Disclaimer

Everything posted here is stricktly the opinion of the poster and shall not be taken to be the official position of UNMIS, UNMISS, UN, the Norwegian Armed Forces or any other organisation whatsoever.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Local eating

Let me start off by stating this: I'm filled to the gills right now.

WE're still on our Long Duration Patrol, and after we got back I joined a couple of the others (the LA, the SPLA NM, the fellow from Civil Affairs and one of the African UNMOs) to go grab a bite.

So we went to this brick shack with a tin roof they knew about from previous patrols, and we all had motoka (or something like that)... mashed tiny green bananas served with boiled greens and a beef stew on the side.. apparently, you mix the stew and the mash and eat it - with your fingers if you know how, with a fork if you're a silly European like me.

It was tasty and very filling... I might go lay in my tukul for a while to digest the meal properly...

2 comments:

  1. Um, what are LA and SPLA NM? So many acronyms...

    What is a tukul?

    LOL, I hope the rest of your patrol is just as 'filling'.

    XD

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I do tend to scatter abbreviations and acronyms around a fair bit... part of being an officer I guess :)

    I've put up a separate page listing some of the more common ones, which should be accessible from the top of my blog.

    As for what a tukul is.. well, the spelling varies as wildly as the size, layout and decorations, but a tukul is the traditional hut used in most of Sub-Saharan Africa: A framework of wood is covered by mud, mud bricks or a combination, and a thatch roof is placed on top. In this part of South Sudan the tukuls tends to be square, about 3-4 meters on each side and painted either yellow and black or red and black.

    The word is claimed to be an English loanword from the verb "to cool", and it would not surprise me - the tukuls tends to be a fair bit cooler on the inside than brick buildings, not to mention the tin shacks they often use as shops down here.

    Basically, any time you see a traditional mud and thatch hut in my photos, you're looking at a tukul.

    ReplyDelete