Mbewa

Eating mbewa is actually pretty common. It might seem like something people desperate for food would resort to eating, and that might have something to do with it, but you see kids selling them from the side of the road even when there is enough food so I think they are more like snack food. We've been interested in trying them, but were cautious about eating any without seeing how they were cooked. Gary talked to a few boys that come to play on Sunday about catching them. They flush them out of the grass with fire and snatch them up. They said they would bring a live one for us so that we could cook it here. Sure enough they should up the next Sunday with a small box. We actually had some of our Form 1 students cook it on our charcoal burner in the backyard. They gutted it and just roasted it right over the fire. A couple of the girls had never tried one either so we split it into small pieces for everyone to try even though I think a couple girls backed out. There isn't much meat to begin with so we really only got a taste, but it was pretty good. Just a small piece of roasted meat. I don't think I'd make a habit of eating them though being so small and not worth the trouble, but it was interesting to at least try. Girlie refused to try it, but we couldn't get her to try ngumbi so it wasn't likely that we'd convince her to taste a roasted field mouse.