Family Home Evening and Ugali

I'm doing several short posts today to make it easier to read.  So here goes this one:

We take turns having Family Home Evening with the Assistants to the President (young missionaries) and with the Msanes (our Mission President) and us.  Last week we went to the Assistant's house and they cooked us some authentic Kenyan food.

Ugali (pronounced oo-gall-ee) is a staple around here.  Everyone makes it and everyone eats it.  LeRon and I were first introduced to it by our son-in-law Andy (married to our daughter Michelle) who learned it from a Kenyan friend.

Ugali is basically a cornmeal mush that is cooked till it's very solid.  And you use white cornmeal, not yellow cornmeal.  Africans only use yellow corn if they have no white corn.  When there was a crop failure one time, western nations brought in yellow corn for them and nobody liked it!

Then you cook a meat dish with greens (sukuma wiki -- which is actually kale).  You scoop up the meat dish with the ugali, using your hands.  Enjoy the photos!

Elder Wafula is chopping kale with a very sharp knife and he's holding it in his hand!  He said his mother taught him how to do it and he's never ever cut himself.

Nice smile, Elder Wafula!!  After the kale was chopped, Elder Wafula cooked it in oil.

Now here's Elder Arudo getting ready to cook the hamburger.  I can't remember what they call it but they don't call it hamburger.  Minced beef I think.

The Assistants often host other missionaries who are transiting through Nairobi.  Fun sign telling them to clean up after themselves!

Now Elder Wafula is starting the actual ugali.  Just white maize meal and water or was it oil?  No salt.  I'm afraid I had to add salt to mine.

Elder Arudo cooking the meat with onions.

Now I'm eating the finished product with my hands!  Kids would like that I bet.  I wished I'd had a fork!

Two other missionaries joined us for the evening.  Don't they have great smiles?