Dumplings!

Today was quite an eventful day!

Starting at 8:30 this morning, I made rounds around town to meet all the officials. Some seemed nice, others not so much...

One guy asked us some appropriate questions (how to you sustain the org? what programs? etc) and then turned the table on us by asking my supervisor if he had kids. When my supervisor said that no, he did not, the official said, "that's why you are helping others? because you don't have one? why make yourself suffer or pretend under the illusion that you're happy? you need to get yourself checked out. at least that way, you can know scientifically that you can't have kids. You're making your wife suffer by not having a kid. she should have been pregnant within a couple months of marriage. that's why you marry, so you can have kids. you can't be happy unless you have your own child." My poor supervisor looked so uncomfortable! How inappropriate was that?

Then we went to see the popo and he said cool and asked me for my number, which I obviously did not give out.

After visiting officials, we went to see the vet. Apparently, there are no dogs that want to get rabies shots...so in order to vaccinate my dog, I have to buy 10 dogs worth of rabies vaccine (or 1 bottle). Lame. I'm going to have to see about maybe generously offering to vaccinate my next door neighbors dogs...Since I'm buying the whole bottle, might as well put it to good use.

After the vet, we visited the Bank of Africa which has AC but does offer any debit/credit cards (other banks in Uganda do). Interesting. Finally, we went to visit another craft association. This lady had some cool natural seed beads that I liked and made some good clutches and cute bracelets. I'll upload pics when I can. And hopefully, I will have a crude etsy shop up tomorrow so you can see the craft and (hopefully) donate!

And the awesome news of the day:

mmm... I made dumplings today! FROM SCRATCH!!

I found a recipe online for the dumpling skin so I decided to give it a go! That and there's no take out here...The easier thing to have made would be eggs or potatoes etc. but 1. im tired of potatoes 2. im out of eggs 3. i had some time and finally 4. I WANT CHINESE Food. For the inside I used spinach and the awesome shitake mushrooms my family sent me =). Meat is too disgusting to cook. That, and it's difficult. I can't exactly ground my own meat...

How do they taste? I have absolutely NO idea! I won't be cooking them until tomorrow. I'll let you know how they turn out. I'm going to hope for the best. Although I will admit, usually when I make things for the first time (usually baking), they don't generally turn out too well. BUT...I've technically made dumplings before (not quite from scratch). Those did have meat in them but somehow turned out very tough. Jon can confirm this. LOL

and the not so great news...

Char stinks! She decided her new nap spot is on top of my bag of charcoal. So now she stinks and she's dirty. I see a bath coming in the next couple of days...

I hope to learn to cook in Uganda. I've scouted a bunch of recipes and hopefully will get a chance to make all of them. On my list of things:

-brownies
-lemon sugar cookies
-mochi
-mochi cake
-man tao/buns
-tang yuan
-dessert: paste and non-paste form: red bean, green bean, taro
-cinnamon rolls
-granola
-jerky
-quesadilla

Sweet! Okay. I'm go watch more tv shows now. Or maybe do some more work.

Cheers~

Tiff