Baking Cakes in Kasese - By Bethan

You might remember I had written in a previous blog that the Kasese Central Baptist Church Women’s Co-operative is saving money with a local co-operative savings scheme in the hope that they may open a café in town when they have enough money. I have offered to teach them how to bake and make western-style foods to sell, as there is a potential market with passing tourists and local well-off Kaseseans.  Local people don’t use ovens as we know them (they use charcoal stoves or cook on firewood over three stones).

Last Friday the women were due to turn up at my house at 2pm to learn how to make a lemon cake.  By 5pm with only Alice here (our pastor Alphonse’s wife and also member of the co-operative) we decided to postpone.

The following Friday, with arrangements made to meet at my house at 2pm, it again reached 3.30 and I wondered if anyone was going to come.  But then a phone call “we are at the gate”.  (Alice has told me that sometimes people who have not been to our house before fear to go into a mzungu’s house because they’re not entirely sure what it will be like and what we might offer them or expect from them.)  I went to the gate and found four women and two children.  I invited them in and we sat around the dining table discussing what plan the cookery program will take and if we are all sharing the same vision of what they would offer as a café and how they would work as a co-operative.

Then we moved into the kitchen.  Esther, a new young mum, had her baby Kristobel in a baby-bjorn-type sling the whole afternoon; Andrew, the 20 month son of Josephine played with Samuel and had a fabulous time and Alice and Josephine’s sister did most of the cake preparation while Josephine kept very detailed notes.  The women were very serious, sticking to every detail of baking including Josephine chiding her sister for measuring 178g of flour instead of 175!  There was much excitement putting the cake in the oven while we sat at the table discussing how to price up a piece of cake including all the ingredients, the gas used, the electricity and water and wages involved in day-to-day running of the café ad trying to find hidden costs so as not to get stung.

When the cake was ready Alice ever so carefully prised it out of the tin and they mixed icing to go on top.  We then all sat around the table and prayed for good learning, for delicious food, for good profits in the future and good fellowship.  Then we ate the cake and marvelled at how wonderful it tasted!  Samuel was even gentlemanly enough to feed some directly into Andrew’s mouth (this is how Ugandans feed their children) as he stood, mouth open, next to Sam!  The women were excited about the list of things we were going to learn in the following weeks and months.

So that’s a very long story about a very delicious cake and some very lovely women!