By Abby Unger
Our second to last night in Uganda started like any other, but then something unusual happened. We were at chapel and all of a sudden Agnes started catching bugs in the air. Soon after that, other girls joined in as well.
Mommy whispered to one of the girls: “Are these the termites you eat?”
Barbara answered: “Yes, we will get some right after chapel”.
We could not believe it. We would get to try the termites we had heard so much about!
As soon as chapel ended, we ran toward the classrooms. They have bright lights and the termites are attracted to them. There were hundreds of them everywhere! We started grabbing them by handfuls. The girls had big, giant buckets and were putting the termites in them. I was putting mine in an empty water bottle because I was afraid they would escape. The girls were giggling because they were excited and because mommy shrieked every time a termite got on her face or under her shirt. In two hours, we collected several buckets of them. We gave the buckets of termites to Gloria, the cook.
The next day she steamed them, fried them up and dried them in the sun. There were so many we all were working on them most of the day. It was like a party. We stood around the table, talked or sang songs and kept rubbing the termites in the palms of our hands to get the wings off.
Finally, we got to eat them. They are delicious and taste like salty peanuts. It was like a giant feast with everyone putting handfuls of termites into their mouth and laughing. Agnes and Margaret kept saying “Here Abby, for you, eat more.” And they were giving me more and more to eat. It was so much fun!
These termites only come once a year and we are lucky we were there to help collect them and see how they are cooked. We were especially fortunate we got to eat them because they are incredibly delicious. We miss them a lot but we miss our time with the girls even more.
Abby Unger is an 8-year-old 2nd grader who visited the Lukome Center with her family in May 2019 and 2021. Some of her favorite things about the center are Madame Tracy’s cooking, especially rice, beans and Rolex (local dish of chapati and eggs). She also likes going to chapel where you get to sing and dance, hanging out and playing soccer with the girls, playing with the babies and trying out her newly learned Acholi words and phrases. After this second trip, catching, cooking and eating flying termites has been added to her list of favorites.