Doug and Carrie Melvin of Boise, Idaho have both devoted their time to working on African fish farming and harvesting efforts. Doug Melvin was in Zaire for Special Forces and Carrie (that’s me!) worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.
This is the second in a series of letters I wrote describing traveling and working in Africa. In this letter, I talk about travel in Kinshasa, the posts where we stayed and my introduction to fish harvesting and African cooking.
Letter #2
17 December 1988
Hi everyone.
Just got back to Kinshasa after an experience-a-minute week-long “sortie”. We split into four groups and went to stay with volunteers at their posts. Pretty eye-opening. All in all, Zaire travel is a lot like I expected it to be, I guess, but it is still really odd to be here. Travel in Kinshasa is noisy, crowded, dirty, colorful, a free-for-all. Don’t ever move here! Traveling along 350 miles of Zaire’s under 1500 miles of paved road (Swiss cheese style road, I believe) was something different altogether. As far as the eye can see in all directions is green savannah, dotted with anthills and termite hills, scrub and manioc fields plunging down into forested valleys with jungle and rivers and women carrying huge loads on their heads and thousands of little kiddos shouting “mundele” (‘white person’ in Kikongo) almost hysterically and running after the truck as we drive by.
My group went to Bandundu. We went to two posts: 1) Tina and Bob are a married couple living in an old Belgian colonial house looking over the Kwenge river. They have a huge blooming garden, bathe in the river, have a separate motorcycle hut, cooking hut, WC (outhouse, etc.) It’s pretty nice. 2) Nick’s house is a more likely Peace Corps post – small, mud brick, grass roof house (cozy but dark) , bucket baths only, struggling garden. Nick’s house is really in the village, whereas Tina and Bob’s home is outside of their village. In both places the people were extremely friendly and nice. Though we obviously couldn’t have much conversation (they speak Kikongo – I don’t) they seemed honored to have us there and very gracious. We went visiting and were continuously offered palm wine and cola nuts (blecch – bitter). [Cola nuts are a very bitter tree nut with a stimulant effect. According to Doug Melvin from Boise, Idaho they are also common in the Angola border region – but not common in the eastern part of the country.].
At both posts we went to a farmer’s fish harvest. I must say that fish harvesting still doesn’t thrill me – mucking around in a pond with 8 inches of fish slime trying to pull idiotic tilapias out of the muck before they get baked in the broiling sun. And it is HOT here. Africa hot. Usually wherever we went to harvest fish the farmers make little shaded places out of palm fronds for us.
And after harvesting fish they would lead us back up to the village and we’d drink palm wine and when they’d had a few glasses they’d start singing Tilapia songs. (pensez poiso-o-o-n, a way, a way a way) Too funny. Then we’d gather around for some traditional African cooking: fufu (bland, dough-like stuff you rip off into a small ball and use to scoop up everything else), manioc greens, duck or chicken in peppery sauce, of course Tilapia, and one delicacy I managed to pass up- boiled palm grubs! I hear they’re better fried, so I’ll hold out for that. One person tried to convince me: “Try one – they taste just like bacon fat!” Tempting, huh?? Otherwise, African cooking is pretty tasty. Apparently a lot of volunteers last year got sick right away, so in general the volunteers have been feeding us American-type food as much as possible. I’m not too psyched yet about malaria medicine. They are being awfully vague about the side-effects. I’ve heard everything from hair loss to sterility. Hmm. This letter is pretty scatterbrained – because that is how I feel right now – this has been a lot of information to process.
In general travel in Zaire is fascinating and really beautiful. The fish program I still have some philosophical issues with. But I can’t wait to get to training in Bukavu. I hear it is great. And it will be a chance to spend two nights in the same place!
More later, but I have to go get this in the mail now.
Love you,
Carrie
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