Tin Can Tony

As July 4^th weekend approaches I am reminded of how I celebrated America’s birthday two summers ago. This particular July 4^th weekend I found myself in East Africa at the start of a summer long internship.  I landed at Entebbe airport on a warm summer night greeted by a sign that said “Welcome to the pearl of Africa”, a pleasant and encouraging greeting I thought. Due to the late hour, my field team and I stayed the night in town before making the five-hour drive north to our permanent location, Mbale, Uganda. As we sat in the common room that night taking in the scene around us and enjoying nice conversation, the power blew and the room went black. “Welcome to Africa” said Rodney, our driver. Later that night, as I brushed my teeth using bottled water and climbed into bed under a mosquito net, the words “Welcome to Africa” kept replaying in my head.

The following morning we piled back into the beaten down white Land Rover, holding our breath that it would survive the long bumpy journey ahead. Seeming as it was our first weekend in the country and July 4^th weekend we headed to the mountains.

I believe that one of the best ways to get to know a person or culture is through what they eat. As we prepared for our July 4^th celebration and feast, I quickly realized I was no longer in America. If you want meat you must kill and slaughter it yourself, there’s no supermarket around the corner with a refrigerated meat section. This being a celebration, we needed something special. No ordinary chicken or fish would do. We were thinking big, we were thinking goat.

When one has to kill their own meat, one gains a newfound respect for the animal. Thus, to give our selected goat a respectful and humane slaughter we felt it proper to give it a name. Tin Can Tony became dinner that night. And with any proper Ugandan meal there must be some form of matoke, also known as plantains. Matoke, one of the national dishes of Uganda can be prepared in a variety of ways: steamed in banana leaves, grilled over a charcoal fire and then sprinkled with salt, or boiled and mashed then served with groundnut sauce, a peanut-like sauce. Matoke, unlike meat, is a staple of the Ugandan diet. It’s a starchy white fruit that is honestly quite tasteless but fills you up, and so when you live in a country where 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas, 40 percent of which lives in poverty, it is a vital and necessary food staple.

Now two years later, I find myself this July 4^th a college graduate blessed to be living in a country where I have endless opportunity, and I’ll remember that as I celebrate America’s birthday. Happy July 4^th to all.