Matoke, chipati and sukuma wiki

John taught me how to make matoke last night as he prepared a delicious meal for Sam, Virginia and me. Matoke is boiled bananas (ndizi) and vegetables – he added an onion, a few carrots, tomatoes and a green pepper. And we served it with a perfectly ripe avocado and cocktails. I had matoke once before at a fly-ridden hoteli in Rigoma, but John’s version last night was much better. I think I can recreate the recipe, so I’ll give that a try next week.

Other meals here are usually a mixture of vegetables, rice, chipatis and chicken. Nearly every day for lunch in Rigoma, we have rice, beans and chipati. We order from Martha, who stops by the office each morning to see how many of us will take lunch that day. Then she says she’ll bring the food at 12:30, so of course it’s almost always there by 1:30. She walks across the compound carrying a bucket of rice, a pot of food and bowls and utensils. Her chipatis (round breads a little thicker than Indian naan) are great, though a bit greasy.

Back at home in Kisii town, Sam and I take turns cooking dinner. We have two electric burners, a skillet and a pot, so we boil rice or potatoes to accompany stir-fried veggies. Sam’s soya stew is good, and he likes my spicy vegetable-fried rice. Overall we’re pretty compatible roommates, so we have a nice partnership for cooking and washing dishes. When the electricity is out at home, which is at least once a week, Sam and I have dinner at the sports club. We order chicken with ugali, a maize dish that’s the staple of the Kenyan diet. Sam’s friends at the sports club are proud to serve local chicken, but we’ve seen those things walking around and eating trash, so the local connection isn’t that much of a selling point. Ufanizi is the other good option for dinner – their Indian menu is a nice change.

Sam and Benson are in charge of the Aqua Clara garden and greenhouse, so we’ve gotten a lot of free organic produce from there. The sukuma wiki (greens) and green peppers were especially tasty, as are the avocados and bananas we bought from the market a couple times. George, a Community Development Entrepreneur who works with us, has taken to bringing me fresh fruit from his shamba some Thursdays. So this week I got a huge bag of passionfruit and something that reminds me of guava. He also said he’d bring me a live chicken for my dinner once, but I adamantly declined. I really don’t think I’ll be killing my own chicken any time soon.