Family Time with Kachumbari

I’ve had a lot of confusing moments in Kenya. Like the first weekend, when I took a matatu (a mini-van) from Busia to Kakamega and was brusquely pulled off in Mumias next to a sign advertising “Kakamega Forest – 63 km” (Luckily, I was just transferring to another matatu that took me to Kakamega, but a very terrified me with mental images from a few too many episodes of Criminal Minds almost took out the confused matatu conductor before he could give me an explanation). Or, when we showed up to a meeting almost 2 hours after the start time, only to find that the meeting hadn’t even begun yet. Africa time is alive and well in Kenya. 

But the one thing that confuses me the most is the fact that so many AIDS orphans exist within Kenya. I’m not sure if it is due to western influence redefining and consolidating the concept of family, abject poverty preventing familial responsibilities, or greedy relatives who take the land and leave the child, but there are a lot of orphans out there. Street kids who beg for money (or steal it from a Mzungu who doesn’t have the good sense to transfer her backpack to the front when swarmed with a crowd of the street kids) with glue bottles held in their mouth for a constant high are disconcertingly common, although females are strangely absent as street children. In the more rural areas, there are usually one or two boys, but in large cities, their large numbers become absolutely astonishing. And it seems like a quarter of the adults I’ve met either run or have some kind of connection to an orphanage. When I see how accommodating and close-knit the community is here, I feel like I’m missing something about the stunning amount of children left on their own. My host sister says that many street kids run away because they don’t want to go to school, but I find it hard to comprehend that there are that many kids (often as young as 7 or 8) who hate school that much that they are willing to trade a roof over their head and regular meals for the “freedom” of getting drenched in the daily afternoon showers and digging through trash. Where are their extended families in this whole equation?

Ah, sorry to be so depressing. On to happier thoughts on families.

The family structure here is the strongest that I have ever seen. For example, cousins are referred to as brothers and sisters (which perhaps explains why the stated size of my host family ranges anywhere from 5 to 15 depending on who you ask and when), and people frequently take off entire months just to hang out with the fam. Every major event in life is an event for the entire extended family, from births to dowry negotiations to funerals, and many homes have at least 1 or 2 unoccupied beds for when some mother-in-law’s cousin’s brother invariably arrives. Or, you know, their host daughter’s mom and sister, as happened these past two days. My host family has always been beyond amazing and welcoming, and this was certainly no exception. They took such great care of my family, and my host sister even gave up her room for my family (She moved to one of the aforementioned empty beds for visitors). Last night, we cooked a great family dinner together, with lots of help from Mamma Mary. Mamma Vern was surprisingly good at stirring ugali from practice stirring mashed potatoes, while Kaitlin and I prepared one of her favorite Kenyan dishes, Kachumbari, which is today’s recipe.

Kachumbari is essentially a vegetable salad (Ok, a veggie salad with tomatoes if we’re aiming for biological accuracy) that is likely to be a staple in the apartment next semester. Partially because it’s equal parts tasty and simple, partially because you can make a big batch and nosh for a few days, partially because I suspect my roommate loves onions more than she loves me (which is honestly pretty understandable), and partially because you can slice up something that is a day or two past the eatable stage, and it will still taste amazing.

Typically, Kachumbari is a mix of chopped tomatoes and onions with lemon, but we added quite a few extras last night, so be creative!

Kachumbari (serves 5)

Prep time: 15 minutes, depending on your chopping skills and number of vegetables

Supplies: A very sharp knife, 2 bowls, cutting board

Essential ingredients: 4-6 tomatoes, 2 onions, ½ tbsp. salt, 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (clear vinegar), 2-3 sprigs cilantro

Recommended Ingredients: ½ lemon, 2-3 carrots, 1 bell pepper, 1 cucumber, whatever else is in your fridge!

1) Wash all vegetables. Dice the tomatoes, onions, and whatever else is going in, but keep the onions separate.

I heart tomatoes... and photoshopping for hipster effects.

2) In the separate bowl, cover the chopped onions with the salt. Mix with your fingers until all the onion has been mixed thoroughly with salt. This is probably the most important step if you are making this for friends. The salt wash removes the bite from raw onions and keeps your breath smelling acceptable.

3) Add water to the onions and drain a few times until most of the salt is removed.

4) Add the washed cilantro leaves and cover with vinegar and/or lemon (either will do, honestly, but I prefer the vinegar). Both lemon and vinegar also help take the bite from raw onions. Stir and enjoy! 

Musings on Ugali

Every great novel has one or two grand, overarching themes. These are what people relate to, what they remember after they have savored that deliciously fulfilling last page and the details inevitably begin to fade away like the taste from last night’s dinner. If I were to write a novel about my time in Kenya, the grand, overarching theme would be marriage. Certainly not love, but rather marriage. The idea of marriage seems to have taken over all of Kenya in a way that, to be honest, baffles me. Every man seems to want to be newly married, including those who are already hitched. Let the prosecution draw attention to Exhibit A: the recent conversation between Rogers, the random street stall Kenyan that I pass daily, and me.

I walk past his stall in my all too habitual “I’m-in-a-hurry-and-have-no-desire-to-have-the-exact-same-small-talk-conversation-with-you-that-I-had-with-the-guy-three-stalls-down” American sort of way. Of course, like the guy three stalls down, Rogers flags me down by extending his arm for the handshake that is more omnipresent here than religion. I walk over, losing my impatience quickly to his wide grin.

“Habari?” (How are you?) I greet in my overly friendly foreigner way, hand and lips outstretched.

“Ahh, Nzuri sana. Sema Poa!” (Very fine. You speak well!)

I give myself a mental high five. Ya, I’m good like that. Then, I immediately switch to English.

I wait patiently and respond appropriately to the inevitable Where are you from?, How long have you been in Kenya?, and What’s your name? until we get to our point of interest.

“I’m Rogers, and this is my wife Rachel. Can I marry you?”

Well, that’s odd… Maybe I just didn’t hear correctly. “Sorry, excuse me?”

“Can I marry you?”

“But… you just introduced me to your wife.”

“That’s ok. She could use some extra help around the house.”

And there sits Rachel, nodding approvingly.

I make my normal excuse of being late to work and walk away as gracefully as the combination of uneven mud and tractionless flip-flops will allow. Jokes on you Rogers, I’m a crappy cleaner. Ha!

Over the past few weeks, he’s become progressively creepier, from renewed marriage proposals to pulling me in to a hug and going for an unsuccessful kiss with such awkwardness that even a seventh grade boy would cringe at his (not so) smooth moves. I’ve started taking a different route to work.

But funny stories aside, I’d like to understand more about how Kenyans think about marriage, since it is thought about so differently here than I’m used to. The men, for instance, seem to be obsessed, since I get a proposal almost on a daily basis, although it’s slowed down since I’ve made the decision to start telling random men who walk with me on the street that I’m married. The women, on the other hand, seem less than thrilled, as my host sister laughs about her boyfriend of 6 years wanting to get married (She has no intention of marrying him right now, and has said that she wants to concentrate on her career instead).

Perhaps my feminist side is skewing what I see, but it seems as though there is a revolution going on in the thoughts of Kenyan women. They are strong, powerful women, who can see themselves independently of boyfriends and husbands, instead of the meek, ever-obedient African women that I was expecting to find. Though this is certainly not the case across the board (I read a heartbreaking report today for work of a woman who died after having 11 children at home because her husband refused to allow her the money to deliver at a hospital, and wife-beating is still shockingly cavalier here), this trend is certainly encouraging for women everywhere.

Despite the fact that many of the women I’ve met are not seeking to be married, it’s still joked about quite a bit. My host sister tells me every time I make ugali that I’m officially marriage material, despite the fact that I think even Rogers would turn his nose up at my ugali. I’ve become the official house cook for the dog’s ugali, but I’m hoping to soon graduate to the role of making ugali  for the family under the extremely close watch and occasional helping stir of Priscilla, our sweet yet spunky house girl.

Now, I would be remiss to have a cooking blog about Kenya without mentioning ugali. As the staple food, ugali is eaten at almost every meal. It’s a dense mixture of corn flour and water with the consistency of mashed potatoes without any water. By itself, it won’t win any “Best in Show” awards in food tasting contests, but if you squash a ball with your fingers (as Kenyans do), and use the ugali to pick up fried vegetables, well, you probably still won’t win any “Best in Show” awards. But it will be pretty darn tasty, and very filling!

So, without further ado, I present the recipe for ugali (again, feel free to play around with measurements), my best hope for getting a Kenyan husband! I shouldn’t even joke about that…

Ugali (serves 3ish)

Prep time: 20-30 minutes, depending on your arm strength

Supplies: Stove, Pot that can take a bit of mess, wooden spoon for stirring, strong arms (Seriously, making this is a work-out!)

Ingredients: 4 c. water, 5 c. corn flour (I used a millet and cassava mix for this, which makes it brown, but it tastes much better with corn flour, which makes the much more typical white ugali)

      1)   Heat the 4 c. water to boiling on the stove.

      
      2)   Slowly add in flour 1 c. at a time, stirring with each addition.

      3)   The ugali should become very thick very quickly. When you have added in all the flour, there should be no liquid left. If there is, add in more flour.

      4)   Stirring is the hardest part. Pull all the ugali onto one side of the pot using the wooden spoon, then turn the whole mass over and start again. Look at the hand positions in the pictures. It helps!

      5)   After around 10-15 minutes of cooking, place the mass on a plate, pair with meat or cooked veggies, and enjoy!

Millet Porridge

Since I’m attempting this whole begin at the beginning thing despite beginning at the middle, I figured my first recipe could only be millet porridge. It was the first meal that I learned how to make and what I wake up to every morning (other than the surprisingly warm and satisfying bucket baths, John waiting very sweetly at my gate, and the jumping of Dog with No Name). Plus, it’s painfully easy to make, as long as you can find millet flour. You can make this with corn flour too, but I’m thinking wheat flour is probably not the best risk you can take today.

Speaking of risks, I learned quite a while ago that hippos are the biggest animal killer of humans in Africa, despite the number of charismatic carnivores featured in the American consciousness about Africa. Cue mental images of lions attacking the hapless white family. But seriously, hippos are massive and could easily take me out just by sitting on me, although human deaths are caused much more often by their powerful jaws than their similarly powerful rears. They are very territorial, and they “like to kill for fun,” as our tour guide put it in a surprisingly cavalier tone. Thus, what should I be woken up to this weekend but the odd, lowing call of hippos just outside our campsite? Dreaming Lauren thought that it was a warthog, and tried to scare it off with some pitiful barking in my sleep, but the hippos were somehow less than terrified. Luckily, there was an electric fence between us, but as hippos have 4 cm thick skin, it seemed about the same level of protection as me barking in my sleep. Oh Africa, you do have a way with me.

And on to the cooking!

Time: 15 minutes

Supplies: Pot for heating over the stove, separate bowl for mixing, strainer

Ingredients: 1 c. millet flour, 3 c. water, half a lime, sugar to taste

*Warning* Kenyans have a way of obfuscating things. It’s nearly impossible to get a straight answer on anything, so measurements are no different. Thus, these are rough estimates, so check with the pictures!

Directions:

      1)  Heat up 2 c. water on stove. It should not reach boiling point.

     

       2)   In a separate bowl, mix 1 c. tap water with the millet flour and stir.

     3)   Pour the millet mixture into the now warm water in the pot and stir. It should be smooth and thick enough to just barely drip off a spoon.

     4)   Using a strainer, add the lime and stir.

      5)   Add sugar to taste! Eat up!

Start at the Beginning

Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland, “Begin at the beginning, and go on until you come to the end; then stop.” Unfortunately, I’m starting my blog around halfway into my time in Kenya, which makes starting at the beginning significantly more difficult. Now, I feel like I have to explain the blog/late starting time a bit more. I battled myself quite a bit on whether or not I wanted to start a blog. Normally, I hate travel blogs. They’re long, showcase entire days, and aren’t really that interesting to anyone who doesn’t know the writer personally. I don’t mean this as offense to my friends keeping blogs this summer. I love reading them, but this is mostly a factor of how much I love the writers. Any other travel blogs that I come across are immediately forgotten. After deciding not to add one more website to the blogosphere, one of the girls here suggested doing a cooking blog instead, and the idea just took hold of me.

My favorite quote never written comes from one of the Little Women movies. Jo advises “The first rule of writing… is never write what you know.” Since I’m only here for two months (this time, of course, but Kenya has a way of seizing your heart in the craziness of this country and seeping into your every thought, making a return rather inevitable), and my attempts at cooking are sometimes tasty and always full of mishaps, I have two whole things to write about that I don’t actually know! Double whammy!

And thus began Cooking Kenya. I’ll be posting recipes, a few stories (usually wrapped within the buttery covering of a recipe), some general updates (I’ll keep them short), quotes that move me, and observations that strike me. Eat up!