Porridge for the Orphans

The Somers Park School is currently paying to serve ugi (porridge) to the orphans every morning. Here is my current understanding of how the program works:

One of the mom’s in the local community is hired to make huge batches of porridge every morning. It seems like it includes water, flour, corn meal, salt, pepper, and sugar (maybe milk?)….but I’m not exactly sure. The orphans are served first, around 9 or 10am. After that, the remaining ugi is sold to any child who wants to purchase a cup for 50 TZ shillings (about four cents). This money helps perpetuate the program and fills the bellies of many of the children at school here for a seemingly reasonable price.

In order to serve the ugi, there are over 100 colorful, plastic cups that are stored in a big plastic trash bin. A group of students comes through and then when they are finished, they wash their cup in a soapy bath and then rinse it in clean water for the next round of students to use. Almost every student gets 2 cups: one filled to the brim with ugi, the other is empty and seems to be the actual drinking cup that the kids use to pour small amounts of ugi into it to drink. The ugi is very hot, and I think the kids do this so that it cools off faster or something. I could be completely wrong about this, so I need to do some more research.

The most important question, of course, is how does it taste? I was at first hesitant to try the ugi for health reasons. However, it seems that the ugi is at least brought to a boil….and my host mom says it’s okay for me to eat…..so I figured, what the heck….I’ll try it.

The verdict: It actually tastes okay…there are some clumps in it which give it a distinctive texture….and the taste is a little like cornbread….a little sweet, a little salty….and of course a hint of corn flavor. It is very filling and I am considering making this a mid-morning snack almost every day!

A drawback: This morning the mom who comes to make the ugi didn’t show up. That meant no ugi. I don’t know if or when the orphans get other food in the day, but the process is definitely dependent on this woman showing up in the morning…