Cheese and Diet Coke vs Guaca and Tortillas

Cheese and Diet Coke, the two things I miss from home (home has become a blurry concept). Yesterday, I decided to prepare some Guacamole and Chapati (greasy tortillas) to feel closer to my beloved Mexico. I was very careful in cutting the tomatoes, the onions, putting enough lemon and, of course, leaving the avocado peat inside the guaca. The chapatis received much less oil than the usual and were especially flattened (I miss tacos!). Add some beans, and there it was a fantastic dinner! The chapatis were so crispy that I could actually eat them as a taco filled with guaca and beans. I was so happy. So I thought to myself, I could actually live here...

What would I miss? Lot's of things... People of course but what would I really miss from my home (Mexico/New York)? Movie theaters would be top of the list, but you can actually get most movies in the streets (in the informal market), so if desperation would come I could always see the damned movie (Harry Potter). As I thought of the things I crave at night I realized that the two things that are really making me have strange dreams are Cheese and Diet Coke.

I found a dairy a week ago, the only in town, they make all the cheese for Muzungus in the area. The cheese is not bad and it has become a weekly tradition to go and buy as much cheese as I can carry. Ugandans don't eat cheese, my theory is that the lack of electricity in the country does not allow for adequate handling of the product and as a result it never penetrated the Ugandan cuisine. People really don't like cheese, one of my roomates at the house actually refused to eat a plate of pasta when I mentioned there was some little cheese in it. He told me he doesn't like cheese because it tastes like soap.
The first time I went to the dairy, the taxi driver that took me was intrigued to know what that thing I was carrying was and where did it come from. He had never seen or ate cheese in his life (24 years old). Life without cheese... That is something I could not live without. No quesadillas, no cheese sandwiches, no parmesan on pasta, no pizza. It is truly amazing to live in a country where goats are everywhere (really everywhere, jumping and eating anything they see) and there is NO goat cheese at all.

On the other hand Diet Coke is one of these very bad habits that one catches and struggles to abandon. I have to say that I crave the caffeine that comes in that sweet carbonated drink. I quit normal coke so many years ago to avoid the 300 calories that each canned soda contains and I am not used to the taste anymore. I don't know if it is just me or I have truly devloped a physical dependence to it. On fridays, I go to a hotel out of town that has a pool, a hot shower with pressure and Diet Coke... I like cold beer, but when I drink that 600 ml plastic bottle of cold diet coke I truly say ahhhhhhhhhhhh...

A stupid post fo a stupid day...

P.S. Coca cola did not pay me to do this post, no cows or goats were hurt in obtaining my beloved cheese.

Next week: Cheddar and Edam cheese Ugandan style!