Week Five: A Cooking Lesson

Lucy learning how to chop the vegetables for the stew
The final product!
Jewell grinding maize for ugali
Fresh Vegetables!
Preparing the ugali
The product of hard work!
Separating peas from their pods
Lucy takes a turn chopping vegetables for the stew
More fresh veggies for the stew!
Cutting pepper for the kachumbari
The "stoves" (a little different from what you'd use in the States!)
Brendan tries his hand at stirring the ugali
Virginia learns how to make chipsi mayai
Holly keeps the stew from burning
Nemhena prepares carrots for the stew
Lucy finishing up a batch of fries
All the chapatti
Enjoying a hard-earned dinner

Authored by:
Harry L.

This past weekend, our students spent their Sunday afternoon busily chopping vegetables, preparing dough, and cooking up a storm! Every semester, the program sponsors a Tanzanian cooking class, to give our students the opportunity to understand an important part of Tanzanian culture (or any culture really…can you imagine Italian or French culture without its cuisine?)

Our students learned to prepare:

-Chapatti (a flat, tortilla-like flatbread)

-Kuku (chicken)

-Chipsi Mayai (a common roadside dish, it’s an omelette with French fries as the filling)

-Ugali (a soft, mashed-potato-like dish made out of cornmeal)

-Vegetable Stew

-Curried Okra

-French fries (cooked over a charcoal stove!)

-Pea soup

-Kachumbari (a tomato and onion salad)

-Pili-pili sauce (a type of Tanzanian hot sauce)

At the end of all this cooking, the students had the chance to eat up. Everyone had full bellies by the end!

It’s hard to believe we’re already in October—the weeks have been rolling by! Our students have grown more confident in their Kiswahili, learned the ins and outs of Tanzanian public transport, and discovered their favorite restaurants in Iringa. Midterms have come and gone—a big stress relief for everyone. We’re only 10 days from the mid-semester break (which I can tell is eagerly anticipated!) This weekend, we’re off to Kilombero and the Udzungwa Mountains, which is a beautiful and less touristy national park. Stay tuned for photos and a post next week!