Photo Yumminess Vol. II

Welcome to the second round of the picture pages. About time, I know!

Captions for the following photographs:

1. Not child porn! The Umlanga Festival in Mbabane, Swaziland, wherein the King chooses a new wife from a selection of young virgins.
2. The crystalline waters of Paje, Zanzibar.
3. Children posing, Chizumulu Island, Malawi. African kids make for photographic perfection.
4. A family fishes in the shadows of Maputo, Mozambique.
5. A jacaranda tree in full bloom, looming ominously over a traditional village. Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.
6. Courtyard with palm tree explosion, Stone Town, Zanzibar.
7. The kids of Chizumulu decide to give me a close shave. One machete is better than a Gillette Mach 3 any day. Malawi.
8. Marooned fishing boats, old harbour, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania.
9. Worthless! What 20USD gets you in Zimbabwe dollars. If you look closely you can see the date of expiry on the notes. Mutare, Zimbabwe.
10. Zebra ambling in the savannah, Hell's Gate National Park, Kenya.
11. Absolute mayhem: the minibus taxi rank, Kampala, Uganda.
12. Another day comes to a close, Lake Malawi.
13. Your not-so-distant ancestor, Parc National des Volcans, Rwanda.
14. Packing for an African safari? Don't forget your hubble telescope! Stupid tourists, Murchison Falls, Uganda.
15. Dhow on blue, Bazerutu Archipelago, Mozambique.
16. Riding in a taxi with an Aussie friend, Nairobi, Kenya.

Garbage Delight

Now Im not the one who'll say no to a bun
And I can always manage some jelly
If somebody gurgles, please eat my hamburgles
I try to make room in my belly
I seem, if they scream
Not to gag on ice cream
And with fudge I can choke down my fright
But nothing's enticing
Or even worth slicing
Compared to Garbage Delight.

This is an excerpt from a poem that my mother used to read to me when I was young. "Garbage Delight" denotes heaps and heaps of good food.

Those of you who know me well are aware that I have a profound love for all things culinary. On several occasions throughout the past six months, certain members of my family have put forth queries as to why I'd abstained from discussing the food in Africa to any degree. Today, the answer becomes clear: I had been planning to publish a list of my five best dining experiences on the continent as a whole, and for the sake of accuracy I was sworn to wait until my final week.

So without any further ado, I unveil to you the winners, counted up from fifth-best.

NUMBER 5
Meal: Springbok shank with red wine and rosemary jus
Location: Mama Africa's, Cape Town, RSA
Here I was, less than a week into my time in South Africa and already sinking my teeth into their national animal. The antelope meat was tender and succulent and the sauce divinely thick, ideal for being mopped up with some bread. I'd hardly expected to be eating this well on the Dark Continent.
What makes Mama Africa's special is that it's not just a restaurant - it's dinner theatre. After the meal is done, the lights are killed and the place fills with jugglers, musicians, singers, acrobats and mimes, and everyone gets gunned on Castle Lager. The party rages into the night, or at least it would have for us, had my friends and I not been sitting with a devoutly racist family of White South Africans. Their malicious, disparaging and shockingly audible comments to our Black waitress eventually sent us fleeing from the place in embarassment.

NUMBER 4
Meal: The Malawian Vegetarian Buffet
Location: Mayoka Village, Nkhata Bay, Malawi
Could it be that a fully vegetarian meal makes it into my top four?
Yes, it is so.In fact, I'll hazard that even the most seasoned flesh-addict would put his steak aside for a night for a chance to dig into this symphony of garden delights: deep fried cassava chips, spinach in peanut sauce, savoury red beans, curried sweet potato, okra and tomato stew, grilled eggplant and homemade mango chutney are all available, served in massive steaming cauldrons that line the bar. Remember boys, this is a buffet, so if eating a meal devoid of meat makes you nervous, just overcompensate and put back 5 kilos of the stuff.
Mayoka Village is just a hostel, by the way.

NUMBER 3
Meal: Mixed grilled seafood
Location: Forodhani Gardens, Stone Town, Zanzibar
By day, Forodhani is a park where Muslim women hang out in the shade and gossip. By night, it's a barbeque bonanza, where hundreds of pounds of sea delicacies are cooked up on smoking coal grills. The selection is unprecedented, and each table has at least 10 local guys hustling you to buy from them. Funny how they all claim that theirs is the freshest. For $10, I feasted on calamari, octopus, shark and tuna, with a side of chipati, hot sauce and beer. Seafood this cheap? Forodhani should be a no-brainer for the #1 spot. The sad reality is, however, that any leftover bits from the previous night go right back on the grill, and many tourists who eat here end up feeling dodgy afterwards.

NUMBER 2
Meal: A bologna sandwich
Location: Shoprite Supermarket, Kasane, Botswana
Under normal circumstances, it would be a pretty sad state of affairs if a bologna sandwich managed to snag the silver medal. So before you start feeling sorry for me, know this:
I had just completed my 8-day crossing of Zimbabwe. During that stint, the most appetizing meal I ate was a plate of rice with some chopped-up hot dog and salt, and on some days I was unable to find anything more than bananas and soda water. I was famished. More than that, I was craving something greasy and satisfying.
As I entered the door of the Shoprite - having walked 10km from the Zimbabwe border to get there - I was awestruck. After only seeing empty shelves for more than a week, the sight of a stocked supermarket make me feel like a pilgrim would upon arriving at his ashram after a long quest. I bought fresh bread, processed cream cheese, bologna, potato chips, lettuce and milk. Later, at my hotel, I made the mother of all hoagies, ate the whole damn thing, then spent the remains of the day lying in bed like a satiated lion, listening to the happy gurlges in the depths of my stomach.
Oh, and the milk: not 5m out of the grocery store, I cracked the seal and drank the whole litre in one go. It began to seep from my mouth and run down my shirt, causing the locals to stop and stare. I served them a peremptory scowl in return... I deserved this.

NUMBER 1
Meal: Meat, meat and more meat
Location: Carnivore Restaurant, Karen, Kenya
I suppose I was preordained to visit this place before I left Africa, and as I approached the front doors of the restaurant, I could practically sense its gravitational pull. At Carnivore, you sit around a table. In the centre of this table are two things: an assortment of sauces, and a flag on a stick. Raise the flag, and a battalion of waiters carrying giant skewers of meat descends upon you, hacking bountiful slices onto your plate with their pangas. Each man carries something different, and over the course of the evening you'll be served pork, lamb, beef fillet, chicken, turkey, sausage, liver, ostrich and crocodile. It's a true Brazilian churrascaria, done African style, and until you lower the flag, the meat keeps on coming.
One of the Canadian girls sitting at the table couldn't stop talking about how her favourite food was rice. Rice? What the Hell kind of favourite food is that? Can you imagine, sitting here with this meat extravaganza in front of you, rattling on about your preference for rice? God help the person who ever does that at my dinner table. Rice is for losers. And Koreans.

With a nip and a nibble
A drip and a dribble
Dollop a walloping bite
If you want to see grins all the way to my shins
Then give me some Garbage Delight.
Right now.
Please pass me the Garbage Delight.

Uganda, Alphabetically

My 16 days in Uganda are over. In this post, I offer a summary, with help from everyone's favourite 26 letters.

A for Aussies. I didn't meet too many of them in Africa, but in Uganda I met three extremely nice ones, and we ended up having a great time.
B for Boda Boda. The name given to the motorcycle taxis that whizz around cities and countryside alike, taking you to your destination in kamikaze fashion. Not for the faint of heart, because these guys drive like banshees and disobey most traffic laws.
C for Clean Clothes. I had them washed for the first time since Malawi, two months ago. In other news, no girls have talked to me since Malawi, two months ago.
D for Double. That's what Muzungus pay for nearly everything in Uganda.
E for Ebola Virus. My arrival in the country coincided with an outbreak of this nasty little ailment in the Western region, and even as I write this its spreading towards Kampala. Nothing like bleeding out of your ass and eyes!
F for Fluent English. Most Ugandans speak it, even out in the bush.
G for Giles Foden. The author of The Last King of Scotland, a semi-fictional novel about a Scottish doctor who becomes Idi Amin's personal physician and confidante. It was a pleasure reading this story while in the country, as it highlighted some of the more poignant characteristics of the people around me.
H for Hippos. Gotta love 'em. They're fat, they're slippery, they're loud, they're vegetarians, they kill people and when you pass by them on a Nile River cruise they grunt while staring at you with their googly eyes.
I for Idi Amin. Perhaps Africa's most despotic dictator, and he's had some stiff competition in that department. During his reign of terror, Amin slaughtered his own people, expelled all foreigners, renounced his nation's ties to the Commonwealth, and brought Uganda to its knees. Fortunately, he declared war on Tanzania - a war the Ugandans lost, and Amin was forced to flee to exile in Libya.
J for Jinja. Great place to whitewater raft. And to meet an army of tools, if one so wished.
K for Kampala. Churchill dubbed it "The Pearl of Africa" and it truly is a wonderful city.
L for Lake Bunyoni. This little gem is in the South of Uganda, and I spent my first few days there, swimming and piloting my rented dugout canoe. At one point, while paddling near an island, a local man beckoned me to the shore and asked me to take his mother to the local market on the opposite bank. I obliged, she planted herself in the bow, and off we went. She spoke no English, so she just sang in Bugandan for the trip's duration. Mike's Muzungu Boat Taxi Serivce.
M for Murchison Falls. The most powerful waterfall in the world, situated in the North where the Nile tumbles into Lake Albert. Impressive, and no casinos, therefore better than Niagara Falls.
N for Nile Special Lager. Beer. Enough said.
O for Omweso. A board game played in Uganda (and other parts of Africa, where it is known as bao), wherein players compete to win seeds from their competitor. I bought a beautiful carved wooden board to send home to myself. Someday I'll teach you lot how to play.
P for Plantlife. Uganda is painted in watercolor green from bottom to top.
Q for Qatar Airways. Bought a flight with them while I was here. C'mon, that counts!
R for Red Chilli Backpackers. My Ugandan home-away-from-home in Kampala.
S for Streetfood. I recommened goat brochettes, grilled corn on the cob, banana and cassava pancakes and chipatis stuffed with egg and avocado. The taste is enhanced, seemingly, when your snack is purchased through the window of a minibus.
T for The Source of the Nile River. You can see it in Jinja by paying 5000 UShs to walk up a road to where Lake Victoria starts to drain. Or, you can see it for free by cutting across a golf course and approaching from the opposite direction, though the guard with the massive gun will probably be very sore about it.
U for Ugandan People. Nice bunch.
V for Vindaloo. Had one of the mutton variety at a restaurant in Kampala and it was so hot, I nearly started to cry. But I gleaned the respect of my Aussie brethren.
W for Waragi. The local Ugandan firewater (gin-like and distilled from millet grain). We wanted to buy a bottle at the hostel, but it was 45000 UShs (25 dollars), so instead we paid one of the hostel cooks to take a boda boda to some private grog distributor. She came back with an old plastic jerry-can, half full of some mysterious liquid that smelled like jet fuel and made your eyes hurt when you smelled it. We were fully prepared to flush the stuff, but the hostel bartender had a sip and said it was decent. IT WAS AWFUL. Even the syrupy Fanta Orange couldn't mask the burn. Fortunately, none of us went blind.
X for ? I'm not bothered to even think of something for X.
Y for Yes, Friend! What the boda boda drivers yell at you on their way past.
Z for Zebu Cattle. Cows with astronomically large horns. Do a google image search. The Texans would be impressed.

To conclude, I'll just say that now I know my ABCs, and also that Uganda is excellent.