Samosas

Yesterday I made samosas, fried pastries stuffed with anything from meat to potatoes and other vegetables. They're quite a bit of work to make, but worth the effort. My sister helped me out, which made it much more fun.

Samosas originated in India, I think, but you can buy them in the market in Uganda.

I used a mix of recipes, the filling from Taste of Uganda and the dough from an Indian cookbook.

For meat filling:
- 250g meat, minced (or about 1 cup of ground beef)
- 4 onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- a piece of fresh ginger
- 1 carrot
- 1 teaspoon curry powder
- coriander leaves (I forgot about the coriander)
- 1 small green (or red) pepper
- 1 chopped green chilies (optional)
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 2 teaspoons salt

I like the way the recipe is written.

Brown the meat, cooking it with a little salt. Then...

Chop the onions and crush the garlic.
Chop the coriander and crush the ginger.
Grate the carrot, chop the green pepper.

(Cooking is so violent, yet poetic. ;-) )

Lightly fry the onions in the oil, then add the meat, salt, and curry. Cook for a few minutes, then add the coriander, ginger, and chilies.

Remove the meat from the fire and add the grated carrot and green pepper.

For the pastry:
- 2/3 cup flour (I recommend using a full cup, though)
- salt
- 3 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
- 4 tablespoons water

Mix the flour and salt, then use your fingers to "rub" in the butter till it all has a crumby texture. Add the water, and mix with a fork until it has a doughy consistency. Then knead the dough for about five minutes, adding more flour if it's sticky. Let it sit for about five minutes, then pull a piece of dough off (about 1/8 of it) and roll it out into a circle. Cut in it half and shape the half into a cone, using water to make the edges stick together. Spoon the filling into the cone, then fold over the top and seal it in the same way, so you have a triangle shape. (If you follow the recipe, that is. My sister read it halfway through and made cute little samosas after that, instead of empanada-shaped ones.)

To fry them:
Fill a deep saucepan about 2-3 inches with oil and heat it till there are some bubbles and a piece of dough dropped in rises and browns in about 30 seconds. Add a couple samosas at a time and fry them for about 60-90 seconds on each side. They should be faintly golden brown.

They're very good hot, cold, plain, or with dipping sauce (like yogurt mixed with a little bit of tomato).

AIDS Scenarios

The AIDS Crisis lists a lot of organization websites, which I've only just begin to skim the surface of. But there's a whole book online from UNAIDS about three possible global AIDS scenarios in 2025 which has lots of information about HIV/AIDS currently as well as factors that impact the spread -- or help prevent it. (It's over 200 pages, but worth taking a look at.)

On a Sunday...

The Last King of Scotland

I just finished watching The Last King of Scotland, about Idi Amin and his personal physician. I'm still feeling a bit sick from it, so perhaps it's not the best time to write a review, but it is certainly still fresh in my mind.

Note: This post contains lots of spoilers.

Basically, the protagonist, Dr Garrigan (okay, it's not that fresh - I can't remember his first name) moves from Scotland to Uganda right after med school, looking for adventure and perhaps to help a few people. He goes to an Amin rally in the countryside, gives him some slight medical assistance, and is invited to Kampala (the capital) to become Amin's physician. He likes Amin pretty well, like the rest of Uganda seems to, and Amin likes him and makes him his closest advisor. But then things begin to turn sour. Garrigan informs Amin that the Minister of Health (Amin's other main confidante) appears to be up to something fishy, and Amin should talk to him; the Minister of Health disappears. Garrigan realizes things are getting bad, and wants out, but Amin won't let him leave. (At the same time, Garrigan and one of Amin's wives are having an affair.) Garrigan goes to a British guy and is told if he wants help at this point, he needs to kill Amin.

Right after that, Amin's wife finds out she's pregnant (by Garrigan) and wants an abortion so Amin won't find out. But he does anyway, and has her body torn apart as an "example." Garrigan now has more reason to kill Amin, and gives him some "headache medicine" that will cure headaches for good. Before Amin takes it, though, they're interrupted by the hijacked flight that lands in Entebbe with Israeli hostages. While Garrigan is seeing to the hostages' needs, Amin's head of security takes the pills and gives them to a young soldier to test if they're poisoned. Garrigan, being a good doctor, rushes out to stop the kid from swallowing it. Of course that gives it all away. Amin has him strung up from the airport ceiling by hooks in his chest, and I really thought he died, but apparently it wasn't that bad (just incredibly gruesome). The Ugandan doctor Garrigan had been working with bandaged him up after the soldiers left, and told him to get out and tell the world what Amin was doing. All of the non-Israeli hostages were being let go, so Garrigan managed to slip in with them as they got on the plane, and just made it out of the country. The footage at the end is of a rejoicing Uganda after Amin is finally thrown out in 1979. (It was real footage, which was cool.)

So, long summary. I liked (can't really say enjoyed) some things about this movie: lots of African kids and countryside, the tying in historically with things like the Entebbe hijacking, and Garrigan's change from "just trying to have fun" to realizing the results of what he was doing and changing. I didn't like Garrigan for most of the movie, until he started to realize what a fix he was in - and one of his making. That's something I can sympathize with.

There was a lot of disturbing things in the movie, too, but not in the way Hotel Rwanda or Sometimes in April or movies like Schindler's List are disturbing. All but about a minute of the violence (when Garrigan finally found out what was going on around him) was directed at Amin's wife, who died a horrible death, and Garrigan. What has happening in the rest of the Uganda was mentioned in passing, but didn't really feel connected to the main story. And Amin didn't really seem evil; a bit crazy, but there wasn't any real hatred or cruelty until he suddenly starts doing incredibly gruesome things in revenge. It felt...I dunno, very Hollywood. That part of the movie just felt a bit inexplicable, based on what I'd seen of Amin up till then. It showed the innocent face that evil can wear for a while, I guess.

Perhaps this is just Ugandan partisanship on my part, but I felt it was almost racist (wrong word, but I can't think of anything better) to make a movie about Idi Amin and have the only real torture and violence be directed at a white man (and Amin's wife, who slept with the white man). I mean, if my parents or grandparents had been killed in the 70s and their bodies been left unburied, I probably wouldn't care very much what happened to Garrigan, who really shouldn't have been involved in the first place. But I guess that's just the story the moviemakers chose to portray, I shouldn't be faulting them for that. And it is an interesting story.

The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do

A friend loaned me The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do several weeks ago, since one of the guest speakers at our church's missions conference was going to be Deborah Dortzbach, the co-author of the book. She's a director (the director?) for World Relief's AIDS program. The book is about how we, each of us, need to face the reality of the AIDS epidemic that's sweeping the world, and begin to reach out and do something. It's taken me far too long to start, partly because I've been busy and partly because getting myself to start a non-fiction book (even if it's something I'm really interested in) is like pulling teeth.

But it's going to be hard to put down now. I'm only taking a break to blog about, because it feels to pressing, the need is too immediate, to wait. Here are some quotes from the first two chapters that have struck home to me.

The total number of people living with HIV is nearly forty million and rising, double the number ten years ago. In 2005, 2.8 million people died of AIDS, half a million if them were children under fifteen. Nearly eight thousand people die each die as a result of the AIDS epidemic...By 2010, 25 million children will have been orphaned by AIDS.

And all this in spite of the fact that in the past twenty-five years more resources of time, skill and brainpower have been spent on AIDS than on any other illness in history. In that short time, HIV has spread to every country in the world...

The book has lots of real-life stories of people facing AIDS, whether dealing with their own sickness or that of a family member - or just helping someone who needs another person there to help them.

My name is Nsengiyumva Fidele. I am forty-eight years old, and I have five children. I learned I was HIV positive in July of 2002. I was full of fear and sorrow. After two weeks I made the decision to start an HIV/AIDS program in my church to help those who are not HIV positive to protect themselves, and to help those who are positive to deal with it well. I went to the leaders of the Friends Church. They told me that they had been praying about this for some time, but they didn't have anyone who could start this ministry. The church leaders and I saw that this was now the Lord's will.

After going to the second training [with Word Relief], I found that I could do nothing but tell my story to others in my church. I wanted my story to help stop the stigma and shame that was common in many churches. I also wanted people to protect themselves from AIDS. I continued sharing my story openly in many other places in the country, and now we have many different associations for people living with AIDS.

The purpose I now have is to help church leaders who are HIV positive to be open about it, because they are good vehicles of hope to the community. I now have hope...

For me, living with AIDS is the path through which God has chosen to use me. It's true, in my blood there is the AIDS virus, but there is also the blood of Jesus. I trust and do not doubt that Jesus' blood in me has more power than that of the AIDS virus. So I am not defeated by this virus. I stand firmly on God's word from Psalms 118:17, "I will not die but live [eternally], and proclaim what the Lord has done."

Hanging out

I just found this picture again the other day (from 2004) and am posting it because it's got some of my favorite people in it: Joyce and Rose (and Martha, who's hand is on the left there). This was after a women's Bible study at Rose's, which also gathered kids, the old, and the blind, none of whom had been drinking too much ngawe (beer). It was a good way to get introduced to people in the village.

Ugandan Flag

For the last year or so, I've been thinking the Ugandan flag has a rooster on it.

Then last Saturday night, as I was talking about Uganda to some kids at Rocky's missions conference, one of them commented on the "chicken" on the flag. Suddenly it clicked, and I remembered that Uganda's national bird is a crested crane. Much more noble of a bird to be on a flag!

Butterflies

It's finally spring here, and reminding me somehow of Karamoja. Yesterday the sun was shining, but there were mud muddles everywhere, which as I was looking out my office window I saw attracted one lone white butterfly.

In Uganda during the rainy season, driving down a dirt road sometimes you can see dozens of little yellow butterflies gathered around a mud puddle, sipping up that, uh, sweet nectar. It's very pretty, though, when the vehicle goes by and they all fly off. Someone mentioned once that it would make a good ad for one of the cell phone companies there (whichever one uses yellow in their ads -- I don't remember now).

There are more dignified butterflies, too. Black ones with white spots in Kampala, and brilliant multi-colored ones like this in the Wrights' backyard in Karamoja.

Picture of the Moon

Taken by Kipsy (age 5 at the time) in Kampala.

Tropical