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(thanks go to trish for reminding me that this topic is still interesting to those at home)

a week into living here, the caretaker knocked on our door asking us if we wanted a cleaning lady. we said no. we were aware it was standard practice for ex-pats to have servants, but we hadn’t warmed to the idea ourselves. neither of us felt comfortable having a servant…servants are for the rich & hauty, white colonials. not for us. but, then we were asked again. and again. it felt like everyday someone was asking us if we’d hired househelp (the african term), yet. it quickly became that we felt more uncomfortable not hiring help. it was as if everyone was staring at the new couple in town, saying “who do they think they are not hiring help?”

employing househelp is almost an inescapable part of life in uganda, as evidenced by the steady stream of questioning upon our arrival here. domestic work, as a cook, housecleaner, gardener, nanny, is an essential part of the ugandan economy and one of the few areas of employment available to many ugandans. the payscale is not high according to western standards, but it’s a living here. we pay less than $20/week for all the cooking and cleaning we need. $20 is less than a dinner for 2 at a restaurant in the states, and we ate out at least 1x a week at home. remove the dinner out a week on our end, add in a week’s salary to support a family on their end, and we have a good deal.

after some weeks of procrastinating, we decided it was more beneficial to hire someone and be a good employer, than it was malevolent to have servants. so, we forayed into the househelp world by hiring margaret for a month. we had no clue where to start, but margaret’s a go-getter, so she just took control and taught us how it’s done. she cooked, she cleaned, she shopped, and, after her month was up, we were sold.

thankfully we found barbara and her sister, sarah, to replace margaret. barbara, our cook, came to us on a recommendation from seth & leila. sarah, our housecleaner, came to us on a recommendation from barbara. barbara comes 3x a week, sarah 2x a week. they’re a-maz-ing.

we bought several cookbooks for barbara (pasta, the food & cooking of mexico, vegetarian gourmet, 50 great curries of india, cooking for 2). each monday we pick out the menu for that week from the various cookbooks, she goes shopping to buy whatever ingredients are needed, and we eat well for the rest of the week. everything is freshly homemade: pasta, tomato sauce, tortillas, bagels, passionfruit juice. samples of our meals…

• tortelli with pumpkin stuffing
• chicken fajitas
• chicken & cashew nuts in black curry spices

this week she brought her own cookbook that has an entire section dedicated to breads. she told me to pick out whatever bread i wanted. i did. that night for dinner we had fresh baguettes with our homemade chicken noodle soup. yummy. :)

sarah does an impeccable job and makes our apartment spotless, which is especially impressive considering the red dust that covers everything here. the two of them together add a liveliness to the apartment that i’m really going to appreciate now that phil’s gone. talking, laughing, radio-playing…activity.

trish had a great suggestion about getting barbara to teach me how to make some traditional african foods. i hadn’t thought of that, but it’s brilliant. slight problem is that there aren’t too many ugandan foods that anybody would be excited about eating at home (e.g. steamed/boiled plantain banana mash, aka matooke). there are some tasty items, though, so not all is lost. plus, maybe she can teach me some luganda along the way. 101paige 101africa