Young Talk

I have an informal group that meets once a month to read Young Talk. Young Talk is a free newspaper geared for late primary school aged children that addresses reproductive health and life skills. Yesterday I made chocolate chip banana bread to celebrate the end of the term for my Young Talk group. The breads and cakes Ugandans eat are incredible dry, stale, and tasteless. I knew this banana bread was going to be a stretch and tried to prepare myself ahead of time to not have hurt feelings when they didn’t like it because it was going to be so different from anything they are used to.

Due to elevation, humidity, lack of controlled steady temperature, poor quality pans, and anything else I could possibly blame it on, my bread turned out moist and wonderful in the middle and hard as leather everywhere else. Of course, not one to waste anything and knowing I’d chalk it up to being, “American,” and therefore no one would question it, I still brought it to my group. It turns out, they love the hard leathery outsides with a faint hint of banana and chocolate and I was able to enjoy the moist normal inside of chocolate chip (crushed Cadbury bar) banana bread (Gluten-Free of course).