The Sweetest Melons: Memories of the Congo

Photo by Aravind Sivaraj CCx2.0

By Jenni Gate

We drove down the hill from our home through the city of Kinshasa. Just outside the city, the jungle was thick. The road was full of pot holes and ruts. Our car bounced along on the rough pavement, heading towards vast stretches of farm land. About 8 miles from Kinshasa, we turned off the road into an open area with several low, concrete-block buildings spread out around a farming compound. Rice paddies stretched into the distance, surrounded by jungle. It was the summer of 1970, and we had arrived at the Chinese Agricultural Research Center. 

The circumstances of our visit were this: Dad, an agriculturist, was working with a Taiwanese agricultural mission in coordination with U.S. efforts to develop rice varieties to help ease the food shortages in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). But they had a problem—the Congolese people would not plant or eat the rice in production from the Chinese Agricultural Research Center. Dad commented to his Chinese counterparts that he couldn’t understand why the Congolese rejected the rice, because all rice tastes the same. The Taiwanese were shocked. The Head of Station invited all Americans and their families out to the farm to taste the different varieties being developed.

Oryza sativa

My sisters and I jumped out of the car, eager to stretch and explore. A group of Taiwanese and Chinese men came to greet us, smiling and nodding at each of us. I don’t remember their names after so many years. They were dressed in tan, gray or black slacks with white, button-down shirts, and polished leather shoes. A few of them wore tightly woven straw hats. A couple of the men gestured at their young sons to come and meet us, and we were soon running and playing tag on lush, green grass in front of the Center.

We toured the farm, learning that the land for the project was provided by Mobutu. There were papaya and mango trees, citrus trees, bananas, and coconuts dotting the landscape near the driveway. Surrounding the homes and research buildings were the rice paddies, each marked with signs bearing numbers representing the variety being produced. The plants looked like long grass in the water, with some that grew as high as 5-ft. tall. Most of the rice was about 3-ft. tall.

Photo: IRRI CCx2.0

We were led through Quonset huts where we saw rice and other vegetable and fruit seedlings in nurseries. In broken English and French, but with great pride, our hosts showed us a large variety of rice seedlings. There were several varieties each of long, medium, and short grain rice plants.

In one Quonset hut, we saw many melons, from honeydew to watermelon. At the time, all watermelons had seeds, so we were impressed when we discovered that the Chinese Agricultural Research Center had developed seedless melons. The seeds inside the melons were miniscule, which  was great news to me. Dad had always told me the big, black seeds that I accidentally swallowed every time we ate watermelon were going to sprout inside my stomach and grow. I didn’t really believe him but, then again, I had no desire to find out.

Seedless by Scott Ehardt CCx2.0

At dusk, the Taiwanese brought us indoors for dinner. We ate a gigantic steamed fish and a dish called Lion’s Head Stew, which was ground meat cooked in a rice-pasta pouch. It was so delicious that I’ve searched for Lion’s Head Stew on the menu at every Chinese restaurant I’ve been to since then, including when I visited Hong Kong years later. I’m still searching, without success. Our hosts had us sample several rice dishes of different varieties of rice. We sampled white, creamy, and brown rice in every shade imaginable. Some rice was white and sticky and tasted like the rice we were used to eating. Some of the rice was almost sweet. A lot of it tasted like cardboard. This was the reason the Congolese would not plant and eat the rice produced by the Center. The rice available in sufficient quantities for use by local farmers had no flavor. But there were many varieties still being developed. When we tasted one variety of rice with a clean, nutty flavor, Dad said, “I want 100 kilos of that.” Our hosts exclaimed that it was their favorite as well.

Red, White, Brown & Wild Rice by Earth100 CCx2.0

For me and my sisters, the best part of the meal was dessert. Iced platters, bearing slices of cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, and yellow-flesh watermelon, all garnished with curlicue shavings from the rinds, were brought out and passed around. The novelty of melons without seeds kept us awestruck.

It was summer in Africa, and those melons were sweet and refreshing.

Photo by Kelly-Wikimedia CCx2.0

That summer treat, exploring all the flavors of rice and melon, has stayed in our family memory for decades. I still love melons, especially honeydew, and the memory of those flavors on that hot summer day still outshines the mundane, commercial flavors of the rice and melons we eat in the States today.

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As a side note: Years later, Dad took a flight from Jakarta to Hong Kong. He sat next to a young, Chinese man who had been to Jakarta to buy rattan. As they sat talking, the young man mentioned he had been to Zaire. In a flash of recognition, Dad said, “I remember you! You were at the Research Center.” The young man remembered my dad bringing him with us to the Embassy swimming pool on occasion. They exchanged contact information, both commenting on what a small world it is. Indeed, it is.

Food Challenges of the Congo: Do Whatever It Takes

By Jenni Legate

I started this post with light-hearted, childhood memories of meals we had when my family lived in Kinshasa, Congo. Then a news piece caught my eye, and I realized how frivolous my food challenges were in comparison to people living in the country today.

I like good food, but there are times when it's better to eat than complain, namely, when you are hungry and in the Third World.

Our morning routine in Kinshasa was to pour stale Corn Flakes into a bowl, add re-constituted powdered milk, wait for the weevils that infested the cereal to float to the top, scoop them off and onto a plate, and then eat our cereal with gusto. I never questioned this routine.

Mom made freeze-dried cottage cheese that she reconstituted for a meal. She made freeze-dried sweet potatoes which were horrible when they were reconstituted, but we gagged them down when we were hungry anyway. We made our own sausages and patties. We boiled and filtered endless amounts of water. We soaked our vegetables in iodine. Our kitchen was like a mad scientist’s laboratory with giant kettles of water boiling, a series of stainless steel filtration and storage containers, racks for drying foods, a large pantry, and food in various stages of preparation.



Mango tree by Robert McLean
CCx2.0

We had fruit trees, mango, lemon, lime, guava, and pomegranate. When we ate mangos, the sweet juice ran down our arms. Sugar cane grew in our back yard, mixed in with the snake-infested bamboo. One piece of sugar cane was savored and sucked on all day. Wisely, my parents only allowed this as a special treat, or my teeth would be rotted out by now.

Our favorite trip into downtown Kinshasa was to a French bakery, where we made a point of going on baking days. The warm, yeasty scent of fresh-baked bread filled our heads. We selected horn-shaped pastries filled with cream, and we always bought two long loaves of fresh-baked bread: one for the ride home, eaten while still warm, and one for our dinner.

One year, we had a luau for Christmas. It was warm outside, so we planned a pool party. Dad stuck two pigs and hung them in my sister’s bathtub to bleed out. It was horrible and stunk and Susie was nearly sick looking at the pigs’ sagging faces and vacant eyes staring down the drain; slit throats with blood oozing out. We roasted the pigs on a spit over a couple of fire pits we dug in the back yard near the swimming pool. Our guests exclaimed at how tender it was, how easily it pulled apart. We made cracklings from the skin. We ate pork for weeks after that. Susie could not eat it.

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Mobutu - Wikipedia
photo

We left the Congo in 1971 before the worst of Mobutu's policies came to fruition. "Zairianization" had yet to spasm into a wave of nationalism and expropriation of foreign-owned properties and assets. Mobutu's tacit approval of theft and corruption was already ingrained in the public psyche, but the infamous Article 15 had yet to be adopted as a way of life throughout the country. Article 15 was a sarcastic reference to a statement made by a diamond mining boss of Katanga province in frustration at repeated appeals for help from refugees fleeing violence in the area: “Débrouillez-vous pour vivre,” (do whatever it takes to stay alive).  Mobutu's dictatorship was brutal, crime was rampant, and the poor struggled to find ways to make a living, but food was still abundant when we moved. Desperation was becoming a way of life for many.

Mobutu’s corruptions eventually brought the Congo to its knees. The country then became embroiled in over two decades of civil war that spilled over the borders after the Rwanda genocide. That conflict continues today. Life for most Congolese is a daily struggle. Over 50 percent of the population lives on under a dollar a day.

Congolese women at water station by Julien Harneis CCx2.0

In 2012 in Eastern Congo, the UN estimated that over 1.5 million people were on the move, fleeing the fighting. A UN news article dated May 3, 2013, stated that Mai-Mai fighters in the east have propelled over 200,000 people into flight since April, and there are at least 354,000 internally-displaced refugees trying to escape the conflict in the Katanga province alone. The UN’s World Food Programme is working to provide food security to more than 3 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in spite of warfare, bad roads, and the isolation and distance between populations being served.

During times of warfare, the fields and rivers are too dangerous for people to farm or fish. During peaceful times, cassava is a staple food of the Congo. Plantains, palms, nuts, fruits, fish, and bush meat supplement their diet. When we lived there, lots of Congolese people ate crickets as a delicacy. Grubs and caterpillars are also sought out for their protein.

Piri piri peppers by Orrling CCx3.0

Tim Butcher’s travel memoir of the Congo, Blood River, recounts his meeting with a village chief in Mukumbo near Lake Tanganyika who reminisces about his country’s history. The village used to be served by buses and cars and other symbols of modern life. Since the conflict, nothing remains. When fighting nears, the villagers flee into the bush, which they have learned is the safest place for them. Their village is continually being destroyed and must be rebuilt. Butcher comments, “The normal laws of development are inverted here in the Congo. The forest, not the town, offers the safest sanctuary, and it is grandfathers who have been more exposed to modernity than their grandchildren. I can think of nowhere else on the planet where the same can be true.”

Centuries of colonialism, slavery, corruption, and warfare have thrust the country into survival mode where food insecurity is the norm and food choices are a luxury. Progress is being made slowly, but the situation is fragile.

Meals in the Third World can be a challenge, but this is true nowhere more than in the Congo.

I also blog at Nomad Trails and Tales. I hope you'll stop by there to read more about my travel adventures and life growing up among worlds.

Dogs of Africa

Our guest today is Jenni Gate, who has worked as a paralegal, a mediator, a small business consultant, and a writer. Born in Libya and raised throughout Africa and Asia, Jenni’s upbringing as a global nomad provided a unique perspective on life. As a child, she lived in Libya, Nigeria, the Congo, Pakistan, the Philippines, and the Washington DC area. As an adult, she has lived in Alaska, England, and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Her published work includes several articles for a monthly business magazine in Alaska and a local interest magazine in Idaho. She has written several award-winning memoir pieces for writing contests. Jenni currently writes fiction, drawing upon her global experiences. New adventures abound. To read more about Jenni's adventures around the world, visit her at Nomad Trails and Tales.

In Kaduna, Nigeria, at about the age of 8, my sister spayed our dog. The scent of wet dog wafted through the garage as she shaved Tippy’s abdomen, Susie was excited; eager to find out what our dog looked like on the inside, curious about the organs, arteries, and veins. She still remembers the coppery smell of Tippy’s blood as she cut into the abdomen with a scalpel. Our family friend, a veterinarian we called Doc, was standing nearby, giving her directions. Doc’s son was there because Doc hoped he would become a vet too. As Susie cut Tippy open, she was so fascinated she barely noticed Doc’s son running out of the garage to vomit. The operation was otherwise a success, and Tippy was soon recuperating with a lampshade around her head to keep her from pulling out the stitches Susie had sewn with such intense concentration. Doc told her she had done so well, he would teach her how to pierce her ears if our parents let him. It might seem a little anti-climactic, but she was thrilled.

Tippy in Nigeria

Tippy was a good companion. Outside during the day, she barked to warn us of snakes and pit vipers in the grass. When I was 7, and my little sister was 4, we played for hours in our sandbox or wandered in front of our house through the elephant grass where the Fulani grazed their cattle as Tippy kept a watchful eye out for us. When we were evacuated from Nigeria during its civil war, our household staff promised to look after our dog. We left without saying goodbye to friends, including Tippy. I don’t know if she made it through that war alive.

We then moved to Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As we shopped in the market one day, struggling to understand the French and Lingala spoken all around us, my sisters and I discovered a basket full of wiggly, golden-colored puppies. Mom tried to stop us, but we ran to the box and reached in, petting their soft fur and feeling their wet little noses. One puppy stood on his hind legs, tail wagging more furiously than the rest. We worked on Mom and left with a puppy that we paid far too much for. We argued for days about what to name him. Sometimes, he walked in circles as if in a daze. He walked into table legs, ran and chased us wildly only to sit down as if confused. One of our houseboys called him Futu. We asked what that meant, and he laughed and said “all shot - crazy.” He thought the dog was a lost cause. So Futu he was. As he grew into a dog, he developed terrible mange. Mom tried every remedy she could think of, but his fur fell out in clumps. He never got very big, but he had a good personality and never tired of playing with us.

Futu in Kinshasa

President Mobutu’s corrupt policies were already leading to a sense of desperation among the Congolese people. Every night we had an attempted break-in. We awoke each morning to find metal filings around all the bars on our windows. Then one morning, we were robbed at breakfast. Two men showed up at the door showing false US Embassy identification, pushing their way into our house. Mom’s French was non-existent and their English was minimal. Mom yelled, “Get out of this house!” One of them said, “Après vous, Madame.” But out the door they went, and up the hill behind us, terrorizing our neighbors along the way. We got Fafner soon after that.

The Belgians used German shepherds as tools of oppression during King Leopold’s reign, creating fear and hatred in the Congolese people. Years later, George Foreman gained the instant antipathy of the Congolese when he showed up for the Rumble in the Jungle against Mohammed Ali with his German shepherd. Many believe it cost Foreman the fight because the crowds yelled so loud for Ali, and the hatred of Foreman was palpable.

Belgian Shepherd Dog
Photo by Olgierd Pstrykotworca (CC BY 2.0)

We knew nothing of this when Fafner came to us, but he was a great deterrent. Built for brute force, he was huge. He could even kill on command (not that we ever put it to the test), and he was viciously protective. Trained by his previous owner, Fafner took all his commands in French. He must have felt like a foreigner in our English-speaking household. Whenever we had French-speaking friends over, he listened intently, crawling on his belly to get closer, and looking adoringly into their faces, nodding at words he seemed to recognize.

My sisters and I often played in a frangipani tree by the wall in front of our house. One day we saw a camp site below on the other side. Soon a police sergeant appeared with a Belgian man asking to check around our yard. The Belgian’s air conditioner was stolen and the thief’s tracks led to the wall in front of our house. While my dad led them out to the wall, Fafner ran behind the sergeant and bit his calf.

"Merde!" the sergeant shouted. He rolled on the ground, shaking a finger at the Belgian. "See, I told you. You need a dog like this for protection."

What pet memories have you accumulated in your travels, and have you ever traveled or lived abroad with a pet?