Vacation is over!

We enjoyed one more day of vacation today since its Labor Day in the US. Everyone else in Uganda worked today, but since the US Embassy was closed, we stayed home with Sarah and Dan. It was a lovely day filled with exercise in the morning (Sarah and I went running - giving Ugandans a chance to say things like, "good exercise!" or "who is winning?" or "they are training"), shopping at the arts and crafts market, reading (a book I bought called Food and Nutrition in Uganda) and now cooking some homemade pasta sauce to eat with macaroni for dinner.

I've learned a few things about nutrition in Uganda (more from conversations with people than from my new book):
1) Diets here are starchy! Matooke, sweet potatoes, kassava, Irish potatoes, rice and chapatti are some common carbohydrates. While this is good as an energy source, it seems that people fill up on these foods and skip veggies that supply needed vitamins and minerals
2) Beef, goat and dried fish seem popular while chicken is by far the most expensive animal meat. Sarah says the price of chicken has tripled in the past year. Dan says it always tastes funky anyways
3) Most Ugandans grow some produce, but don't seem to eat it themselves
4) Peanuts are called "groundnuts" or g-nut for short
5) Milk and yogurt are available, but are often transported and stored without refrigeration leading to spoiled milk often enough
6) A decent meal at a restaurant has run us around $5-$8 - not bad, although more than I would have guessed

Thanks for reading! Writing about food helps me to learn the info I need to learn in order to be an effective dietitian here! As we begin our work this week, we'll write more about our nutrition and engineering work. Happy Labor Day!