Goats, Grasshoppers, and Other Delicacies

I’ve learned two things about goats here in Rubingo. 1. Who knew goats were so cute when they’re babies? 2. Who knew roasted goat was soo good! Last Sunday Graeme and I were the only Muzungu in camp at Rubingo and we made the executive decision to not attend church. Now before you get judgemental you have to know our reasoning was that we can’t understand anything that is said anyways, and it gets kind of loooong when you aren’t listening to anything comprehensible for 4 hours!! Anyways we wanted to relax on our day off so we planned the ultimate day, starting with breakfast of pineapple and chai on the office deck, then eating roasted goat on a stick with our buddy Johnson down at DK’s the little family store in the next village. As rice and beans is the daily staple at camp goat meat is a delicacy. They chop up a goat everyday at DK’s and if you get there in time you can have some of the good parts. By this I mean not intestines wrapped on a stick, or the liver, or the tongue! But if you get the good pieces it’s delicious, roasted over charcoal, and only 500 shillings…about 32 cents each! Johnson decided we should handpick our pieces out of the bucket filled with pieces of a goat …(and one furry hoof hanging over the edge)…then come back later. We chose the best/meatiest pieces and covered them in my sweet Safeway garlic/onion spice…then we left to visit some widows and come back later.
At the widows house I found the sweetest little baby goats, just one day old and fuzzy!! They’re so adorable when they’re brand new you just want to squeeze ‘em!! Course the future is inevitable and back at DK’s we enjoyed some delicious roast goat on a stick in the “VIP” room at the back! :)
Now that it’s rainy season there is another delicacy around town…grasshoppers!! Everyone is catching them, selling them, eating them. Graeme came back to Rubingo with Johnson and a big bag of grasshoppers a few days later, much to the delight of all the Ugandan workers as well as the cooks who taught us to “prepare” them. We got a first hand lesson in de-legging and de-winging the insects, the rest is then thrown into a pot with a bit of water and fried. You wouldn’t believe how tricky it is to rip their legs off when they are moving and trying to chew at you with their little mandibles!!! They fry in their own fat, and taste a lot like crispy chicken wings, no too bad really. I just couldn’t get into it though, I don’t know if it was preparing them beforehand or knowing what they were that threw me off! Graeme, however, didn’t have the same problem of association and gobbled down handfuls!

Me and my buddy Johnson, one of the ACTS employees who works with the widows groups. Going to visit one of our Widows homes.

At the widows home we found these cute little goats, just one day old.

AWWW look at this cute little buddy!

The widows daughter

Johnson and I enjoying our roast goat in the "VIP" room at the back of DK's....hiding away from the Waragi (Ugandan moonshine) drinking mean in the front that harass us!

Our delicious bag of grasshoppers!!!

Edith, our head cook, preparing the grasshoppers ...after we had a lesson in how to rip off their legs and wings!