Chips Mayai

We've spent most of our time on this blog complaining about various Tanzanian meals, mainly Chaga Banana Stew and meat that is cooked to the point that rivals that of a piece of gum you stuck under your desk in high school... and had to eat right now. Well done doesn't even begin to describe how overcooked this meat is.

Anyway, we actually did enjoy quite a lot of the food in Tanzania. One of our favorite foods is Chips Mayai, or French Fries and Eggs. There are a few awesome aspects of this dish, which I will outline, below:

1. It is meat free. In a land where non-meat eaters are shunned, one doesn't get an odd look from a waiter (or house girl / host family) when requesting Chips Mayai.
2. It includes REAL chips. The non-soggy, actually fried kind. This feat is made possible by cooking the chips twice, which makes them actual CRISPY chips.
3. It is cheap! On most menus throughout Arusha - the menus for tourists and the menus for locals - Chips Mayai is 3000 TShs or less. Yes, less than $2!

Not surpirsingly, this simple dish is a favorite for tourists and locals. So for our last day with the St. Lucia family, we cooked it for everyone for lunch. We purchased all the ingredients at the local market (which involved haggling and enduring lots Mzungu comments) and balanced the eggs (which were cast into a plastic bag without the protection of a crate) throughout a bumpy dala dala ride all the way to Moshono. Not a single egg broke along the way. That's how good at riding the dala dala I am now!

After lunch, the kids sang us songs and gave us cards they made themselves that said, "We love you so much we don't want you to live." Clearly, they meant to write "leave" instead of "live" which is one of the best things about the cards. The thought of leaving all of our friends in Arusha makes us not want to live, either. I mean LEAVE. Check out the pictures below and you'll see why...

2011-06-25 - Good-bye St Lucia Party

Jeremy and I already cannot wait to send a care package to everyone, and we are also already scheming how we can come back next summer to visit again...