African Fare

 

City view



View from the back porch

A fun part of traveling to someplace different is the chance to try different foods. Congo has rich soil for growing crops, and the mild climate around Bunia supports three crops a year.  Unlike many areas in Africa, Congo has lots of water and drought is not a pervasive problem.  Congo has the largest rain forest in Africa, and its rain forest is only surpassed in size by the rain forest of the Amazon.  (Congo’s rain forest starts due east of Bunia, so not that far away.  Even though Bunia has experienced a prolonged season of not much rain, it still has lots of vegetation and looks lush and green from a distance, as you can see from this photo.  It was not taken in the countryside, but inside the city limits, although I am not sure there are actually city borders…  As well, here is a picture from the back porch of the house I am staying at – you can get a sense of the abundant vegetation.) There are many tropical fruit trees as well – mango, avocado, papaya all in abundance. (I arrived just in time for mango season, lucky me, although mango pits are everywhere in the streets. Children shake the mangos from the trees, and eat them as a snack, dropping the pits wherever they happen to finish.  Dusty mango pits everywhere, not so pretty.)

Pineapple



Papaya growing

Bananas, lots of them!
 



The primary food is manioc (also known as cassava), a root which is dug up, peeled, and dried in the sun. Once dried, it is quite hard and chalk-like; it is then beaten into flour, using a large mortar- like wooden bowl/ trough and large round stick for a pestle. I see lots of women and girls beating the dried cassava in front of their homes as I walk around. The flour is then made into a bread like substance called fufu. Fufu is a primary food staple in much of Africa. It fills the stomach, but has virtually no nutritional value.  I had some at the lunch served to those of us who helped with the English oral exams. It was gummy in consistency and had little taste, although I have read that it can smell and taste a bit like moldy cheese.  White bread is readily available at most doukas, and is sweeter than most bread for sale in America.  I have not seen any varieties of bread for sale, just what we would call plain white bread. I am not sure where it comes from, as wheat flour is not local. But the Congolese would not make bread at home, as none of them have stoves. They cook outside, over charcoal fires, so everything is cooked in pots over a fire.

Around Bunia corn is grown as well, which is better, nutritionally, for you. With Bunia sitting on a high plain where it rarely gets hotter than 80 degrees, many crops can be grown.  The Witmers have a garden where they grow lettuce, corn, tomatoes, spinach, peppers, beets, carrots, yams and the like, although not all of those vegetables are grown and eaten locally.  Congolese around here grow corn, sugar cane, yams, potatoes, plantains, and tomatoes, along with many varieties of beans.  (And of course, manioc.) Fish is plentiful, coming from Lake Albert about 40 kilometers away, and probably from the many rivers nearby as well.  Beef and pork are readily available; one meat that is not as readily available is chicken.  Well, it is available, but chickens are not actually raised, they just sort of are.  They are all around, and in many interesting shapes and colors, but are not fed and in that sense, are not raised for eating.  They scrounge for food like scavengers, and the chicken meat is tough and stringy. The only chicken generally eaten by ex-pats comes via the UN, flown in frozen from Brazil. Kwini did buy one chicken (a rooster) to cook for me.  I came across her pouring boiling water over this dead animal with eyes just staring up at me, with N’guna ready to pluck out the feathers. That evening, I found the chicken, sans feathers and guts, cooling in the freezer/fridge, and it was on my table the next day. I confess that the picture of that dead rooster was in my head, and that definitely diminished the meal for me.

Kwini has made some typical African dishes for me. Congolese make everything over charcoal fires, so most all their meat/bean dishes are a stew of sorts and served with rice or fufu. Meat cooked in tomato paste and oil, and beans cooked with tomato paste and oil, adding perhaps some garlic and onion for flavor. It seems every meat and bean dish is cooked with tomato paste and palm oil, and all the food is in a red gravy of sorts, almost sort of Italian looking, even if not Italian tasting…  Since the UN presence in Bunia (they came after the killings in Bunia in 2004, part of the civil war in Goma and Bukavu traveling north; I understand that the UN presence  in Bunia is either the largest or one of the largest in Congo), meat has quadrupled in price, beyond the budget of most Congolese. So meat at meals for the average Congolese in Bunia is increasingly rare. Congolese eat fu-fu, fried plantains, beans, corn and greens. One greens dish that is a specialty is soumbay  (not sure how spelled) -  manioc leaves pounded fine and cooked with a small amount of ground peanut (like peanut butter) and oil.  It looks like cooked spinach and is quite tasty if eaten with rice, a bit strong just by itself.

One thing you do not see is much of anything sweet. No cookies, no cake, no pie, no baked goods of any sort anywhere, except for a fried dough ball sold on the streets. (I am curious about the taste, but wisdom dictates that I pass on this, as I have not been sick at all, praise be to God, and I do not want to risk getting sick.) Very little candy for sale. (And no chocolate!)  I often see Congolese chewing on sugar cane, which is grown all around.  (I read a novel based on life in Congo and that book said that continual chewing on sugar cane makes your teeth turn black. I am not sure how long that might take, as I have not observed that.) Fruit –bananas, passion fruit, papaya, mangos, and pineapple- is plentiful, although I was told that fruit is considered food for children, not adults. I will miss the plant ripened pineapple – the very best I have ever eaten – when I return to the states.  And avocados are in abundance as well. I think of my daughter when Kwini puts plain, peeled avocado on the table, knowing how much she would love to be here, gorging herself on guacamole.  Alas, no guacamole – I have yet to see a single chip of any kind anywhere in Congo.  Not sold as snack food, and unavailable in the stores selling imported foods.  The only snack type food I have seen at all is popcorn (both the douka and children walking around sell small amounts of it wrapped in what looks like saran wrap) and peanuts. Peanuts are found everywhere - raw, boiled, and toasted.  The peanuts are very small, as small as or smaller than Spanish peanuts in the States.  Congolese often buy them shelled and raw, and then roast them in a pan over a fire (making pop, pop, pop sounds) and when almost done, add salt water to the pan and continue cooking until the water has evaporated. Quite a yummy snack!

Congolese do drink a lot of soda, at least it seems that way to me.  Maybe just on special occasions, but it is always offered to me wherever I go.  I tried two kinds that one cannot get in the states – Stony, which is like a Jamaican ginger beer, and Nutrele (well, something like that), a pineapple malt soda.  Not too sweet, and actually quite refreshing.

I am also including a picture of a street vendor – these little boys selling roasted corn. Not too many street vendors selling food on the streets – I think it is just too dusty to be appetizing, the dust being made so much worse by the motorcycles which are everywhere. Many children do walk around selling peanuts and popcorn, and I see many women and girls with baskets of fruit on their heads, also selling. Childhood is short here.  I cannot imagine sending out my grandson (8) to sell food on the streets, and these boys are younger than that. BTW, notice the stove in the bottom of the picture. That is a typical charcoal stove found outside a person’s home, used to cook the family meals.  (Although this stove is a bit nicer than many.) Congolese do not have stoves in their homes, everything is cooked outside; charcoal for sale is plentiful and easy to find.

 

Update:  Lots of rain now, but still no electricity, day 49 and counting. I understand that the UN has gotten involved, putting a bit of pressure on the situation, although there is very little they can really do.  It is exam time at university, and a couple of years back, there was no electricity during the exam period and the students from the government university rioted, targeting anything UN and anything government. They were frustrated by the lack of power to study for exams. The UN wants to forestall that happening this time, as they suffered much damage to their property. I am not sure anything will come of it, as I have heard rumor after rumor for the past couple of weeks that it would be back by Thursday, no maybe by the weekend or, no maybe early next week.   I am doing okay right now, juggling the charging of the computers, but the lack of power does slow me down.

 

The university’s generator broke down as well, so there was no electricity to much of the campus for a few days.  They did manage to repair the generator with a jerry rigged part, not sure how long that will last, as the generator is very old. I no longer have internet access at the house, but that is the worst of it for me.  I no longer have any impatient expectation of the power returning; perhaps I am going Congolese…

I am nearing completion of the student billing project and am nearly finished with the dispensaire project as well.  The dispensaire project was actually pretty easy, once I had a handle on how the software worked. No more earthquakes, glad about that. However, as an update, the bigger earthquake last week measured 5.8 on the Richter scale, with the epicenter only 30 miles from Bunia. Yikes!