by Do missionaries eat enough in Congo and Cameroon?
Understandably when someone opens their mission call to Central Africa they don’t have any idea what to expect. The simple answer is yes, you will eat enough in Congo and Cameroon. The countries have an abundance of food. You can find tons of super cheap, nutritious food in the markets and find food in stores that are in your teaching areas. I was never in a situation where there wasn’t enough food to eat. Of course there were times when I wish I could eat more but that was because I wasn’t buying enough for myself which was a problem of my own doing which can happen to missionaries serving in any country in the world.
Examples of food in Congo Brazzaville
Here are some examples of the abundance of food we ate in Congo:
This is a Congolese meal given to us by some friendly neighbors celebrating a birthday party.
There are many stores and places to buy food close to the apartments and in the teaching area. We would eat lots of sandwiches which is like fast food in Congo and many baguettes which are part of the lingering French influence in Congo.
You can even find ice cream and Belgian style waffles in Congo and pizza in the supermarket in the city.
Good pizza which you can buy in a supermarket in the city.
This is one of the markets where you can buy as much food as you want. Everything is cheap and clean and healthy.
What is a typical meal in Congo?
In Congo we ate very well. For breakfast I would eat some fruit that I had bought the day before, either some bananas or an apple or a mango then I would make myself some eggs and go to the store next door and buy some fresh bread to make an egg sandwich.
For lunch, in area we would buy a sausage sandwich from a small store and maybe a small soda for 50 cents or I would buy some beignets and a local drink called bissap.
For dinner, someone in the apartment would make dinner for everyone else which would usually consist of a large piece of chicken for each person or half of a fish, rice or fufu which is like an uncooked dough of corn meal, mixed with cassava and water, and some vegtables in a sauce that we would eat with the fufu. Many times we had made too much food so we saved leftovers for the next day.
Examples of abundance of food in Cameroon
Me and another missionary experimented with lots of different foods in Cameroon. Luckily in Cameroon there are many super markets that sell lots of American and European ingredients.
Many things are available in Cameroon.
A common Cameroonian snack, bread with chocolate sauce and yogurt sold in a bottle. Always safe and delicious.
We would eat great lunches in area. Sometimes the people we taught would give us food like in this picture. The food was always good.
In Yaoundé, there is an American store which has a bunch of items directly from Costco.
We made fried chicken a few times.
In Yaoundé, there is a restaurant that serves great American food.
In Douala, for zone conferences, we would always go to an all you can eat buffet that served better food than you can find in the US.
In Douala, there is a huge super market inspired by Costco, you could find anything there.
What is a typical meal like in Cameroon?
For breakfast, we would eat pretty similarly to Congo. Just some eggs and bread or some cereal and fruit. We would also drink some liquid yogurt that they sell in large bottles.
We would eat lunch in area. There are many food options in Douala that are healthy. We would eat street food or buy a sandwich in a store nearly everyday.
Dinner was also similar to dinner in Congo, chicken, fufu, vegtables, but in Douala we would eat out regularly in low-priced restaurants that served very good food. Cameroon also has more beef so we would buy that from the markets. Because there were more supermarkets in Douala, we would buy more foreign ingredients and could make more American food.
