ZOE blog post 4

Health is so important. I always forget how lucky we are in Canada. We have so much and we always take it for granted. Here in Africa even just simple things like taking a shower is a big deal, like for example this morning there was only freezing cold water that was barely dripping from the shower head. Today we took a safari to Tangiere national park and it was beautiful. I honestly really love animals and we saw probably thousands of them. There was only one problem, when we were passing the villages there were kids on the side of the road. These kids were covered in dirt with ripped clothes and were selling fruit and any type of anything. They were probably 7 years old. There was one little boy in particular whom me and mommy bought a type of fruit off of him (not sure what type of fruit). He was probably 5 or 6 and was completely alone. It was heartbreaking. He didn’t seem to be healthy either. His hands and face were dusty from the road and his little stomach had gotten big because he didn’t have enough food in his body. t that moment i really realized how lucky I am, i have all the food imaginable, a nice roof over my head back home, and a loving family who has enough money to support me. So after we got back from the safari we went fro dinner. Now this place was a whole different experience. We sat down under this little wooden patio that had 5 plastic chairs, a plastic table and table cloth, and a bright red lamp shinning on top of us. The waitress came to the table with a bucket and a kettle. Me and Lara had no idea what she was doing but Moshi explained to us that we had to wash our hands in there before we ate. The food was very different I had never had any of these foods in my life. It was a type of chicken stew with vegetables I’ve never heard of like Okra. There was chicken and beans also, though the chicken was really different. It’s local chicken thats pretty much only protein or muscle. It was delicious but very chewy. The most exciting thing about the meal though was ugalii. We ate really late at night so couldn’t really see it but Ugalii is basically this cornmeal dough that you dip in the stew and eat. Ugalii is something typical that the villagers eat here because its very filling and cheap and easy too make. The portions are very big here big because i think that most people dont have enoguh to eat in places like the villages so if they go out somewhere they stock on on the food. It’s very unfortunate.