Tanzania

 Habari! That is how you say hello in Swahili!

This week we journeyed back to Africa to get a taste of Tanzania! We enjoyed learning about this beautiful African country. Tanzania is where the famed Mount Kilimanjaro is located as well as 16 national parks! Mount Kilimanjaro is the continent's highest point and the lowest point of the continent is the floor of Lake Tanganyika which is also found in Tanzania. The climate is very nice with the highlands being between 50 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the lowlands being between 58 and 89 degrees Fahrenheit.

The population of Tanzania is estimated to be close to 60 million people. Since 1996, the capital has been Dodoma. The flag was adopted in 1964 when Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged. This design incorporates elements from the two former flags. 

The wildlife diversity in Tanzania is incredible! Because of this about 38% of the land area is used for conservation purposes. Many large mammals use Tanzania as part of their annual migration. It is home to about 20% of the species of Africa's large mammal population. This is definitely a country to visit if you want to see a lot of diverse wildlife!

This week we found a recipe for Mchemsho, a local dish used for special occasions. The fun part about this recipe was that it wasn't very specific about amounts of ingredients and cooking times so we had to figure it out as we went. I found the recipe at https://www.istafrica.com/b/~board/blog-posts/post/five-local-dishes-to-cook-for-your-family.

Ingredients:

6 plantains (I ended up only using 4 because it seemed like too much.)

1 lb. of beef, chicken, or fish

2 potatoes

Onion

Ginger 

1 large tomato

Oil

Salt

Lemon

Pepper

Directions:

1. Boil the meat with lemon, onion, ginger, salt and water, make sure there is enough broth to have a soup-like texture. I simply sliced the lemon and added it. I diced a medium onion and added it to the water. I used some ginger paste and salted the water heavily. As it boiled, I skimmed the grease off the top. 

2. In a pan, cook potatoes and plantains with garlic, tomato and onion. Once softened, add this to the meat mix. I added the plantains and potatoes first and then added the tomato and garlic later once the potatoes and plantains were softer. I also salted this heavily because potatoes need it!

3. Stir everything together and serve while hot.

I served this with Ugali which are basically corn meal balls. 

We really enjoyed the Mchemsho! It was delicious! The plantains were very different than anything we have eaten before. They weren't our favorite, but the rest of the soup was delicious. The broth was citrusy but salty. The Ugali was best when dipped in the soup. Without it, it was very bland to us. 

The soup was great! We enjoyed this so much that we talked about making it again with chicken instead to see how it would taste! We hope you try this meal!

For this next week, we got the country of Liberia. It will be interesting to see how it differs from Tanzania!

Thank you all for taking the time to read this! We really appreciate it!

Aerika, Nick, and Lily