Can you imagine eating posho straight from the frigo? Worst still, posho you’ve forked money out for? We all know it for a fact that hotels and restaurants are in the habit of recycling old food by stashing it away in the frigo, and this is all to understandable. But not all things are cut out to be preserved in the fridge, and by “all things”, I mean things like posho, for starters. It is also known variously as maize meal, in English; ugali, in Swahili; and ubugali bw’bigoli, in Kinyarwanda. On a positive note, ubugali bw’ibigoli is better than ubugali bw’imyumbati (cassava flour meal) in the sense that it can accompany practically any sauce and still remain tasty. In fact, if push comes to shove, one can even accompany the cold leftover ubugali bw’ibigoli with a hot mug of African tea or black tea or white tea for breakfast. This is what I usually do whenever the month is dragging to an end, a time when most broke corporate workers resort to all sorts of desperate cost-cutting measures just to “push the days.” In other hotel news, how can I possibly be expected to produce a hand-written application, just so I can pen a review of your place? Some things just don’t make business and professional sense all combined. Still with hotel and hospitality news, why should I go to a beach-side facility and the first thing to see is a ‘no swimming’ signpost? Same applies to the “Parking at owner’s risk” signs you find at otherwise decent-looking establishments. What kind of gibberish is that? Of course, usually what they mean is that they won’t take responsibility in case things back fire. It’s like a hotel putting up a notice to the effect that in the event of food poisoning, the client should be to blame. The hotel and hospitality world also has this thing of “African tea” and “black tea” and “white tea” that still confuses me to this day. Honestly, what is “African tea”, and what is “European tea”, to a lay man? And why is the ubugali of imyumbati so tough to cut whenever you find it at your favorite buffet? In fact, people who sell it should all be forced to employ able-bodied young men to help us out with cutting the ubugali. As law-abiding citizens forking out Rwf 2,000 or so for our favorite buffet, the least we want is to be seen literally fighting with ubugali of imyumbati just to get a slice.
