Got Milk?

Getting milk isn't as simple as going to the store and picking up a gallon.

If you want the good milk, you want ferry milk. Milk vendors on the roadside often add water to milk, up to half the volume could be water. But ferry milk isn't watered down! I'd been using watery milk for years before I found ferry milk.

Sometimes the ferry is delayed, even up to an hour. That is why one should carry a book wherever one goes.

This ferry brings milk from Kinesi (a village across an inlet of Lake Victoria from Musoma). There is an officer from the ministry of health who comes to measure and ensure that the milk has the right level of milk solids. AND it costs the same as the watered down milk, less than 50 cents per liter.

I usually get 3-5 liters of milk each week (0.8 to 1.3 gallons). Once home, the milk is boiled, cooled, put in the fridge, and skimmed for cream the next day. Half a liter gets set aside for tea and the remainder is turned into kefir (a type of yogurt).

The process, from having no milk to having cream, milk, and kefir takes nearly 48 hours.

It may sound like an undesirable system, but honestly it is another aspect of life here that I love.