"The last week here in the Congo have been quite delightful. Though there was some delay in receiving the necessary diocesan approval, that was accorded on Thursday of last week, as I will relate.
Early in the week, I passed by a young children’s school not far from here called Sacred Heart of Jesus School. It is run by a congregation of sisters that was founded in Italy but which is also now present here in the Congo. 
I met Sr. Giliola(shown above), originally from Milan but in the Congo for the past 35 years, and Sr. Caroline, head of the school. I was able to visit the children and see the premises, which also include a healthcare center where Fr. François went to get new glasses.
I also visited a Primary and Secondary School run by a different community of sisters founded by Sr. Vincenzia Cusmano.
After this visit, I went with Fr. Apollinaire to the auto body shop since the MSA car had recently begun emitting a noise that indicated a slipping belt. After some significant time went by, the gentlemen from the shop succeeded in replacing the faulty part and returning the car to us in working order, after which we returned to the MSA house for lunch.
On another occasion, I was taken to a primary and secondary school by Fr. François run by a different community of sisters. As before, I visited the students, received a tour of the whole campus, including a new school building that is still under construction, and shared information about the Children’s Rosary.
Last Saturday after some travel delays, Fr. Pierre Ateba and Fr. Leon Pascal, two provincial superiors for the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles for the Canada-Africa Province, arrived in Kinshasa for a visit to Fr. François and Fr. Apollinaire. It was good to see Fr. Ateba again, as I had seen him in Cameroon. They had rooms with the same community where I myself stay, the Society of the Most Holy Sacrament.
It has been remarked upon more than once that in the formation house of the Holy Sacrament fathers we are served typical Congolese food, whereas in that residence occupied by the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles it is rather Cameroonian fare.
As to the difference between the two, the heart of the matter lies in a substance colloquially dubbed fufu. This is a spherical, soft compound that is rather pale yellow in color and nondescript in taste. In appearance, there is much to be compared with ugali, an East African side dish unfailingly present at nearly every meal I consumed while in Tanzania and Kenya. However, fufu is a Congolese dish, and I certainly did not recall having ever eaten anything by that name in Cameroon.
Indeed, it seemed to resemble ugali to such an extent and to be so innocent and bland in appearance and generally accepted in gastronomic standing that I hardly gave it much notice and did not even know quite how it was to be described, variously calling it a “blob,” a “ball,” or perhaps most desperately, “something like rice.”
In fact, fufu is quite common throughout much of West and Central Africa, including in Cameroon (though there it is called couscous, thus explaining why I did not recall having heard of it during my stay in that country). It is made variously from plaintains, cassava, yams, cocoyam, or cornmeal, depending on the region. The exact ingredients seem to matter less than the end result, which is always a soft, easily manipulated dough that can be used for dipping into soups and meat sauces.
Well, so much for fufu; it is typically served with some stewed vegetables and fish or meat, and I include a picture below.
A consistent characteristic of the eating habits of most of the African nations I have visited is that there exists a “staple food,” that is something served nearly every meal in traditional households and which therefore becomes indispensable to the local diet. Almost everyone knows instinctively how this food is prepared, how its constituent ingredients are grown, and how it is best consumed. When one goes to a restaurant, it is almost an unspoken understanding that at any buffet or communal repast of that nature, this dish must be present or else something is gravely missing, like a birthday cake with no candles or a Thanksgiving dinner with no turkey.
In Uganda, this dish is matooke; in Kenya and Tanzania, ugali; in Madagascar, rice; in Cameroon, plantains or manioc; and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, unquestionably fufu.
Indeed, the way in which the inherent obligation to consume these foods makes itself silently known in the minds of everyone meal after meal was something new to me.
In the course of my sojourn, I would be asked more than once, “So, what is the staple food in the United States?”
And curiously enough, I would find it nearly impossible to answer this seemingly obvious and simple question. I would typically make some weak attempt with mention of typical American food, like the burger (which is even German in origin) or pumpkin pie, but I knew these did not satisfy the definition of a “staple food,” since people don’t consume them at most or even many meals. Many Americans go for years without consuming either, or any number of oft-cited “American” foods, like fried chicken, deep dish pizza, hot dogs, or mac and cheese.
However, readily enough, the answer presented itself to me: I could not say what our staple food consisted of because it did not exist. We do not have one.
Indeed, as Americans, our whole culinary disposition seems created to resist any such staple food. I, like many of my countrymen, grew up thinking that if we had beef for dinner on Monday, we ought to have chicken or fish on Tuesday. If we had pasta for lunch on Wednesday, then naturally something else would be prepared on Thursday. Whole weeks were planned like this, with every day’s meals thought of in advance and carefully curated to be independent and distinct from the others.
What was eaten seemed to be less important than that it should not hold anything in common with what was consumed the night before.
I noticed that this same standard was applied to restaurants: if the previous night out had been Italian, then we would choose Thai or Chinese, which foods would then be crossed out until their turn came up again many months later.
In short, cut off from deep need of the agricultural society to grow its own food and live in step with what was easily grown in the local climate and soil, mesmerized by multifarious options for cuisine both from grocery stores and restaurants, we have trained ourselves to be dissatisfied and bored with man’s innate habit of eating his own food. The average American can no more say what our own staple foods are, what dishes would best correspond to our climate and growing conditions than he can say which forms of rock are most likely to be found in Yosemite.
As to whether this represents a positive development or a disheartening regression, I refrain to say. I will let the reader judge for himself. I merely make the observation.
On Wednesday, Fr. Pierre, Fr. Leon, Fr. François, and I set out for Kisantu to meet with the bishop of the diocese. As I have related in another post, the diocese in which I find myself, while within the city limits of Kinshasa, is not that of Kinshasa, but rather Kisantu, and so we directed ourselves to that city.
Perhaps, that is too neat a way of putting it; in fact, many obstacles presented themselves that day to prevent us from a timely departure. In the first place, Fr. François and Fr. Pierre set out at around 5:00 a.m. to another part of the city in order to pick up some documents. Upon leaving the building with the aforementioned documents, they were quite surprised and consternated to discover their car was not where they left it but nowhere to be seen. They quickly discovered that the police had towed it away because ostensibly it was improperly parked.
Both men were whisked down to the station, where they were told that the fine for this offense amounted to no less than $115.00. For comparison, the average ticket for a parking violation in New York comes out to about $65, this in the most expensive city in North America, and one of the most expensive in the world.
The unfortunate reality is that the police in Kinshasa have often been accused of widespread corruption, and while it is not within my ability to say whether this is on the whole true or not, what is beyond a doubt is that they are paid pitifully little, with the estimates I have heard locally not exceeding $130 per month.
After much haranguing and an hourslong process, the fine was paid and the car given back, but a stop had to be made because one of the tires was leaking air. Once that was fixed, it was late afternoon, and we were only able to get on the road once it was nearly dark.
However, the drive to Kisantu proceeded without incident, and we proceeded to the rooms Fr. François had reserved with a community of nuns not far from the Chancery.
The contrast between Fr. François and Mgr. Kimbeni was quite humorous even though the two of them have become, in fact, good friends.
Fr. François did the honors of presenting each of us and his reasons for the visit, reading from copious pre-prepared notes and giving luscious context and carefully cited quotes from the bishop himself which he had evidently written down himself during previous meetings. It seemed that no correspondence, no update in the relationship between the diocese and the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles had escaped Fr. François’s careful eyes.
The bishop, on the other hand, seemed eager to dispense with the formalities that accompany such a meeting and seemed to address matters in a straightforward, direct way.
I also was given the opportunity to speak to the bishop about the Children’s Rosary and seek approval for its initiation, which the bishop readily granted. He was even so good as to invite us to dine with him afterwards, really quite an extraordinary thing when one considers how busy a man such as himself is.
The more relaxed conversation at the lunch was rather enjoyable, and I particularly enjoyed his anecdote from seminary of telling a French classmate of his that the word in Lingala (the language of the western Congo) for “metaphysics” was mayebu, a word that in fact translated to “mushrooms.”
He agreed to write up a formal letter stating his approval for the movement to be present in his diocese and to inform the priest at the parish I would be visiting that weekend.
He had recommended to us that we pay a visit to the botanical gardens nearby, which we did not in the end undertake as everyone was tired and wished to return home. However we did drive through the gardens, and I wish to take a moment to mention them as they are really quite remarkable.
Upon approach, I noticed that the seemingly innocent forest and heather by the roadside was populated by trees, bushes, flowers, and all sorts of plants that were meticulously labeled with small black plaques indicating the species.
In fact, this garden has a history that dates back to about 1900, when Br. Justin Gillet, a Belgian Jesuit living and ministering in the Congo. Originally meant to provide fruit and vegetables for the missionary settlement nearby, soon Br. Gillet appears to have become fascinated with local flora, including many species from throughout the Congo and carefully documenting each one. Soon, he had a botanical garden, and through exchanges with other tropical botanical gardens around the world such as in Brazil, Java, and Sri Lanka, acquired plants altogether foreign to central Africa.
In 1927, he produced a guide to the plants found within his garden, wherein 1,775 species are enumerated.
The history of the garden continues rather serenely until 1997, when it was taken over by rebel troops and used for their headquarters; during this period, the garden fell into disrepair before being the subject of a revamping operation financed by the European Union in 2004.
That evening, we reentered Kinshasa hot and fatigued from the journey, but having achieved our mission.
As to what happened that weekend and the week following, I will leave that for another post."
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
