Thursday, November 8, 2012

Katos and Kicks


The missionary zone in Gaborone invited us to join their zone activity on 5 November. Everyone met at the Taylor's apartment. We provided a cabbage salad, cupcakes, tables, and stools. The Taylors provided potato salad, paper products, cookies, and sauces. The missionaries provided French fries, eggs, hamburger patties, palony, bread, and soda. Everyone contributed ten pula per person to cover what the missionaries brought.
 

Lunch was katos, salads, soda, and dessert. Katos are a popular street-vendor food in South Africa. They are made to order with the fillings the customer requests and can cost between ten and sixteen rands depending on the fillings. The missionaries who had served in South Africa were so excited to make their own kato and said they were not nearly as greasy as those purchased on the street. A kato is made by cutting a loaf of bread in quarters (kato means quarter in Afrikaans) and cutting the middle out of each quarter. Fillings are added to the hollow and the cut-out piece of bread is placed back on top.


Inexpensive katos are filled with chips (French fries) and fried polony (bologna). More expensive katos can have lots of fillings. The choices were fried polony, fried eggs, chips, cheese, hamburger patties, all types of sauces (thousand island, ketchup, barbecue sauce, etc.). The elders chose to put everything on theirs. Getting all this in one's mouth to take a bite is challenging.


We had a lot of fun watching the kato-making process. We shared one and still did not eat it all. The missionaries did not seem to have any problem completely devouring their katos.
 

It was a hot day (98 degrees F., 37 degrees C.). We set up tables and stools outdoors in the shade of a thatched-roof gazebo to eat.


After lunch the missionaries played kick ball using a huge ball on a soccer field in the heat. They needed plenty of water. The school children watched them play what was a strange game to them. The senior couples judiciously watched from the shade of a tree.

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