Earthy Markets, High School kids, volley ball whipping.....and a chicken

Hello,

Welcome back to the blog! This morning, we woke up tired, but excited for what we had planned for the day, and got to start it with Juliet’s signature pancakes, which never fails to fill us up. 

We then headed to town, driven by Uganda’s best driver, William, who dropped us off in Jinja to get some more shillings in our wallets. From there we went for a gander in the streets of Uganda, and made our way down to Jinja Central Markets. Not knowing what to expect, we were welcomed by the mixed aroma of farm animals, fresh fruit and offal. Alongside the smells were salesmen that couldn’t sell a stick to a dog but would badger you until you bought their ‘real’ Gucci Flip Flops. After navigating our way through the labyrinth of family run stalls, we approached the overwhelming smell of animal manure to find scores of dirty chooks. Instead of being deterred by this stench, one Jordan Matthews decided to adopt one of the crustiest, ugliest, feral hens. With time running out to get to lunch, the boys managed to make their way back to the main street, but not without getting the young, handsome and lovable Henry the Hen his own personal ‘real’ Calvin Klein duffle bag. What can we say, Jordan can just bag them chicks.

After all the kerfuffle about the new team mascot, we found some locals who were happy to give us a ride on the back of their motorcycles for the right price (less than a dollar!). Following no road rules, fast manoeuvring and not slowing down for speedbumps, with the exception of Harry’s snail-paced, old man Driver, we all made it safely, including Henry, to Java House for a well needed feed. 

To avoid the unneeded attention on our new enkoko (Chicken in the local language), we found her a nice, shady resting spot, whilst we dug into, what feels like, the first bit of meat this whole trip. While most of the crew were enjoying the fresh food, Mr Matthews couldn’t help himself checking out his new chick every 10 minutes.

Once we had finished up, we all crammed in Willliam’s van and punched back to Subi House, before rushing down to the Hope Community High School, where we were invited to take a tour of the school and meet some of the wonderful students and staff. We were then challenged to a game of volleyball against the best players from the school. After losing the first game, the school team decided to take it easy on us and yet still smoked us in the next two games. Even though we lost confidently, it was still a great experience to engage with the students and staff, who couldn’t have been more hospitable and kinder to us mzungus.

We made it back home from the short walk from the school, to be welcomed by the smell of tradition Ugandan tucker. After a quick run around with the local children, we sat down and begun the pilgrimage of new tastes and textures. Whilst some of us were able to create enough saliva to consume the posho, matoke, cassava and local sweet potato covered in g-nut sauce, Harry took his sweet time, especially having trouble with the dry and starchy cassava. In the end some of us have to resort to adding the popular Nutella and tomato sauce to make it palatable. While the others were occupied, Hailey and Alex were busy teaching Juliet and Dorien how to make Olliebollen. After tucking Jordans beloved Henry to sleep, we all got stuck into our dessert of pineapple filled Olliebollen accompanied by teas and watching marble racing on a phone.

That’s all for today bloggers.

Written and illustrated by Jordan and Riley