Sketchy Beef Tips

Another sweet thing about that day in Hyala was the fact that we were treated, by Veronica, to a pre-funeral meal of beef tips (I call them that, but really they were just chunks of beef – I have found that 1. “butchers” here (anybody really could be a butcher – you just have to kill the cow and then you are a butcher…sort of like doctor – you just have to stand in the hospital and act like you know what you’re doing to be called doctor here…man, if it were only that easy in the states! No need for grad school!) don’t know how to cut a piece of meat. There is no such thing as a rib eye or filet in this country…they just cut. Fat, meat, whatever, you get to eat it all. And 2. Cow meat is VERY rare to find in these parts. For some reason they just like to walk the cows up and down the road and trade them for wives. They don’t even milk them. They don’t make cheese or butter. And they don’t kill them for beef except on very rare occasions. I can’t figure out why. So weird. I want to start a butter making operation. Can you imagine NEVER having tasted real butter!!! What a shame! Same with chickens (but they do kill the chickens). They don’t collect the eggs from them. The chickens just roam around being totally useless. There is no coop for them to lay eggs in, so if they do happen to lay eggs in some random location, a lizard or snake just eats them and I get no scrambled eggs! Why?? Very interesting place we live in.

I find myself asking the question,” WHY??!!!” at lease 11 times everyday. Some things just aren’t logical at all. I mean, they aren’t logical from my perspective. I am sure there are lots of good reasons for them, I am just bad at figuring them out. Jeff and I were talking last night and decided that the one thing we wished most of all was for the ability to get into the heads and understand the perspective and the mindset of the people here. It’s so hard when you think you are approaching a situation from what I would call a reasonable perspective, and then have no one here take to it. I can’t figure out what the logic is behind so many things that happen here. For instance, since there is no consistent electricity, we have a small refrigerator up at the Father’s place that runs on kerosene. Well, every month the fathers order food and supplies from AVSI to be brought in from Uganda. The refrigerator keeps running out of kerosene, but kerosene is NEVER on the list of supplies that AVSI receives. So then the thing stops running and the fathers just say, “Oh, the kerosene got finished. The refrigerator is not on.” BUT THEY DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. They don’t notice that it is running low and send a message to bring more in before it is completely gone. They just let it run out and then deal with having no refrigerator until someone from AVSI comes to refill it. So frustrating. Don’t get me started on my thoughts regarding NGOs enabling dependence of developing populations. My republican side gets very animated when I think about these things. Barbara, who has been a wonderful sounding board and confidant here, is constantly asking “why” as well. We just look at each other sometimes and shake our heads in wonderment. But then she usually mutters some Italian curse word as well. But I digress. Bottom line, the beef tips were an exciting addition to the day. Veronica let me help her cook too. I got to make posho (this cornmeal and flour mixed with oil, I think, and water, and maybe some other things. It is supposed to be like the bread that goes with their meals (every meal, actually). It doesn’t have a ton of taste, but everyone here eats it. I got to mix it in the big pot over the fire with a long wooden stick until I was sweating and it had the consistency of really thick oatmeal or something similar. It was fun to cook with the women. They were super amused by my desire. After we cooked, we all sat outside Veronica’s hut, amid the chickens and goats, and ate beef tips and posho with our hands (still something that I am trying to get used to…but they never have napkins here. It’s really a messy thing to eat). And then, that night and well into the next day I was sick as a dog. But it was worth it to finally eat beef (even if it was tainted) and posho that I helped cook. The warm welcome into Veronica’s home and the experience of the meal was fantastic…Good times in Hyala. I like those people so much!