by Do missionaries eat enough in Congo and Cameroon?
Naturally when someone opens their mission call to 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 wished 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.
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, 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 hibiscus drink called bissap.
Some beignets and soda with an investigator
For dinner, we would rotate who would cook and dinner would usually consist of a large piece of chicken or fish for each person, fufu which is corn and cassava flour mixed in hot water or rice and then some vegetables 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.
Rice with some crushed vegetables and chicken
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.
A Congolese meal
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 are the fast food in Congo and many baguettes which are part of the lingering French influence in Congo. The fresh baguettes are so good, even better than the ones in Paris.
A delicious sandwich we bought across the street from our apartment
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 Brazzaville.
This is one of the markets where you can buy as much food as you want. Everything is cheap, clean and healthy.
The Marche Totale in Brazzaville that sells everything
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.
Dinner was also similar to dinner in Congo, chicken, fufu, vegetables sauce, but in Douala there are many affordable restaurants that serve very good food so we would eat out regularly. Cameroon also has more beef than Congo so we would buy that from the markets to switch things up. Because there were more supermarkets in Douala, we would buy more foreign ingredients and could make more American food.
Examples of the abundance of food in Cameroon
There is a lot of inexpensive food in Cameroon. There are also many supermarkets that sell lots of American and European ingredients. Me and another missionary experimented with lots of different foods in Cameroon.
First time making pizza.
Crepes and Nutella.
A common Cameroonian snack, bread with some chocolate sauce in it and yogurt sold in a bottle. Very crave worthy and safe and delicious.
We would eat great lunches in our area. In Douala we would eat at food stands that sold a dish called Eru. Very rarely the people who 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 the US. Missionaries report going to the American store since 2013. You can find soda and candy here. You can find the location of the American store on the Congo Mission google earth link I created.
We made fried chicken a few times in Douala.
In Yaoundé, there is a restaurant that serves great American hamburgers.
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 giant supermarket called BAO that looks a lot like Costco. You could find anything there.
