by As of 2021 Congo consists of four cities with missionaries: Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Ouesso, and Dolisie.
I served the first year of my mission in Brazzaville. Six months in the southern part of the city and six months in the northern part of the city.
Check out this Google Earth Project that I made of the old Congo Brazzaville Mission:
Supermarkets
Brazzaville has one French supermarket called Casino, which sells French and American ingredients. It’s also a fun place to just look at stuff. If you really want to make hamburgers, you can go there and buy ground beef (which they don’t sell in the markets) and buns and $5 barbeque sauce. It also sells delicious fresh pizza for $4 which is very affordable for missionaries.
Apartments
The apartment quality varies. The best apartment in Brazzaville in Poto-Poto is actually amazing. It has rain showers, has a backup generator when power goes out, has great AC, and has a guard. Then from there all the other apartments have problems with one or more things like: power turning off for a couple hours to more than a day, water shutting off, power goes out so no AC for a day or two, and there can also be bugs and rats in some apartments! The worst thing ever though is not having AC at night.
There are washing machines in every apartment, so you don’t have to wash your clothes by hand.
This is a pretty typical Brazzaville apartment with a fridge and a washing machine
Restaurants
I only went to 3 restaurants in Brazzaville. They were pretty good. They sell hamburgers, pizza, shawarma, and other good stuff. We only had enough money to eat out like once every 2 weeks but if we wanted to splurge with personal money we could have eaten out more.
Food
I wrote an article about my favorite Congolese and Cameroonian foods here.
Missionaries in Congo eat chicken, fufu and tomato sauce at least 3 times a week. The other days we would mix it up with fish, okra sauce, saka saka, and spaghetti. All the food in Congo is very delicious and healthy and we never went hungry. If we ever wanted more we could buy food at a store nearby or get American or European food from a supermarket.
Lunch at Bishop’s house
Fish and saka saka with fufu
Delicious meal
Brazzaville has lots of fresh fruits in the sector (your teaching area). Before leaving sector, I would buy some fruit like bananas or papaya or mangoes for 20-40 cents and bring them home for breakfast the next day.
Markets
The food markets in Congo are very fun to be in. They sell the most common things that people eat there like chicken, fish, fufu flour, vegetables, and other basic things. In my first area, every other week we would go shopping at Marché Centrale and buy everything we needed for breakfast and dinner.
I went to the northern part of Brazzaville and found out that you could just pay a member in the ward $5 to do all the grocery shopping for us and so we didn’t set foot in a market for the next 6 months. The members can also get better deals than the missionaries can so that’s another plus.
Shopping for fruit at Marche Totale, Brazzaville
Pro tip: They sell an herbal tea in Africa called bulukutu. It is very delicious. I would recommend you to buy bulukutu in the market and make it at the apartment by boiling water, then stepping the leaves for 10 minutes then pouring a cup and adding powdered milk for taste. It is better than hot chocolate and doesn’t break the WOW.
There was a night market in Brazzaville that we affectionately called the “crazy market.” It had things like lizards, gazelle, monkey, huge fish, and more.
Souvenir shopping
The big shopping market is an open-air market called Poto-Poto. They mostly just sell clothes for upper class Congolese because most other people just buy used clothes on the street for 20 cents instead of going to the actual market. There are very few souvenirs in Brazzaville because there are very few tourists. But if you go to the market enough, I’m sure you will be able to find something cool. It’s also fun to pay someone to make you custom clothes out of African fabric.
Also the members know the best places to go shopping for souvenirs and if you bring them along, they can help haggle the prices down for you and get some really good deals.
Weather
The weather in Congo can be pretty brutal. The rainy season, from October to April, is also the hottest time of the year, so temperatures can soar to averages of 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit everyday. During this time period, it rains about 2-4 times a week. Africans hate the rain so few people, especially investigators, are going to be coming to Church when it rains. Also when it rains there is mud everywhere.
The dry season from April to October gets cooler weather and more overcast and hardly rains.
Entertainment/Things to do
Two fun activities we did in Brazzaville were having a picnic next to the Congo River as a zone and going to the Kintele Sport Complex.
Congo River Activity
Congo River
Kintele Sports Complex
Language in Congo
In Congo, they speak French…hmm not really. In the area, you will hardly hear French. You will hear a buzz of the African dialects that everyone speaks. There are three main dialects that they speak in Congo: Lingala, Lari, and Munikituba. I wrote an article about how you can learn Lingala here. It is critical that you learn how to speak Lingala and the other dialects in Congo. Talk to the members and ask them to help you learn. They will be more than willing to help. It’s fun to learn and really important to building strong relationships with the people.
Spiritual Matters
Congo is a blessed land spiritually. The people are very receptive to the gospel and you will almost never be rejected. A lot of people think that we are Jehovah’s Witnesses and have never heard of the Church before. The Congolese are a very spiritual people. They love the Bible, church, and the gospel. Read the mission prep articles to learn how to build the Church on a strong foundation in Congo.
Enjoying some beignets and soda with an investigator
Snacks in Congo
Congo has very good snacks when you’re out teaching.
Popsicle on a hot day
Bissap
They sell bissap and tangawiss in small bags for 50 francs (10 cents) each. They are a very refreshing treat on a hot day.
Tangawiss
Eating beignets with some neighborhood kids
In Brazzaville, they make lots of bread products that they sell outside their houses. They are safe to eat.
I trained a new missionary in Brazzaville and I got him hooked on beignets and bissap and we would buy a bunch of them and eat those with our young investigators almost everyday. It was so much fun. Don’t torture yourself. Enjoy the snacks.
Safety
Brazzaville is pretty safe at all times of the day. If you stay out past nightfall it’s safer to stay in a house near the main road or in the church building.
Transportation
I wrote an article about Congo transportation here.
Closing
Congo is a blessed place and every missionary who gets to serve there is super lucky.
Bon chance!!
