Last night we hosted a dinner party at our house/office in Kitgum with the heads of some of the local humanitarian agencies. Topics of dinner conversation that I don’t normally encounter at home:
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Fecal-oral transmission of Hep E
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Whether grasshoppers or white ants make better eating (answer: depends on whether the ants are well fried)
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Guess the mystery disease affecting the UN staff who went to Jinja last week
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Who is selling chimp brains and lumber illegally across the Congolese border
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How flying from the US to France to Iraq on Sept 9, 2001 will get you banned from entering the US, even though you work for UNICEF
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Who is working for Israeli intelligence
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Whether or not it’s safe to eat the bush rats
No, we were not serving bush rat. We made pumpkin gnocchi. But the rat is a local delicacy. In case you are wondering, they taste terrible, though that was likely my psychological block. The white ants are delicious, however.
