
“Yes, good!”, I beamed and pointed at my table. I realized that he was finding it hard to believe that a mzungu would choose such a traditional dish. The idea sank in slowly as he arranged the plates and glasses on my table and placed a knife, fork and spoon against my stew bowl. Before I realized myself what I was doing, I’d reached out and pulled a lump of sticky maize meal off the ugali dish and was kneeding it between my thumb and forefingers in local style. I had to follow through. I dipped the resultant thumb-pot in my stew and raised it to my mouth with gravy and beef on borad.
What fun! I ate my meal with my fingers, for the first itme in Africa! I finished the lot and enjoyed it more than the chicken stew last time. My waiter promptly lost interest since, if i was prepared to eat with my fingers, then ordering chapati and ugali was no big deal after all.