Bush Bargains

When you travel in the Bush, people are selling things all along the way. Most are selling food, but they sell anything they have in order to make a little money. They sell tomatoes, cassava, onions, mushrooms, unidentifiable strange live and dead animals, which they think that you might enjoy for dinner, as well as mangoes, avocados, etc.

You see potatoes, corn, charcoal and sometimes a huge basket which they use on the back of bicycles to transport things.

But, there is a village just before you get to Likasi that has very interesting brown and black wooden things for sale.

At first I was pretty nervous about stopping in the bush. We are "musungus" (white people) and people think we are pretty freaky. Then to complicate things, many bush people only speak Swahili. So, it took me awhile to feel secure about stopping. Then I kept wanting to stop each time we went . However, we were always arriving just in time for an appointment or hurrying to get back before dark or it was Sunday. So, I just looked at them as we sped by. At first I thought that they were drums. Then I thought they were planters or art.

Then, as I got to know more about African culture, I began to think that they were mortars and pestles that they use to make what they call "bukari"(in Swahili) or "fufu" (in Lingala).

It is their main source of good. It's made by grinding corn and then crushing and pounding the roots of the cassava into a fine white powder. They use a very large mortar and pestle to do it. Then they mix it with water and cook it. No seasoning are added, not even salt.

Most Congolese eat it for every meal, which for our elders is two meals. They all love it! Most Americans we've talked to don't! We haven't tried it yet. Our elders have promised to make it for us someday. It's about the consistency of very thick mashed potatoes and they eat it with their hands. Elder Kirigozi says it just doesn't taste as good if you use a utensil. Sometimes they serve a vegetable stew with onions, carrots, cabbage, etc. over it. They eat it as a side dish with fish, chicken or meat on special occasions.

One brother in the ward told us "If you haven't eaten bukari, you haven't eaten!"

This week we went to Likasi with the mission president and his wife to visit the elders and had time to stop at the village.

The pots were even more wonderful than we thought they were when we saw them from the road. They were mortars and pestles and they were hand made and primitive, but wonderful. We had been told that as a "musungu" we would pay three times as much as an African, so we were prepared to barter with them. We found a medium sized mortar that we really liked and thought wasn't too heavy to get home someday.

They also had small ones, which I'm guessing they use to grind herbs for flavoring or medicine.

There was also an older gentleman there wearing a suit with no shirt and no shoes. He spoke only Swahili, as did most of the women. He was selling hand made wooden boxes. They were just awesome.

We asked the price, expecting to have to try and get it down to something reasonable. The price for the big mortar was 3,500cf. That's about $3.75. The small one and the box were each 1,500cf. That's about $1.65. Obviously, we didn't barter with them. We felt a bit guilty only paying them that much. We are thrilled with our find. We just love them.

Nothing could be more authentically Congolese than these things and coming from a village in the Bush makes them even better. Having these lovely hings to enjoy is great! They are really beautiful and the memory attached is fun. I don't suspect we'll be using them for their real purpose. But we are thrilled with our bush bargains.