The small island of Cyprus makes people think about the warmth and the blue waves of the Mediterranean. When discussing Cyprus with other Virtual Nomads, many seemed to know the name but not the exact location or the history of the island. A divided island since 1974 between the Greek Cypriot south and the Turkish Cypriot north (around 20-30% of the population and 36% of the land), it is famous for its haloumi and the world’s oldest wine. Situated in the Eastern Mediterranean, legend has it that Cyprus is the birthplace of Aphrodite. 

But first, as always, food.

Two dinners – small and big

There is a lovely Greek Cypriot restaurant in Newtown, the funky bohemian neighbourhood of Sydney Inner West. Myra’s Taverna is the only purely Greek Cypriot restaurant in Sydney, but has a silly policy for big groups with a set menu that does not serve our large herd of Virtual Nomads. Therefore as the Cypriot cuisine is strongly influenced by Greece, we decided to split the Cypriot cuisine exploration into two parts: an intimate Greek Cypriot dinner at the Myra’s Tavern, and then a big group visit to the celebrated and beyond wonderful Greek restaurant in St Peters (next to Newtown), Yiamas. There is no Turkish Cypriot restaurant but many of the dishes that we share during these two dinners are also consumed in the Turkish north, especially haloumi, Sheftalia and kondosouvli (as Turk Cypriot cuisine is not the same as the Turkish equivalent). 

Myra’s Taverna – the Cypriot dinner 

Myra’s Taverna is situated on a sidestreet in Newtown, one of the most vibrant neighbourhoods in Sydney. As of April 2026, the restaurant has been in existence for roughly nine months as a family-owned small business. Prior to the restaurant hustle, the main chef and owner (who was very lovely, introduced himself to us and explained the history of the restaurant) had a food stall and then decided to turn that into a restaurant. Myra’s Taverna is lovely and small, and has a very Mediterranean feeling to it. The walls are filled with photos of family members and the menu is based on recipes that have been in the family for generations. They play Cypriot music and the whole staff is very friendly.

We make the visit to Myra’s a family affair despite the fact that one of our combined children is away. It is then four of us on a lovely autumn afternoon who decide it is time for some Cypriot food. As starters, we get stoke baked Cypriot pita bread and Tzatziki.

Probably our favourite dish is Spanakopita – filled filo pastry with spinach leeks, feta and ricotta. It is very crispy and oily, but not too much. Spanakopita is a traditional Greek dish with origins in the Epirus region (in Greece). The name is said to come from Greek words spanáki (spinach) and píta (pie). It can also be considered very traditional in Cyprus as it has formed part of the Cypriot cuisine for centuries. Our Spanakopita is clearly homemade and oven baked. It comes with a very hot plate and is very rich and filling, but does not feel too heavy. The dish gives plenty for the whole group (L proofreading note: still thinking about it…). The other dish we get is grilled Haloumi Saganaki baked with honey. Saganaki is again from Greece and refers to cooking in a small charcoal pan. Sanagaki means “little frying pan” and its origins are actually in the Turkish word sahan, a two-handled copper pan. We had this dish in both restaurants and the difference was probably the cheese used as the Cypriot restaurant used haloumi which is not a staple of Greek cuisine. 

My son A (12) loves octopus, made in a Mediterranean way. Charred Octopus comes in a generous amount of evoo and lemon and oregano. Evoo (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) is the highest quality available olive oil and extensively used in the Mediterranean. It is said to have antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, and is the base of the famous Mediterranean diet. The other dish is very Cypriot: Sheftalia, traditional Cypriot pork sausage. It is made of minced pork with spices and onion. They are small oval-shaped sausages that are grilled over charcoal. Our group says that it is surprisingly crunchy inside, that the mince has big shanks of meat. The mince is made of caul fat / membrane that surrounds the stomach of the pig. There are several theories regarding the origin of this dish; according to one it is named after a Turkish word meaning “peach” (şeftali), the other theory is that a Turkish Cypriot street vender Chef Ali (Şef Ali) invented it and named it “Şef Ali kebabı. 

For dessert we have Kalo Prama – a lemon and olive oil cake with cream cheese and Yiayia’s Bougatsa – baked, rich custard in filo pastry with beautiful, soft peach. Kalo Prama is a very traditional Cypriot cake and the literary meaning of its name is ¨good/nice thing¨. In Cyprus it is sometimes referred to as Cypriot semolina cake or Samali. It is said to have roots in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ottoman rule having resemblance to similar syrup-soaked cakes in the region. It is eaten at room temperature and our party finds it lovely. But our favourite dessert is Yiayia’s Bougatsa. The accompanying peach has been baked soaked in Jack Daniels and syrup which gives it a slight licorice flavour. Bougatsa has its origins in the Byzantine era (current Istanbul). Yiayia means grandma and this is indeed the owner´s grandmother´s recipe. It is a lovely, delicious dessert but so rich that one portion is enough for the four of us. 

Greek dinner to celebrate Cyprus 

We also want to celebrate Cyprus with a larger Virtual Nomad group and therefore head to enormously popular Yiamas Tavern, a renowned family-owned Greek restaurant in St Peters in Sydney’s Inner West – where you need to book at least three weeks ahead. Yiamas is full every night and is famous for its magnificent kitchen. Its name comes from the ‘Yia mas’, meaning ‘a toast’. Opened in 2009, it is  famous for its open charcoal pits and its hospitality. This restaurant is much larger than our first, and as mentioned, full every night. It seems to attract large groups from the Sydney Greek community and the restaurant is popular in family celebrations. 

The intended 22 Virtual Nomads decreased to 15 on the day but it is still a joyful, happy group of very seasoned Virtual Nomads and one newbie, my son’s highschool friend K. The food is sensational. For starters we get Pita bread with dips, generous Greek salads, grilled octopus and then grilled Sakanagi cheese with honey. The four dips served with the pita bread are tamara, skordalia, tzatziki and eggplant. Tamara is a traditional Greek dip made from salted and cured fish roe (usually carp or cod) which is blended with evoo, lemon juice and potatoes. Skordalia is a thick garlic dip which is often mixed with potatoes (or bread and/or walnuts) and olive oil. It is quite rich and pungent. Tzatziki is a Greek yogurt dip with garlic, cucumber, olive oil and herbs. It is served cold. The Greek Salad has a very generous portion of feta cheese together with red onion, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, other vegetables and jalapeno. It is absolutely wonderful and very colourful. And the Saganaki cheese is close to the top dishes ever consumed on the Virtual Nomad path. It is so unbelievably delicious that it is hard to find words to describe it. It is similar to the Saganaki cheese we had at Myra’s Tavern but while they used haloumi, we are not sure what cheese is in this one. It is topped with honey and the result is absolutely heavenly. 

For the mains, we get generous meat platters on a bed of chips and a vegetarian plate for the sole vegetarian of the group (L proofreading note: the author!). The meat platter has different types of meat; lamb and pork souvlakia, quails, pork chops, cutlets, loukaniko and mixed kondosouvli meats. The vegetarian plate has haloumi, dolmades, steamed vegetables, eggplant saganaki, and roast potatoes. 

What a food feast this has been. 

The Divided island 

Cyprus is an island in the East Mediterranean – the third largest island in the Mediterranean – and has been inhabited for thousands of years. Different civilisations have conquered and settled on the island, and civilisations have followed one another from Assyrians to Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Crusaders, Jews, Arabs, English, French, Venetians, Ottomans and of course, the Greeks. It has been on the path of fellas like Alexander the Great, Richard the Lionheart and countless others. Many of these figures left their mark on the island, but not in the way the Greeks and Ottomans/Turks have. 

The Ottomans conquered the island in 1571 which is said to be the beginning of the Turkish settlement. The British assumed control in 1878 and Cyprus became a formal part of Great Britain in 1914. While the Greek and Turkish communities lived in relative harmony, things started to boil in the 1950s. Some of the Greek community started to pursue enosis (union with Greece) while the Turkish community first preferred to continue with the Brits but then after seeing that enosis in the island of Creta had led to the exodus of Turks, they warmed to the idea of an annexation with Turkey. As the Turkish minority formed only 20% of the inhabitants, becoming part of Turkey was not a viable option and therefore the Turkish community opted to prefer taksim; partitioning of the island between the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot south.  In the end, neither enosis nor taksim happened and Cyprus became independent in 1960.

Independence did not bring harmony and intercommunal violence escalated during the crisis of 1963-64. The death toll has been disputed but there were casualties on both sides (while slightly more on the Turkish side) and thousands (mainly Turkish Cypriots) had to flee their homes. The crisis also ended Turkish Cypriot political representation. In 1974 Greek Cypriot nationalists staged a coup d’etat (sponsored by the military junta of Greece) which prompted a Turkish invasion. The death toll is estimated to be around 3000-5000 including both military and casualty, with most killed and missing being Greek Cypriots. The invasion and its aftermath resulted in the permanent division of Cyprus and displacement of thousands of people; estimated 150,000 Greek Cypriots from north to south and 60,000 Turkish Cypriots from south to north. The partition meant the forming of the Republic of Cyprus (UN recognised sovereign state) and in 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (only recognised by Turkey). Between the two lies a UN buffer zone called the Green zone. 

Cyprus became part of the European Union in 2004 and adopted the euro as its currency in 2008. Cyprus has expressed interest in joining NATO but Turkey vetoes its membership. Cyprus has the highest migrant population ratio in Europe with over 25% of the population in Cyprus being foreign nationals. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 to 23,000 immigrant domestic workers in Cyprus many of whom face challenges from low pay to long hours and overwork. 

Three books and one intention 

There are a few bestseller writers that are of Greek Cypriot origin. One of the most famous might be Alex Michaelides with his book the Silent Patient (L proofreading side note: I read this book a while ago and didn’t particularly care for it, unfortunately! It was a little substance-less). Another is Christy Lefteri whose book Songbirds I read for this stop. It is harder to find translated authors from the Turkish side of Cyprus but I manage to find one whose production I can read parts of. But let’s start with Christy. 

Christy Lefteri was born in London to Cypriot parents who migrated to England as refugees. She became world famous with her second book, the Beekeeper of Aleppo (2020) about Syrian refugees. Songbirds (2021) is her third book and is loosely based on the series of disappearances of foreign domestic workers in Cyprus between 2016 and 2019. While fiction, it does borrow elements from the real story including the nationalities of the disappeared and the area where their bodies were found (and how). Christy said that she was shocked to know that while all the women had been reported missing, the police and sometimes their employers were uninterested and dismissed their disappearance. Finding the bodies became a scandal in Cyprus and activated a conversation about the treatment and status of immigrant workers and their working conditions. Apparently there are over 8,500 domestic workers that are missing in Cyprus and no one knows where these women are. Christy wanted to give a human face to the story, built through the figure of Nisha, a disappeared Sri Lankan domestic worker, through the narration of her employer Petra and her lover Yiannis. The book focuses on the impact that the disappearance has on the people around Nisha and also touches upon the conditions of domestic workers as anyone who is above middle class in Cyprus, employs them. 

Christy has interviewed many people for her book and has a long list of people to thank at the end. But what lingers is an uncomfortable feeling–around if any of the families of the disappeared women were asked if it was appropriate to write this book. I feel uneasy because in the end quite frankly the book feels like an exploitation of human tragedy, and it does not do justice to the real story as it is in the end quite superficial and the two narrators sound the same, do not have credible emotions, the writing is not sharp and some of the plot twists are just not credible. The book tries hard but in the end achieves very little for me which is a real shame as its intentions were noble. 

Thirty-Eight Days of Rain (2024) by Eva Asprakis is the winner of the 2024 Ink Book Prize for Fiction. The name of the novel comes from the claim that it only rains thirty-eight days a year in Cyprus. Just like the main character in this novel, Androulla, Eva was also born in London and raised by her mother and Cypriot stepfather who adopted her. Eva lives in Nicosia with her partner (just like Androulla). The real-life Eva reveals on her website that her writing draws from her identity struggles and feelings of being between different worlds. In the book, the Cypriot identity is the core theme. Androulla is ready to make enormous sacrifices just to get a Cypriot nationality, or to be recognised as a Cypriot by bloodline – even if she could get a Greek passport through her mother and keep her British citizenship at the same time. She is quite obsessed with the idea of being a Cypriot ‘descendant’ and that overrules anything else in her life. She is married to an Australian-born Cypriot Giannis who does not have a nationality and struggles from one student visa to another. They have an unusual marriage and Androulla struggles with other things as well, from eating disorders to porn addiction, family issues, dead childhood friends and infertility. There is so much material that it feels that the novel has not decided what it really wanted to be, which makes it hard to connect with the story and with Androulla in particular, in her overbearing sense of nationalism with a place she also harshly criticises. It really never gives an answer to why she wants the Cypriot passport so badly, and why now. It does give an uncomfortable sense of needing to be ‘pure’ in the face of Cypriot family members and the society. For the most part, I felt disconnected from Androulla and annoyed by her, and it was not really until towards the end when she describes very personal health struggles that I connected with the story on an emotional level. Also, I must admit that building the story around those couple of days (38) that it rains is somewhat silly. Every chapter is a day when it rains and all the important stuff seems only to happen on when it rains. 

My last Greek Cypriot book is Brandy Sour, The Winner of the 2023 Cypriot National Book Prize. Written by Nicosia-born Constantia Soteriou, this is her third book. The centre of the book is the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia. The hotel was built between 1947 and 1949, and it had 94 rooms with modern installations (a phone in every room! a pool!) and it was one of the most glamorous hotels in Cyprus until the Turkish invasion in 1974. The hotel suffered significant structural damage in 1974 and became the stage of many conflict resolution workshops. It ceased to serve as a hotel and has since then been the headquarters for the UN Peacekeeping forces and the designated crossing point (since 2004) in the Green Zone, between the Greek and Turkish parts of the island. 

The book is divided into small fragments around famous drinks (from brandy sour to jasmine tea) and people somehow related to the Hotel. There are stories about guests and staff at the hotel, and mostly their experiences of the events in 1974. Every fragment is built around a beverage, and the person who consumes that beverage; and what is their experience and role. More properly, beverage is not the right word, maybe it is something in a liquid form. A cleaning lady carries holy water with her, and one chapter is about tears. But yes, a photographer drinks beer, a doorman jasmine tea, etc. It is a lovely book, well written and my favourite of the three. Some of the stories feel more forced and are quite repetitive which does not make it a very memorable book but there is a lovely feeling to it. Short, and easy to read. 

I wanted to read the Secret History of Sad Girls by Turkish-Cypriot poet Neşe Yaşın but I cannot find a full translation (into any of my languages). I understand that translations are on the way but maybe not available yet. Neşe is said to write about identity and division, and is said to be widely read and praised on both sides of the island, but not so much by Turkey. Neşe is a daughter of a well known author and poet, and her sister is also a poet. She was born in a village inhabited by both Greek and Turkish Cypriots (in1959) and was forced to flee with her family when intercommunal conflict erupted in 1963. She is also a peace activist and active in reconciliation organisations, activities and events. When Neşe was 17, she wrote a poem called “Which Half” which became a famous unification anthem also in the Greek part of Cyprus, and was composed into a song by Marios Tokas, a Greek Cypriot composer. It has been called the unofficial anthem for a united Cyprus. The poem says:  

They say a person should love their homeland,/ That’s also what my father often says./ My homeland has been divided in two,/ Which of the two pieces should I love

The 2002 novel, the Secret History of Sad Girls, was banned in Turkey and Neşe has received threats, especially from Turkish nationalists. It is Neşe’s only novel (her other books are poetry or research books) and it is about an intercommunal love affair between a Greek Cypriot man and a Turkish Cypriot woman. 

The Cypriot Movie Festival 

For the Cypriot Movies Festival, I end up watching six movies/documentaries and jot another down on my ever-growing Virtual Nomad watchlist. Quite a few address the division of the island– the older films with a much more accusatory finger, and the more contemporary ones with a more reconciling tone. In fact all but one of the movies/documentaries I watched touched upon the division from different angles. The one movie with no reference at all to the political situation, is more of an art-house movie. 

It is quite a treat to watch the movie Smuggling Hendrix (2018) by Marios Piperides. While it does not have the most waterproof plot or the fullest of characters or even the best acting, it is filmed on both the Greek and the Turk side of Nicosia, and also in the UN buffer zone. Seeing all the landscape is super interesting and the movie is worth it just for that – to see what the buffer zone of abandoned houses look like. The story itself is a bit silly; a middle-aged disaster of a man (a failed musician) is chased by debt collectors and left by his beautiful girlfriend (much more beautiful than the man) and plans to leave the island. But then his beloved dog (called Jimi Hendrix) escapes to the Turkish side of Nicosia and it takes quite an effort to smuggle the dog back as it is illegal to transport animals across the check points into the EU. The man gets some help from Turkish people to find his dog which turns into a situation in which both a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot are working for the same cause. It has been internationally a well received movie and what I have read about its festival round is that there are subtle political details in the movie that show the absurdity of the division. It is an interesting, lighthearted, wonderfully filmed movie that has some caricature characters but overall shows an interesting perspective on the divided island and the divided people that after all, are people. Very feel-good with a really simple but symbolically strong last scene. 

The story of the making of the movie Akamas (2006, by Panicos Chrysanthou) is quite interesting. It received funding from the Cypriot, Turkish and Bulgarian governments but towards the end of the filming, the Cypriot government withdrew the rest of its funding and basically banned the movie in the Republic of Cyprus. It is not possible to show the film there as it was deemed ‘unacceptable’ to be shown in national film festivals or TV. The reason for this was not only that the movie shows a love story between a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, but also because of a particular scene regarding EOKA B fighters (a Cypriot guerrilla organisation fighting to end the British rule in Cyprus), and therefore the movie was deemed nonpatriotic on both accounts. 

The movie develops from the 1950s prior to independence to the partition in 1974, and it shows the tensions between the Greek and the Turks. In the 1950s, a Turk Cypriot is sent to live with a Greek family as a boy and he falls in love with the daughter of the family. They live in turbulent times when inter-community violence was becoming more common. The love story follows the  different ideologies of Greek and Turk Cypriots regarding the annexation to Greece, and the slow separation of the communities. It is again to show that people are the same and have the same needs through a forbidden love, be that Romeo and Juliet or Christian Rhodou and Muslim Oremis. Filmed in the southern spot of Cyprus, Akamas, it offers a wonderful landscape of Cypriot countryside. It is a compelling story and quite captivating, and it achieves, in its pre-consiliating tone, the emphasis of the absurdity of religious and ethnic tensions. 

The Divided Island (2024) is a recent documentary on the division of Cyprus. Directed by Turkish Cypriot Cey Sesiguzel, and co-produced by Greek Cypriot Andreas Tokkallos, the attempt is to present an unbiased view of the fifty/sixty years of division of the island. In the documentary, the history (mostly 1963-64 and 1974) is told through personal stories (both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots) and foreign historians. The testimonies describe personal loss, suffering and generational trauma. Atrocities are revealed from both sides, and calls are made for healing to happen. In the documentary, journalist Sevgül Uludağ describes that for most of her 42 year career, she has focused on finding burial sites and identifying missing persons (of the civil war 1963-63 and Turkish invasion 1974; people from both parties). 

As with many sensitive themes, when you look at online reviews, while most reviews praise the intended neutrality, there are several claims that say that it is either Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot biased, or that the documentary omits historical events and role of external parties– and the language you find is shockingly strong. Whether any of that is true (the biased approach), I do not know, but there are some interesting facts presented, for example the genetic closeness of both – they share a common pre-Ottoman paternal ancestry (meaning descendants of the same gene pool) which makes most of the Cypriots on both sides genetically really similar. 

“For most Cypriots, the migrant is not an individual. The migrants are an amorphous body – a body we need to protect ourselves from.” 

Evading borders (2014), written and directed by Iva Radivojevic – who fled the Balkan wars to Cyprus in the 1990s – is a poignant, lyrical and sad documentary about identity, migration and borders (physical and metaphysical). It dwells on immigration, anti-migration, racism and identity in the Cypriot context. Iva herself is a political immigrant and offers a critical mirror into the Greek Cypriot society which the documentary deems as deeply racist. It is estimated that 25% of the population in Cyprus are immigrants and Cyprus is often considered an entry point for asylum seekers into Europe. Many are domestic workers who, as Christy pointed out in her book, often have abusive and precarious working conditions, and political asylum seekers (the biggest group in 2014 was Palestinian from Iraq) face structural and societal stigmatisation and racism. It is a really well done, beautifully photographed/filmed and produced documentary which shows not only the difficulties people without options have but the xenophobia that sprawls on the other side. There is an incredibly poignant moment when someone compares xenophobia and anti-immigration to a movie about aliens in which people fear aliens taking over civilization with barbaric manners and killing all the happiness and enjoyment of those fighting against them. It is a mesmerisingly filmed and effectively executed, deeply human and beautiful documentary. 

According to many sources, an essential historical viewing is Attila ‘74 (with a full name of Attlila 74’ – the Rape of Cyprus). It is a 1974 documentary filmed by Michael Cacoyannis. It is quite an interesting viewing and includes interviews with the first President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III (who is regarded as a national hero and a ‘founding father’ of independent Cyprus) who was President of Cyprus from 1960 until his death in 1977. He also interviews Nikos Sampson, the leader of the attempted coup d’etat in 1974 (the only person held liable and served a prison sentence). There are also many interviews of Greek Cypriot civilians, survivors of violent events and displaced people as well as pro-Junta and pro-Makarios. It is a highly hailed documentary which has also been accused of being one-sided as no voice has been given to Turkish Cypriot refugees. It is an interesting documentary and serves as a testimony of the time of turbulence, focused on the Greek Cypriot side of events and suffering. 

The movie Pause (2018) by Tonia Mishiali (her debut film) was originally meant to be called Menopause but changed to a shorter title towards the end of production. At the beginning of the film, the main character, a middle-aged housewife Elpida, goes to a gynecologist and the doctor goes through a long list of symptoms of “a woman her age” – in fact a total of 36 symptoms  (including osteoporosis, joint pain, ingestion, weight gain, sleep disorders, fatigue, bleeding, etc.) and then states laconically “So nothing to worry about”. There are not many movies about middle aged women, and especially about Menopause, so it is very refreshing to see. Stella Fyrogeni in the main role is remarkable and she can communicate so much without saying a word (and there are not many words in the movie). The actor playing her husband (Andrei Vasiliou) is also unsettlingly convincing and realistic. Stella plays a repressed housewife trapped in a loveless marriage who starts to fantasize with vindictive violence and sex with younger men, and soon it is not easy to tell what is real and what is fantasy. She is basically a domestic slave in an arranged marriage without a way out.  The movie is slow paced with long takes which could be draining, but Tonia manages to make it work as it mirrors the lightless life of Elpida and the often silenced impact of patriarchy and domestic repression. 

There is another film I would like to watch but it is just finishing its festival rounds. A success in Sundance 2026, Hold onto me by Myrsini Aristidou has attracted quite a lot of international interest so I hope to come back to this space in the future once I have had the chance to see it. 

Cypriot George, Anna and Michalis 

Probably the most famous musician / singer of Cypriot roots is the late Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, known to the world as George Michael. He never lived in Cyprus and had Greek Cypriot roots through his father who had emigrated to England in the 1950s. He did visit the island frequently though. (photo: George Michael Offical Website)

Other famous Cypriot musicians are Anna Vissi and Michalis Hatzigiannis, both who have represented Cyprus in the Eurovision (Anna three times 1980, 1982 and 2006 and Michalis once, 1998 – the highest position was 5th for Anna in 1982). 

Next stop: Czechia 

Thank you L for proofreading during university exam period!

Virtual Nomads rejoice! Virtual Nomad took a long break to give some space for significant life events, and when we finally regroup for the next stop we are spoiled with a wonderful virtual destination that is Cuba. Ruled by Fidel Castro for 49 years, then succeeded by his brother until 2018, Cuba is a cradle of rich culture and incredible food, and an authoritarian system where civil liberties and freedom of speech are restricted and political opposition repressed. Cuba has the highest doctor-patent ratio in the world, and is home to the smallest known bird, the ‘bee hummingbird’ or ‘zunzuncito’. And one of the greatest gifts that Cuba has given to the world is its music. 

But first, as always, food

La Noche Cubana 

While there are several well-regarded Cuban restaurants in Sydney, this occasion (the relaunch of Virtual Nomad) called for a Cuban night in what we now call the Beach House.

On a lovely summer night, the Beach House welcomed 25 Virtual Nomads, which was a wonderful, chilled, warm and welcoming gathering. The food was amazing and while conversing and sipping alcoholic and non-alcoholic mojitos, we listened to Cuban music, from Buena Vista Social Club to the queen of salsa, Celia Cruz.  And as always, every household prepared one item from a shared menu.

Gathered around the table were my husband JK (introducing a new civil status for us both!), our children L (18), FK (16) and A (12), and several seasoned Virtual Nomads. There were also four newbies in the group, my human rights warrior friend LW brought her delightful and impossibly beautiful family, and my daughter L (18) invited her childhood friend GT.

While I cannot praise the atmosphere, food, music and company enough, this section is about food. All Virtual Nomads were asked to prepare and bring one dish from a traditional Cuban menu, and as always, the Virtual Nomads did deliver. Everyone is such an exceptionally good cook. We achieved the inclusion of most of the key features of the Cuban kitchen; Ropa Vieja, Lechón Asado, Moros y Cristianos, Cuban sandwiches, Pollo con Arroz, two Cuban salads, a wonderful dessert and of course Mojitos, the traditional Cuban cocktail. 

Ropa Vieja, or ‘old rags’, is the national dish of Cuba, and my hubby JK has the honour to prepare it. As a vegetarian, I observed the skillful preparation of a very meaty dish with much delight. Ropa Vieja takes some time to prepare, as a slow-cooked dish of shredded meat with capsicum, onions, tomato sauce and spices. The dish came to Cuba from medieval Spain through the Canary Islands. It is said that its roots are in the Sephardic Jew cuisine in which it was common to ‘repurpose’ leftover meat. There is a folklore tale that the name of the dish comes from a poor man who shredded his old clothes and cooked them in order to feed his family. He prayed for a miracle which then materialised and the old clothes turned into a delicious, filling stew. The tale is said to symbolise the Cuban spirit of resilience; making “something from nothing”. It is also said to be a dish that reflects adaptability and memory for the Cuban diaspora. JK does a stellar job in making sure that the tender meat is prepared in an olive oil-tomato-spices sauce, and then shredded (as in the photo) with two forks. The Virtual Nomads love this dish, and there are no leftovers after the Cuban Night. 

Wonderful friends and seasoned Nomads JJ, CL and EL brought an astonishing, highly elaborate Lechón Asado. In her youth, JJ worked a few years as a chef (and now works in a completely different field) and it shows. L’s childhood friend – in her first ever Virtual Nomad – said that whoever made this dish needs to be celebrated because it was extraordinary and outstanding. Lechón Asado is a dish that requires elaborated cooking skills as it is a slow-roasted dish (usually pork shoulder). It is a festive dish in Cuba, often part of the Christmas Eve or New Year’s dinner table, but also served in festive gatherings – a bit like ours. The secret of it is to slow-cook the meat into a tender succulent form with crispy skin (see in the photo) in a marinated sauce. It is an absolute hit among the Virtual Nomads. JJ says that as the recipe said that usually it is prepared with pork skin, then she decided to make it with pork skin. Lechón Asado is said to have originated from a 16th century African-influenced Spanish dish cochinillo, a dish of over-roasted suckling pig. It is often served with rice and beans, plantains and yuca (on the menu as well). 

Wonderful RA and AA (in their second Virtual Nomad stop after Sichuan hotpot (China), and our advisers for the Austrian night as they lived there several years) are in charge of a dubiously-called dish Moros y Cristianos, which literally means ‘Moors’ (the black beans) and ‘Christians’ (white rice). Beans and rice are cooked together with sofrito (onion, garlic and capsicum prepared together) with its roots in Spain. The dish symbolises the blending of Spanish and African cultures. The ‘moors’ (Arab Muslims)  governed a large part of Spain for eight hundred years and were expelled in what is called the Spanish Reconquista, but the African influence (of enslaved Africans) was to stay. In Cuba, it is a staple feature of Cuban cuisine and most usually a side dish for a more meaty plate. Different from rice and beans, a staple feature of Central American cuisine, in Moros and Cristianos rice and beans are cooked together. RA and AA bring a large quantity of the dish and many of our party members are able to take parts of this home. 

Seasoned Virtual Nomads, the beyond wonderful friends JD and KD bring a generous amount of Arroz con Pollo, rice with chicken, which I heard is fantastic. Arroz con pollo has been called a cornerstone of Cuban cuisine and is often mentioned as the one dish passed down by generations. It is a vibrant looking dish and very popular with the Virtual Nomads. JD is a great cook and he is particularly skilled with chicken curries, so an authentic Cuban arroz con pollo is only a step away from that and delivered perfectly. 

My human rights warrior friend LW and her delightful family bring both normal and gluten free Cuban sandwiches and they are delicious! The origin of the Cuban sandwich is said to derive from a Havana street food of the late 19th century called mixto – a sandwich with roasted pork and ham. Cuban cigar factory workers, especially in immigrant communities in Tampa and Key West, Florida, made variations to mixto, and it became a staple lunch food. Thousands of Cubans immigrated to Florida to work in these factories, and frequently travelled back to Cuba to visit family and brought with them Cuban bread with pork and ham. In Florida, it gathered other influences, including German and Italian. A Sicilian baker living in Cuba started to produce Cuban bread in Ybor City and the ‘Cuban sandwich’ started to evolve from there. Cuban sandwiches were especially popular in Tampa and Key West where the sandwich became ‘pressed and layered’. The Tampa sandwich was influenced by Italian immigrants with the inclusion of salami, cheese, pickles and mustard. The non-salami version became popular in Miami, especially after the revolution when there was a mass exodus of Cubans into Miami. It has remained a very popular dish in the Cuban diaspora and there are several regional variations. There is also a well documented, friendly Cuban sandwich rivalry between Tampa and Florida. Tampa hosts the International Cuban Sandwich Festival annually in March, which includes a “big smackdown competition to find the best Cuban sandwich.” It has also recorded the longest Cuban Sandwich in the world. 

The sandwiches that LW brings are crispy and compact with a perfect combination of melted cheese. They resulted very popular among the Virtual Nomads.

Picadillo is another pearl of Cuban cuisine. Swedish-born CÖ and her husband MJ bring vegetarian picadillo. Picadillo usually has ground beef, but this time we opted out. Picadillo is another dish originating in Spain and travelling to Cuba during the colonial times, and then going through a transformation in mixing with local flavors. The name derives from the Spanish word picar meaning to chop, mince, or bite. Legend has it that picadillo comes from Andalusia with strong influence from Arabic culinary traditions. Nitza Villapol (chef, teacher, cookbook writer, and television host in Cuba) made it famous in her 1954 cookbook Cocina Criolla. Picadillo is a tomato-based sweet and savoury blend of spices (coriander, cumin, oregano, capers, olives). In Cuba, picadillo is often served with rice or used in empanadas as the filling. Our delicious dish is a vegetarian version which serves as an absolutely wonderful addition to the heavier dishes. 

We also have boiled Yuca. There is a wonderful store in the funky and vibrant Sydney Inner West neighbourhood Newtown called Fiji Market. It is the favourite of Sydneysiders because you can get ingredients that otherwise would be difficult to find. Fiji Market sells frozen yuca, which is easy to boil and add to the dinner table. Yuca, also called cassava in different places, is more typical to Cuba than potatoes. In Cuba, yuca is often served with Mojo or picadillo. Yuca has been consumed in Cuba since the pre-Columbian times as it was already cultivated by the Taino people. Yuca does not have a very distinguished, strong taste but is a welcomed addition to the table – though most of it is left at the end as there are plenty of more tasteful dishes!

Our main dishes are accompanied by two Cuban salads. AK and her family (very seasoned Virtual Nomads) bring a Cuban crunch salad (the one on the left) and my wonderful US American friend SA brings Cuban salad with avocado. We also have a delicious dessert, Flan Cubano prepared by FK. 

And a Cuban night would not be the same without Mojitos, the traditional Cuban cocktail made from white rum, lime juice, cane sugar, soda water and mint. The origin of mojito is in a 16th century Cuban drink called El Draque. Named after Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer, it was created around 1586 as a rustic mix of aguardiente, lime, mint and sugar and it was used mainly for medicinal purposes. It is said that lime in the drink helps relieve symptoms of scurvy, mint was a remedy for stomach aches, and the rum was for fever. It was first created – and legend says that at the request of Sir Drake – to treat his sailors. In the 1800s aguardiente was replaced by white rum, and the drink became fashionable in famous Cuban bars of the early 20th century (for example the legendary La Bodeguita del Medio). Mojito is very much associated with Cuba and has even been nicknamed “Cuba in a glass”. 

We have the opportunity to raise a glass to our beloved friend NH (who advised me about the Australia entry with his wonderful wife SAA, and is referred to in the Australia entry for this blog) who passed away in January after a short illness. NH was very dear to many people attending the Cuban night but especially to me and my children, and JJ (who prepared the famous Lechón Asado). We miss him very much. 

Tobacco, sugar cane and repression

The history of Cuba has always been a history of immigration, colonisation and upheaval – and repression of the less fortunate. Fertile and tropical, it is easy to understand why it is so attractive to so many nations. Cuba has been inhabited for thousands of years, including by Indigenous Guanahatabey, Taíno and Ciboney tribes. 

The Spanish and Cristobal Colón arrived in 1492 and made contact with local people, first seemingly amicably, and then with coloniser cruelty.  Cuba was colonised in 1511 by Spain and it remained under Spanish rule until 1898. The colonisers used native inhabitants as slaves and the population of the island diminished due to imported disease and unethical labour standards, leading to the loss of 90% of the Indigenous inhabitants. Cuba became the ‘headquarters’ of the Spanish colonisation in the Americas and a centre for the slavery and tobacco industries. Tobacco became the island’s main export for centuries. 

As the Spanish managed to kill most of their native slave workforce, they had to import slaves from somewhere else. More than 12.5 million Africans were brought to the “new world” as slaves. When Haitian sugar cane production collapsed, Cuba stepped in and became a major spot for the sugar industry in 1850-60, still depending heavily on slavery. It is estimated that 60% of the current Cuban population is descended from African slaves, heavily influencing Cuban culture and its music, art and celebrations. 

Slavery was finally abolished in 1886. Spain’s dominance of Cuba came to an end in 1898 following the independence war (1895-1898) and the U.S intervention. 200,000 to 300,000 people died. An important figure in the preparation for the independence war was Cuba’s national hero, poet José Martí, who died in the first battle against the Spanish. 

Cuba did not get the independence it dreamed of, but basically became a protectorate of the US which dominated the economy of Cuba and withheld the right to protect US interests, and establish an American base in Guantanamo (as stated in the Cuban Constitution, the Platt Amendment). The focus on monocrop agriculture attracted many migrants to the sugar care plantations, including from Spain (and one of them was a man called Ángel Castro). 

Political instability followed with puppet presidents and dictatorships, most notably the police state established by Fulgencio Batista. He was overthrown/asked to resign in 1959 when Fidel Castro’s rebel forces became successful with their revolution. The timeline and details of how everything happened is fascinating and much too complex to refer to here. 

From 1959 onwards until 2008, Cuba was under the watchful eye of Fidel Castro. There were several challenges on the way; the Cold War (the 1961 Bay of Pigs crises, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crises); the fall of the closest ally and financial supporter USSR in 1991; the economic crises of the 1990s; the exodus of people; the embargo by the US. The revolution did not bring the freedom the people dreamt of, particularly for the oppressed. Many social reforms benefitted many people (medical, education, literacy rates) but the repression of human rights and opposition, forced exiles, and incarceration of political opponents have left their mark in the beautiful but long-suffering island. Many left the island voluntarily or involuntarily, but while the diaspora / exile has been successful for some, it has not been for others. Many have stayed on the island and some believe in the lasting power of the revolution and the alternative it intended to offer, while others endure personal hardship and tragedies because of it. 
Fidel Castro transferred power to his brother Raúl in 2008 and passed away in 2016. Raúl approved some market-based reforms. Since 2019, the President of Cuba is Miguel Díaz-Canel who is also the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. The Communist Party is still the only legally allowed political party in Cuba.

Five books from Cuba 

Again, I turn to friends to define the essential Cuban books that I need to read. This time the reference group is quite large (and everyone has their own taste) and it is hard to pick from a long list of favourite authors and books. My Cuban friends and ‘local people’ of Cuban origin recommend very different books, or books from the same author. Therefore I decide to first choose those books that have multiple mentions, and then arbitrarily add two others that someone I know absolutely loves. In the end it is an interesting selection of books from such different authors as Reinaldo Arenas, Zoé Valdés, Carlos Manuel Ǻlvarez,  Leonardo Padura and Alejo Carpentier. I also considered reading José Lezama Lima which I might do in the future. Two of these authors in their personal life had completely opposing, but yet so similar, political views. Alejo Carpertier was a pro-Castro, pro-revolution communist with close ties to the Castro regime while Zoé Valdés is a far-right anti-immigration pro-Trump conservative living in exile. Both filled with hatred for others. I did not know these details before reading their books but interestingly their books were the ones I liked least, together with the sub-par crime noir book of Leonardo Padura, one of the worst books I have read on the Virtual Nomad journey. Fortunately Reinaldo Arenas made it up for the rest.

My first book for this stop comes from Alejo Carpentier, said to be the founding father of Magical Realism and titan of Latin American (and world) literature. Alejo was not only an author, he was also a musicologist, an important figure in the shaping of Afro-Caribbean identity from a post-colonialist point of view, and a personal friend of Fidel Castro and fierce defender of his regime. He is also said to be the one of the innovators of literature in Latin America, the “new novel” that follows a less structured narrative structure.  

El Reino de Este Mundo (The Kingdom of This World) was first published in 1949 (in English in 1957) and is considered as Alejo’s major work. The story is built around a young slave, TiNoel, in the midst of the Haitian revolution. Fiction blends in with historical facts and reimagines the past with magical realism elements. (Interestingly, in the following book that I read for this stop, the autobiography from Reinaldo Arenas, Alejo is not described in favourable terms.)

But what about the book itself? The language is dense and rich to the point that it is confusing, and tiring at times. While 100 years of solitude is extraordinarily skillful in its magical-realist storytelling, for me this one does not achieve the same. The language is heavy with words matched with an unexciting plot, this book just does not do it for me. I find it quite archaic and weighty. 

My next book is the English translation of the autobiography of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas (original title Antes que anochezca, 1992), Before Night Falls. I really wanted to read this book in its original language, but all I could find was the translation which was of course a huge disappointment as Reinaldo was a master of words. The translation was actually very good and transported the original thoughts and ideas well. It is a book that I have wanted to read for a long time, for a silly simple reason, which is Javier Bardem’s outstanding portrait of Reinaldo Arenas in a movie made based on this book. I returned to watch the movie for this stop but as so many times, real life is more harrowing that a movie can ever depict. This book is a devastating tale of repression, persecution, state terror, authoritarian regimes and people struggling under extreme pressure. At the same time, it is a love letter to three pillars in Reinaldo’s life: writing, sex and the sea. 

Reinaldo was an openly gay Cuban dissident poet who died by suicide in New York in 1990, bedridden and weakened by AIDS. His story is a story of poverty and stolen youth in post-revolution Cuba. He openly opposed the regime of Fidel Castro (who is depicted in that egomaniac glory that authoritarian leaders everywhere possess and then go after their critics) and faced censorship, imprisonment, ostracisation and finally forced exile. The struggle is constant, be that childhood poverty, repression given by authoritarian regimes (under right wing Batista and communist Castro), persecution for his homosexuality and political criticism, infernal incarceration, betrayal of friends and family and exile in a soulless, capitalist US. There are moments of light and Reinaldo is almost until the very end protected by a mysterious fate of surviving dangerous and harrowing situations.

Even translated, Reinaldo is a masterful writer. It is a harrowing, powerful tale that is crystal sharp in its best moments. If I was to rate it, I would give 4.5 out of 5 because while as a social and political commentator Reinaldo is excellent, and his descriptions of life in Cuba (and post) and people around him are astute and brilliant, I am bothered about his views about sex. I am not bothered about the amount of sex in the book, and there is a lot (and I mean A LOT)  – everyone seems to want to have sex everywhere all the time and with everyone – but it is his affirmation that sex between two men is satisfactory only when one of them is heterosexual and dominates the submissive homesexual – which would probably bother those gay men that I know. Even after more than 5000+ sex partners, he never sees sex as an action between equals but as a space of dominance/submission; and for him love is something separate from sex. But these are his views and do not take away the value of this powerful, shattering testimony of a caged individual and society, and the atrocities that humans easily slip into when inebriated with absolute power and restriction of personal freedoms.  

I would not go as far as describing The Fallen by Carlos Manuel Álvarez (2018) as ambigious or utterly uneventful, but it is not very memorable and somewhat lifeless. It is described to be a meticulous and “unsettling, powerful portrait” of a disintegration of a family in a society that is breaking apart, in a crossroads between idealism of the past and aspirations of younger generations. It reads a bit like a reality show, everything is described in painstaking detail. The writing is without doubt very good, and there are interesting, even stellar, moments– plus, it gets better towards the end of the book. The way the breakdown of a friendship is described between two characters, like a car that continues to coast after the engine is turned off, is very effective. 

The story is told from the point of view of four family members, a very interesting starting point as they reveal the subjectivity of what is true. Sometimes, the parts contradict each other, depending who is talking. That is quite interesting and there are a few intriguing plot spots, but overall after the book I did not really remember in great detail what happened or what it was about. A bit like a disappearing text message. 

Carlos is a journalist and an author and this is his debut book so he is definitely someone with promise. In 2016, he co-founded El esturnudo (aivastus), an online Cuban magazine. He has featured in several ‘best of lists’ such as the 2016 Guadalajara Book Fair list of twenty best Latin American writers born in the 1980s and the 2017 Bogota39 list of best Latin American writers under 40. 

I found La Nada Cotidiana by Zoé Valdés (1995) at the local library, and in the original language. This is a book that many of the Cuban friends or people of Cuban origin, consulted for this stop, recommended. It is the most famous book of Zoé, a vocal critic of the Cuban regime who lives in exile in Paris. I also learned that unfortunately Zoe is also a member of Vox, a repugnant anti-immigrant far-right party in Spain (when, in fact, she herself is an immigrant) as well as a supporter of president Donald Trump of USA – all of which is a surprise to the Cuban friends when I tell them.

The book itself is not what I expected. It is seemingly a semi-autobiographical tale of a woman who feels nothing and everything at the same time. Intended to be sarcastic, dry and nihilistic; that is, supposed to have an intellectual aura – the book comes through as a bland, dull, colourless symphony of complaining.  I read a hilarious review of this book that was one line: “A Cuban woman who likes sex whining about her life.” The social commentary in the end lacks intensity and Zoe writes more passionately about detailed sex sessions with her lover (which probably is based on Zoe’s third husband and she wants the world to know how lucky she is due to the exceptional size of her lover’s penis) than the social reality surrounding the first generation born into the post-revolution Cuba. 

My last book for this stop comes from the most famous contemporary Cuban author, Leonardo Padura. First I start with El hombre que amaba a los perros (The Man Who Loved Dogs, 2009) which is a 700+ page book about the exile and murder of Leon Trotsky. It has universally raved reviews, and 4.7 stars on Good Reads. It has been hailed as a masterpiece and I do believe that it is a great book. I just could not proceed for more than 100 pages because I was not interested enough in the subject matter. Therefore I leave no rating and rest in the belief that it is a great book, just not for me. I decide to read his shorter Havana Blue (1991), the first of the black noir detective series about Police Lieutenant Mario Conde. He is a chain-smoking boozing alcoholic loser who lusts after a childhood crush (with a paperthin personality but whose bum looks so good under her expensive gowns). 

I am quite surprised about how bad this book actually is, especially when it comes from a celebrated author like Leonardo Padura. The intent is to write a ‘Cuban noir’ police novel of the fast and the furious; high level corruption, shady deals, criminal businessmen and beautiful women with tiny waists and big breasts. Filled with sentences such as (my own translation): “He nodded and wanted to smoke. Death always brought on a desire to smoke.” in the same paragraph that Mario Conde has an erection interviewing a woman whose husband has disappeared and later has sex with her (while investigating the disappearance of her husband). Ugh. Nothing happens, the plot is silly and overall the misogyny is so deep that it is infuriating and deeply disappointing. I finished the book because I felt I had to but that was 224 pages too many. 

The Cuban Movie Festival

Cuba has an active movie industry which is mostly overseen by the state-run Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC, Cuban Institute of the Arts and Cinematographic Industries). Cuba has hosted the Havana Film Festival annually since 1979. The industry faces economic challenges, but there is a growing generation of independent filmmakers. I again turned to friends to ask what I should see, and based on their recommendations, I again have been able to identify ten movies and documentaries, not all of them by Cuban filmmakers but all of them about Cuba. 

My favourite Cuban movie of all time is Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, 1993) by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío that I rewatched for this entry. It has been many years since I have seen it and it is not easy to find, but in the end I do. In the 1990s it won several awards and was the first and only Cuban movie to be nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. (It lost to a Russian movie Burnt by the Sun). It is a movie about a friendship between a communist militant student David and an artistic gay man Diego who both profoundly love their city and the country but in different ways. David’s Cuba is welcoming to him as part of the system and Diego’s Cuba is unwelcoming to him as a gay man living under constant vigilance and threat. The political content is not overshadowing, but still everpresent. It also pays homage to Havana and its beauty despite decay. Not much happens in the movie and it is more conversational than plot-thick. It is a beautiful testimony to overcoming differences.

It is not the first Latin American film with LGBTQ themes, but still an important landmark as not only the first Cuban film with a gay character, but for its representation of Diego as an intelligent, sympathetic and warm character with human longing in unrequired love. Interestingly, the US version of the movie had six minutes cut from the movie and those six minutes included a conversation about racism, and David and Diego meeting by accident in a book store and being forced to pretend they do not know each other. At the time, it was explained that cutting those six minutes made the movie more compact for North American audiences. 

Various sources and some friends claim that Memorias del Subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968) is the best Cuban film of all time. It is indeed included on several ‘best of’ lists (144th according to Sight and Sound in 2012). Also directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (like Strawberry and Chocolate), it is a black and white movie about a bourgeois man called Sergio who decides to stay in post-revolution Cuba while his wife and friends leave the country. It has a fragmented timeline which is said to reflect the way memories work. The memories and reflection swing between crude documentary footage of violence and torture (civil wars in both Cuba and Spain), Sergio’s inner monologue on Cuba, life and human nature, and his lusting after women. Sergio spends his days walking around Havana accompanied by nihilistic thoughts about the decay of Cuba and Latin America, and about women and their bodies. “There is a point between 30 and 35 that Cuban women become decomposing fruit” he says at one point before basically stalking a teenager (basically a child) who he coerces into sex and then ghosts. He says of his teenage ‘girlfriend’ that she is incapable of relating to things, which is a sign of underdevelopment. Sergio wants to live like an intellectual European, but Elena, the teenage girl, symbolises the decadent, superficial Cuba that stays underdeveloped. It is an interesting movie, maybe not enjoyable but interesting; a nihilistic reflection on alienation, indifference, deception and a state in which nothing has a meaning. Sergio has no direction or goal in life, except for sex. Sergio’s trial for rape of his 16-year old girlfriend (he is 38) looks very different in 2026 than it would in the 1960s – he does not show any remorse for bedding a teenager based on his understanding that “she wanted it” (and I am not quite sure if she did). Women have no real role here, either, they are objectified as creatures with breasts, irrational, inconsistent and child-like– the deep thoughts and any intellect belong to men in this movie. 

After I read Reinaldo Arenas’ autobiography, I rewatched the movie based on it. This movie belongs to mesmerising and beyond brilliant Javier Bardem, who captures a performance of a lifetime. Directed by Julian Schnabel in 2000, Before Night Falls is not a perfect movie. It is weird that it is filmed in broken English when many of the actors are Spanish speakers and once you read the book, you understand that it is much more light than the reality. It has been explained that it is filmed in English so that it can reach a wider audience, but it does affect its authenticity and alienates it from the impact of Reinaldo’s story. There is a cameo of Johnny Depp in a double role – but he is not very good in either role, and his overacting makes it seem like a joke. The movie is more or less faithful to the book, but takes some liberties and for all that Reinaldo endured in life, it feels a bit of a light take on it. It is an ‘art-house’ movie more than a realistic depiction of the traumas he went through. This is especially clear in the parts involving his incarceration. While Javier is amazing in the role, the movie does not give much emphasis on Reinaldo’s writing, and more to his life as a queer man and his search for pleasure. Even if I enjoyed it, I did find it hollow and shallow compared to the source material, but Javier’s performance is still outstanding. 

It is all about music in Wim Wenders’ documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999) that celebrates Cuban Music and one of its global stars, the musicians that recorded the now famous album. The documentary shows the musicians coming together and playing some great music. There are several interviews, most of them about Ry Cooder. The interviews are somewhat interesting, but it is the music that makes the documentary worthwhile, the celebration of these master musicians and the magic that they create together. 

There are approximately 145 kilometers between Cuba and Key West in Florida; and for decades that distance has been significant for many Cubans, for many reasons. Balseros is an award winning 2002 documentary by Catalan directors Carles Bosch and Josep Mª Domènech about the time when more than 35,000 people left Cuba on precarious makeshift boats towards Florida, as the result of the economic crisis of 1994. The document follows seven families over seven years, both in Cuba and in the US. The first hour of the documentary happens in Cuba and follows the construction of the rafts and people who dream to leave and how much they are willing to sacrifice. One man tells how they had to destroy his cousin’s house to build a raft and a few women tell how they need to sell their bodies to tourists they do not like to make enough money for building materials or hiring a truck to move their raft to the shore. In the documentary someone says: “No one knows how many people left Cuba; how many succeeded and how many failed.” Many, many did not make it anywhere, and due to the Clinton administration policy of ceasing the automatic asylum, many were captured by the US Coast Guard and detained in Guantanamo, the US naval base in Cuba. The second half is about those that made it in Florida and what became of their life. Life in the US is harder than expected and some have success, others don’t. There are people left behind in Cuba with uncertain futures, economic and cultural struggles and different paths. It is a captivating documentary of the chase of personal freedom that easily converts into a deep deception, even tragedy. 

Habana Blues (2005) by Benito Zambrano is a movie about Cuban music with a bit of a cliched plot. It is basically a story of two musician friends dreaming to make it big and leave Cuba for a better life. One has a more moral bone and lives with his grandmother, while the other is a womanizer with a neglected wife and children. A Spanish music producer offers them a contract and then both are faced with decisions about life. It is very cliche with some character arcs and uneven acting but the music is fantastic – and there is a lot of it. That is when the movie lights up, together with the performance of Yailene Sierra who plays the neglected wife coming to terms with her own future. Benito, the director, is a Spaniard who studied film in Cuba. The soundtrack of the movie is credited to Habana Blue Band. but it is a fictional band and the music was produced for the movie, blending traditional Cuban sounds with pop and rock. 

Another ‘best of’ Cuban movie is a 2003 documentary Suite Habana by Fernando Pérez that won several domestic and international awards. It has no dialogue and only a few spoken words here and there. Filmed like a movie, it is a lyrical and melancholic testimony of a day in Havana from morning until night, and more specifically offering glimpses into the life of 12 different people, marked by prolonged economic crises. It is about these people and their lives in decaying apartments and flooded ground floors, hard work and long hours but above all it is about la Habana/Havana and its energy and rhythm. Havana is distinguishingly herself and the filmography gives justice to her decaying beauty. The people in the movie are very normal, everyday people; a 40-year old railroad worker, a 79-year old grandmother who sells peanuts on the street for a living; a 30-year old living with his mother in a flat that gets flooded when it rains, a 10-year old boy with a down syndrome learning numbers and how to ride a bike. It is a privileged window into these people’s lives and their Havana. That life is after all the same everywhere; people wake up in the morning and have their showers / baths / breakfasts and go to work / school. It is everyday life, a reality documentary of people just living– sometimes their paths crossing and sometimes not. It is still and calm, and poetic and even if it is filmed in Havana it does not sensationalise with the clearly apparent shortages of electricity and some other commodities. It is an urban poem portrait of la Habana with all its glory and downfalls. 

Conducta (Behaviour, 2014) by Ernesto Daranas is another movie that tops critic lists and has been said to have ‘marked a whole generation’ in Cuba. It became a huge critical and commercial success in Cuba. The set-up is not very different from a lot of other movies; a good and caring teacher takes interest in children living in challenging home environments, makes a difference but faces unforgiving institutional response. In this movie it is a troubled adolescent Chala who lives with his alcoholic mother and trains fight dogs for a living. It is not very different from other movies in this genre, such as the extraordinary Radical (2023) from Mexico. What is different in this movie of course is that it is filmed in Havana and can be seen as a critical view of Cuban society at the time, and the rigid educational systems. There are first loves, rivalry between boys, a bit of violence and poverty, coming of age. But a teacher that cares; a story then feels familiar and not surprising. The locations are beautifully filmed and there are many aerial shots. Acting is quite solid overall- like in many of these movies the child actors are amateurs and in their first film roles. The main actor Armando Valdés Freire was selected among over 7000 candidates for the role. Interestingly, most of the actors of the movie later emigrated to the United States, or Spain, and only a few stayed in Cuba. 

Another movie from Fernando Pérez (Suite Habana) is Madagascar (1994/1995) that depicts the psychological impact of the economic crises of the 1990s in Cuba (again, in Havana). Focusing on a difficult relationship between a mother and her daughter, it shows a university professor living a very uneventful life with her elderly mother and her apathetic daughter obsessed with leaving Cuba and going to Madagascar. It is said to be an introspective and symbolic movie about the social change in Cuba, but I see it as a mother witnessing the mental breakdown of her child, and herself. It is more a portrait of depression and mental illness and a mundane life without any real meaning or purpose. Some parts of the story are dreamworld and some are reality, and it is not always clear which is which. It is a beautifully filmed and quite a short movie that I cannot fully connect with it. 

Cuba and the Cameraman is a Netflix documentary from 2017 that covers nearly five decades of visiting and filming in Cuba of North American journalist Jon Alpert. Not only has he been visiting and interviewing three different Cuban families, but he also had almost unprecedented access to Fidel Castro whom he followed on Castro’s first US visit. It is quite an astonishing achievement, 45 years of filming people, forging relationships that remain strong throughout the years. It makes the documentary very human. Jon connects with all these people and through them demonstrates the life of ordinary Cubans and the struggles they have in their daily life. The shortages of everything from food to medicine, and the different life stories of all the people that he keeps on visiting. It is very personal and deeply human, and also an outstanding testimony of the changes in Cuba during the five decades, from the 1970s to the death of Fidel Castro in 2016. 

Once I have finished the ten movies and documentaries for this stop, I hear that the Netflix The Cuba Libre Story documentary series is a very comprehensive take on recent Cuban history – or not that recent; the last 500 years of Cuban history. The eight episodes cover everything from pre-Columbian times (briefly) to Spanish colonisation, massacre of Indigenous inhabitants, slavery, the monoculture, US dominance, the revolution, Fidel Castro and his people, and recent history. The series contains interviews with more than 50 people from Fidel Castro’s inner circle to historians, politicians, pro- and anti-revolutionists, etc. It is interesting and I find the early episodes especially compelling. What bothers me about the series is the lack of Latin American voices. There are quite a few Cubans who were interviewed; especially those with personal experience, but a big portion of Cuban history is told through German, Spanish, Catalan, French, Russian and US historians, expats and others that have been considered experts. Nothing wrong with the diversity of voices, but there is a lack of Latin American scholars. There are prominent Latin American and Caribbean historians, political scientists, economists, urbanists etc. that could have been interviewed for this. 

Music

One could talk hours about the music from Cuba and still not give it justice. Cuban music is a blend of different influences; West African (especially Kongo and Yoruba cultures) and European (mainly Spanish). To simplify, it could be said that African slaves brought the rhythm (percussion) and the Spanish brought the melody (guitar). But nothing is straightforward in music as in culture, and music evolves through time and space. Cuban music has also been influenced by other musical forms including jazz and the French-influenced music from Haiti. There is so much to say about Cuban music, but Buena Vista Social Club is a good place to start. 

(Thank you to L for proofreading!)

Next stop: Cyprus

Croatia has over 1,200 islands, many historic cities and a long Mediterranean coastline. It has become a buzzing tourist destination in the decades, which has brought its own problems, like in any other mass tourism sites. 

Before Virtual Nomad took a long hiatus, we had the chance to celebrate a stop in Croatia which was not only immensely satisfying but also welcomed some very dear people to the Virtual Nomad community. I am blessed by several Croatian friends, some of whom live within a radius of 100 km from where I am and others who live in Croatia. So thank you beautiful friends MMP and AV in Sydney and AU in Zagreb for the company and the correspondence. 

But first, as always, food. 

A Croatian celebration

The celebration of Croatian cuisine happened in two parts; one was a joyful group lunch at the Croatian Club in Concord in Western Sydney, and the other, another lovely lunch of four at Croatian/Balkan restaurant The Balkan Butler in Surry Hills, central Sydney. Both were attended by my beautiful friend MMP who is of Croatian and Italian origin (and travels to Croatia every year) making this her first Virtual Nomad event (she did attend Côte d’Ivoire which came after Croatia but that is a minor detail). Also attending both was my beautiful friend L* who joined Virtual Nomad for the African Afternoon (but advised us regarding the Cambodia stop where her family is originally from). I cherish having both of them in my life.

But now to food.

The Croatian Club Lunch

We made our way to the Croatian club Sydney in Concord. Present are, as mentioned, MMP and her partner A* for their first ever Virtual Nomad stop, my dear friend L* and her daughter S* (seasoned Virtual Nomads), my partner JK, my son A (then 11) with his good friend and my daughter L (then 18) with four friends. It is a lunch of very interesting conversations, great food and country trivia by MMP. MMP is our resident Croatian and she guides us with food. She quizzed the young adults about Croatian facts and the winners, L (18) and A(12) won a prize. Overall we are 13 Virtual Nomads around the Croatian cuisine table for a wonderful, special night of food, culture and friendship. 

The Croatian Club states that its vision is “Bringing the community together and celebrating our history, ensuring the community grows stronger with each generation.” They “share the best of Australian-Croatian culture and create a welcoming space, where our culture can be experienced and celebrated, where families feel welcome.” And we did tremendously, once we all got in… as it is affiliated with a local RSL club, it is necessary to sign in, and there were a few struggles here. But once we do, the two young boys and the young adults enjoy chatting together at one end of the table, and that leaves my partner JK, beautiful friend MMP (of Croatian origin), her wonderful partner A*, my dear friend L* and me to chat and eat through the Croatian menu. 

As a starter, we get Lepinja, wood fired flatbread with roasted garlic butter and herbs. They are accompanied by potato wedges and Blitva, a must in Croatian cuisine. Blitva is a traditional Croatian dish made of Swiss chard (whose local name is Blitva) and potatoes, abundant olive oil and plenty of garlic. Blitva is served with most meat and fish-based dishes. Blitva is often prepared na lešo which means that it is boiled in water or broth and then seasoned with olive oil and spices. Blitva even has its own festival in Croatia, a Blitvijada that is held in Podgora usually in October. Blitva is so common in the Croatian kitchen that people from the Dalmatian region are sometimes nicknamed as Blitvari. The Blitva and the bread with butter we have are delicious albeit heavy for starters – and it is easy to eat too much and leave less space for the main dishes!

MMP orders two different types of squid (lignje); one is grilled whole squid with mashed potato, garlic, parsley and olive oil dressing, and the other is grilled squid with greens and white balsamic. As a vegetarian I do not get to taste it, but I admire the beautiful presentation. Those of the group that love grilled (and boiled) squid, including my children, are thrilled with both versions, and the one with potato mash seems to get slightly higher points. Lignje is a coastal delight, especially in Dalmatia, and grilled squid (lignje na žaru) is probably the most common form of its preparation. MMP tells us that fresh squid is served in coastal travels (konobas). What I hear from fellow Virtual Nomads is that the squid/lignje blends perfectly with Blitva. The secret to a perfectly tender lignje is to prepare it on a wood-fired grill with a rack over the fire. 

For the meat eaters, we have Čevapčiči (pork and beef sausages), served with ajvar, grilled onions and white cabbage salad. They are usually made from minced meat (beef, lamb or pork) and grilled skinless over fire. They are small sausages that are mainly hand-mixed and said to be introduced to the Balkans during the Ottoman period. Čevapčiči are served with ajvar, a roasted capsicum and eggplant sauce. Ajvar has been called “vegetarian caviar” and it has a lovely, slightly smoky flavour. It is a common feature of Croatian cuisine and very popular also in other Balkan countries. It is typically prepared in autumn. The other dish is pileća šnicla, or chicken schnitzel. MMP tells us that this is a very common dish in Croatia served with white cabbage salad. The secret of the chicken schnitzel is to pound it thin, dip in breadcrumbs with eggs and serve it fried. At the Croatian club, the dish also comes with aioli and fries. MMP tells us that this would also be a typical dish on kids’ menus. 

Seafood is an important part of the Croatian kitchen, and common oily fish dishes are prepared with sardines, anchovy, bonito, tuna and mackerel. For our Croatian celebration, we get a full snapper prepared in the Croatian way, accompanied with spinach, potatoes confit garlic and olive oil dressing. Fish is particularly important in the diet along the coast (Dalmatia, Istria and Kverner) and it is indeed along the coast where oily fish is a cornerstone of the cuisine. In inland regions, some dishes include freshwater fish. When asked about the ways to prepare fish, MMP says that the goal is to highlight the natural flavor of the fish through grilling over a charcoal fire (with garlic, parsley and olive oil) or in slow-cooked stews. Later I read that Croatians consume roughly 20.8kg of seafood per capita in a year. 

A wonderful and exotic side dish is Crispy cauliflower bites served with sriracha, tzatziki, chermoula dressing, coriander, and fresh chilli. The one on the right looks like a dessert but it is actually a salad with Heirloom tomatoes, nectarine, Vanella burrata, and oregano.

The Balkan Butler 

The second Croatian outing is a lunch of four women: MMP, L*, myself and also AV, an academic of Croatian origin whom I have known for a long time. MMP and AV both speak Croatian so they exchange a few sentences. We meet for lunch at the Balkan Butler, a Balkan restaurant at the heart of Surry Hills near Central Station. MMP and I have had lunch at this restaurant before and as a Croatian, MMP assures that the food and atmosphere are authentic Balkan. The restaurant is run by a mother-son duo. It is indeed a very cosy, lovely restaurant with high quality food.

For food, AV, a Professor of Law of Croatian origin (whom I have known for many years), orders The Butler’s chicken schnitzel (which in Croatian is pileća šnicla, as we learned at the Croatian club). It is accompanied with salad (with a touch of feta), potatoes and spicy sauce. L* instead has a piece of handmade Burek which is filled with cheese and spinach, and served with a Balkan salad. Burek is a staple of Balkan cuisine and typical in the diet across the region. On the Virtual Nomad journey, we have already tasted some Burek in both our Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina stops. Both meals looks beautiful and tasty, and both AV and L* are very happy with their choices. MMP is not super hungry and decides to have a glass of Rakija which is considered the national drink of Croatia. Rakija is a strong fruit brandy that is prepared from grapes, plums or pears and often infused with herbs or honey. Rakija can be homemade but in our case it comes from an imported bottle.

I get an absolutely delightful eggplant dish in tomato-based sauce, feta cheese and warm bread. It is not on the menu, but the wonderful staff at the restaurant hear my vegetarian struggles and I receive this wonderful dish in a super hot clay pot. It is not only beautiful to look at but also absolutely delicious. 

Hrvatska 

Croatia is famous for its gorgeous coastline and crystal waters. It is a land inhabited since the paleolitic times. Once a home to Illyrian tribes, it was conquered by the Romans who named it Dalmatia and Pannonia. The Croats arrived in the 6th/7th century as part of the Slavic settlement and Croatia’s first international recognition as independent came in 879 under the reign of Duke Branimir. King Tomislav formed a Kingdom in 925 that allied with the Byzantines (against a common enemy, the Bulgarians). The Kingdom lasted until 1102, when it formed a personal union with Hungary while Dalmatia became dominated by Venetians during the following centuries. The Ottomans crushed Hungary in 1526 and Croatia quickly chose Ferdinand 1 of Austria as its ruler based on the condition that he would protect Croatia against the Ottomans while respecting the political rights of Croatia. The outcome of the Great Turkish War (1683-1698) established the present-day border between Croatia and its neighbour, Bosnia. 

The romantic nationalistic Illyrian movement (approximately from 1835 to 1863) gathered Croatian intellectuals around the idea of uniting South Slavs through language and culture, and fantasized about a free South-Slav state. During the Hungarian Revolution (1849), Croatia backed Austria. The 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise resulted in Croatia being left to Hungary, and the Croatian-Hungarian Settlement of 1868 united the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia. 

In October 1918, after the defeat of Austria in World War I, Croatia declared independence and joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes which later became Yugoslavia. During World War II, the Axis alliance invaded Croatia, establishing a puppet state called the Independent State of Croatia led by the ultranationalist Ustaše (Croatian Revolutionary Movement) that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croats in concentration camps. The estimated number of victims of this genocide and the Serbian counteracts is around 350 000 to 450 000 people. The resistance movement was led by a man called Josip Broz Tito who, after the war, served first as the Prime Minister and then President of the boiling kettle of hate that became the Socialist Republic of Croatia. He kept the country together, but after his death in 1980 the cracks split wide open. Croatia declared independence in 1991, which was followed by the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995). The war ended with a Croatian victory and around 20,000 people dead and 300,000 displaced. Croatia became a member of the European Union in 2013. Hrvatska is the native name of Croatia. 

Four books from and about Croatia 

So, another treat for me. I have these beautiful Croatian friends in Sydney (MMP and AV) but also a great Croatian friend AU in Zagreb whom I think I have known for more than twenty years. It is then an absolute luxury for me to turn to these women and ask for book and movie recommendations. In the end, I read four books from and about Croatia from a variety of authors; Sara Nović who is most famous for her books about the challenges of deaf people and immigrants; journalist Slavenka Drakulić who has written non-fiction books about her observations of post-communism Eastern Europe; US-born immigrant Cody Mcclain Brown who started to write his experiences of Croatian culture and comparisons with the US in a blog, and finally the almost lyrical Tatjana Gromača who is one of the leading contemporary poets in Croatia (I read a poetic fiction book from her) and whose book hit me hardest and deepest of the four. 

My first read for this stop comes from Sara Nović, an American-Croatian author who lost her hearing in middle school. Sara has won many literature awards and some of her later books which deal with deafness from different aspects have been bestsellers (including True Biz and Mother Tongue). She also has published America is Immigrants which features stories of prominent immigrants from every country. Girl At War (2015) is her debut novel, a story about the Croatian Independence War from the perspective of a 10-year-old Ana and then a 20-year-old Ana when she returns to Croatia from her exile. 

There are many interesting elements in this book and Sara is indeed a very gifted writer. I think my main problem comes from my experience with Virtual Nomad in having read so many books which follow personal experience of living in the midst of armed conflicts. For me, a fictional book without the same autobiographical features can never really reach that level of depth, despite visible talent. This is an interesting book with too many open ends. Too much is left to the reader to decide what happens next or what some of the events mean. It is not a consistent book, its depth is underdeveloped and I wish there was more of a resolution. Nevertheless, there are elements to the book that carry the story forward and keep the reader intrigued: the relationship between Ana and her childhood friend; reflecting the life of those who left and those who were left behind. 

“Is anyone today able to say where Europe, and all that it stands for, begins, and where it ends?” 

Café Europa (1996) by Vienna-based Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulić is a collection of essays and reflections on different Eastern European countries right after the fall of communism while adjusting to the new way of life. This book is a follow-up to her first collection of essays How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (1992). Slavenka has a Swedish husband who in the 1990s Europe enjoys a much stronger privilege than Slavenka and a good part of the book is dedicated to complaining how hard it was for her to cross borders at the time. The start of the book is very interesting as she ponders the difference of “I” and “we” when you come from a context of communism based on a collective “we”. In the essays there is a strong focus on the effects of Western consumerism and the replacement of Eastern European characteristics with European brands and artifacts (hence the name which refers to several Western style cafes being opened around Eastern Europe, at the time). Written thirty years ago, some parts feel outdated, and as a whole, the book is a bit monotone and repetitive. There are certainly several parts that are interesting but overall it has a preachy tone that becomes fairly tiring. I was expecting something a bit sharper and analytical, and was surprised how bland this book was in the end. The Croatia of today is of course very different from the one described in this book, but I was intrigued about the introspection about living in a changing environment– the impact of the changed political system, the aftermath of the war and the opening towards Europe. I was disappointed of not finding that in a deeper compelling way in this book. 

In this autobiographical book from 2014, Cody Mcclain Brown is a US American from Oklahoma who falls in love with a Croatian girl who is enigmatic and seems not interested in him at all. Skip a few and they get married, and he finds himself visiting/living in Croatia. The setting is to compare American and Croatian cultures in a self-deprecating way while being funny and goofy at the same time. The Croatian wife is a goddess and the American boyfriend is silly. Jokes don’t always land  and writing is mostly at high school level, at least for about half of the book. The lack of historical and political research is astonishing, and the observations are sometimes so banal that the whole book is a bit flat. “Oh really, no Starbucks in Split” or (direct quote): ”On moving to Split and to Croatia for good, I still believed life in Croatia would be something like the Bourne Identity. Guess what? Life in Croatia is NOTHING like the Bourne Identity.”. The book does not really offer a deeper understanding of the Croatian culture other than the Croats drink a lot of coffee, use slippers inside, stand in line a lot and that it is customary to give presents – and they live in much smaller spaces and closer to each other than Americans do. Some of the writing is IN ALL CAPS and it is THIS AMERICAN IDIOT (L proofreading sidenote: incidentally, completely unrelatedly, my favourite album ever) visiting Europe BEING REALLY F-U-N-N-Y. There are some more serious, slightly deeper reflections and for those the book is more interesting. Cody’s thoughts about friendship and personal space show some analytical and deeper thinking but even that is short-lived. The book does get better towards the end when Cody tries less hard to be funny and actually talks seriously, for example when it comes to reflecting on the presence of violence in daily life in Croatia and in the US. 

But there are glimpses of familiarity that every person who has moved from their motherland to another country recognises, and these recognitions come towards the very end of the book. Simple truths such as “And when you live abroad, you forget that time doesn’t stop with your absence. It keeps marching on while your version of home is constructed, not by the world you encounter daily, but instead it is built by the residue of nostalgia. No longer made up of the physical facts on the ground, but by the motions and impressions of memory. You can never go home, because that home no longer exists, except in your heart and head.” And for that Cody, I will give the book three stars from the initial one/two that I thought at the beginning. That is the type of writing that makes sense! Not the cheap cheesy attempts of jokes in capital letters. 

“There were many such people who deep inside wished to be free and authentic but believed it was not yet totally and completely possible, or who believed it was simply necessary to adapt to the lack of freedom and authenticity in order to remain on the surface and so as not to be swept under the rug.” 

My last book for this stop comes from Tatjana Gromača and has been described as “A minimalist, symbolic novel about family and belonging in a fractured society… gripping.” That is all true. It is a minimalistic book simultaneously about the breaking of a society, and the breaking of a person. In the book, ‘Mother’ slowly loses herself to a mental illness, while the country around the family breaks and slides into a violent chaos of nationalism and the Balkan war in the early 90s. ‘Mother’ is of Serbian origin and suddenly finds herself in an environment of hostility and unexcused racism. The changes are first subtle and then more clear. Neighbours turn against each other, society crumbles and Mother’s bipolar state becomes more unstable every day. Gender roles crumble as Father learns to cook and then atrocities start to happen. Mother is untouched as her highs keep her disattached from reality. 

Tatjana is a journalist but also one of the most important contemporary poets in Croatia. Her poetry pours into the narrative and gives it a haunting nature. “Father had a problem with acceptance, and Mother with recognition.” she says when talking about the traditional gender roles and their weight on people. Mother and Father are never mentioned by name and Mother’s illness, rooted in a childhood trauma, is narrated by her eldest daughter in a deeply understanding way but also quite clinically, the same way as some of the atrocities are described, as simple facts. 

“But that was long ago, before anyone’s tea has been laced with the toxic serum of hatred. The hatred spread much later, when a very well-preserved illusion shattered. And then all hell broke loose, with all of its rings of evil. Some became killers; others were killed. Some survived to carry a fear inside them as great as the eye of a dead, rigid elephant.”

The Croatian Movie Festival 

My brilliant friend AU in Croatia comes up with an impeccable list of Croatian must see-movies and the reasons behind why I should watch them. I proceed to watch everything she has recommended (except two that I do not find access to), and I also get her permission to include in my descriptions the reasons she wrote about why these movies are important. AU is a media researcher herself, absolutely brilliant and good fun, and it is easy to follow her suggestions. 

One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away (Tko pjeva zlo ne misli, 1970) by director Krešo Golik is culturally important to Croatian cinema. My friend AU says” often considered the most beloved Croatian film of all time, this musical comedy-drama is a cultural cornerstone. Set in 1930s Zagreb, it portrays a middle-class family life, romance, jealousy and social rituals through humor and unforgettable songs.” AU also says that “this film is deeply embedded in Croatian cultural memory – quotes, music and characters are widely known.”. 

With this in mind, I set up to watch it. It is indeed one of those endearing old movies that is nostalgic of the past, and very true to the European filmmaking fashion. The movie is filled with warm light, colourful characters and a lot of music. I understand that all the songs, generously placed around the plot, carry the story forward. It is a lovely film, but also has at its core a story of a man who constantly undermines and verbally abuses his wife. The wife has a life half lived and unspoken desires within her, and when a handsome and artistic stranger appears, there is some excitement in her life. Music and longing are intertwined, and counterweight the insults that are generously thrown around. It is not that the movie is trying to justify the behaviour of the husband and shows him to be a repugnant bully that he is. It is a pastel coloured lovely little film that quite boldly shows the longing of a middle aged housewife for a more sensual and exciting/artistic life; and neither she or the object of her desire are shown as villains, but people bound to the circumstances they live in.  

A Wonderful Night in Split (Ta divna splitska noć, 2004) by Arsen Anton Ostojić is then a very different movie from the pastel-coloured previous movie. This is film neo-noir from the 2000s, shot in black and white and portrays a very different Croatia. My friend AU says about the film: “It is an atmospheric ensemble film following three intertwined stories during New Year’s Eve in Split, Croatia’s largest coastal city. Darker in tone, it captures loneliness, desire and moral ambiguity against the backdrop of celebration. A strong portrait of post-transition urban Croatia and one of the most respected Croatian films of the 2000s.” Split is famous for its beauty and charm, but in this film, it is not a pretty town. Three somewhat intertwined stories tell of human desperation and isolation; drug addicts; prostituting teenagers; masochist widows; horny young people on drugs; the underbelly society of a coastal town. Placed in post-war (deliberately referenced only through photographs of fallen soldiers), it avoids over sentimentalism even if the deep hopelessness is sometimes quite very deep. Nothing is pretty or consoling in this dark tale and it is as lightless as its photography. It is quite captivating but hopeless to the core.

My friend AU says of the movie What Is a Man Without a Moustache? (Što je muškarac bez brkova?, 2005) by Hrvoje Hribar that it is a “A warm, humorous romantic drama set in a small Dalmatian village. A young widow falls in love with a Catholic priest, creating both comic and emotional tension in a conservative community. And it matters because it combines humor with social critique and gives insight into rural life, religion and post-war social dynamics.” 

It is an interesting movie with sweet funny parts. It has beautiful cinematography and it showcases the scenery and traditions of a small rural village. Some of the themes are common movie dilemmas; the tension between modernity (urban) and tradition (rural); and love and duty, the narrow gender roles. The moustache refers to a traditional feature of a masculine (real) man and how the gender roles are marked. Tatjana, the widow, is not radical in any means, but is still a modern woman of independence and education. It is a light-hearted and pleasant feel-good movie with a happy ending. 

To watch Safe Place (Sigurno mjesto, 2022) by Juraj Lerotić is quite an experience when you know that the director plays one of the lead roles as a man trying to save his brother from suicide. My friend AU says about the film: “A minimalist, deeply personal contemporary drama following a family over one day as they try to support a young man after a suicide attempt. One of the most internationally acclaimed Croatian films of recent years; intimate, restrained and emotionally powerful.” Juraj wrote the film after a year of losing his real-life brother to a suicide, and that intimate suffering of seeing your loved one struggle pours into this movie. It is a beautiful portrayal of the weight mental illness puts on family members that do everything they can to help, out of love and out of duty. It is an understated, amazing, deeply personal and touching tribute to the suffering of family members who dedicate their whole energy to keeping their loved ones on their feet when even that might not be enough. It is quite remarkable, heartbreaking and very real. The international acclaim it has attracted is very deserved. 

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Čovjek koji nije mogao šutjeti, 2023) is a 14 minute short film by Nebojša Slijepčević. It is inspired by a real life heroic act by retired Yugoslav People’s Army officer Tomo Buzov in 1993. The train he was travelling in was stopped by Serbian paramilitary forces looking for Bosniaks. He stood up and spoke against injustice defending a young Bosniak man and lost his life as a prize for his moral courage. My friend AU says about it: “A powerful short film based on a true event during the 1990s war. On a train stopped by paramilitaries, one man refuses to stay silent while others choose safety through compliance. It matters because it is a stark moral story about courage, fear, and individual responsibility. Internationally acclaimed and widely discussed.” It is a powerful testimony and incredibly effective in its stillness, and worthy of all the international awards and nominations it has received. 

Surogat (Ersatz, 1961) was the first non-US animated film to win an Oscar. Made by the Zagreb School of Animation and directed by Dušan Vukotić. My friend AU says of it that it is: “a sharp, minimalist animated short about consumerism, artificiality, and modern life. Famous for its clean design and irony.” It has been said to have inspired a cartoon moment in the Simpsons. It definitely reflects artificiality and modern life (everything is artificial and created, even the feelings), but from a contemporary point of view, I see it mostly to depict violence against women. The main character creates a blow up woman with big breasts for his own pleasure, tries to jump her against her will and does not accept when she chooses another man – and he goes and basically kills her. I am surprised (or not) that this aspect is not more widely discussed in the analysis and reviews of this animated short film. This brings to the film a much darker tone that is uncomfortable even if a satiric take on modern life. Also, the man rejects the first woman he creates (because she is ‘ugly’) and then creates the second woman who insistently says no but the man presses anyway and then a ‘love’ is born for a moment until the woman sees a more attractive man and goes with him, and the first man believes the woman belongs to him and goes and kills her. But in the end it was all artificial and not real – even if the man takes the dead woman’s ‘body’ with him before he also vanishes. 

Professor Balthazar was a long-living TV animated series (1967–1978) created by Zagreb Film. My friend AU says that it is a “gentle, wordless animated series following an eccentric professor who solves problems using imagination, empathy, and science rather than force.” and it matters as “An iconic children’s series across Europe and beyond. Universally understandable, humanistic, and deeply tied to the Zagreb School of Animation.” It shows Professor Balthazar solving a problem in each episode through inventions, science and pacific actions. There is no violence in the series. There are several episodes available on youtube and the 59-episode series was broadcasted in several Asian and European countries at the time. 

Unfortunately two titles on my friend AU’s list are not available on streaming platforms or any other form for me to see, and therefore need to be placed on my ever growing Virtual Nomad watchlist. These are Dražen (2024) by director Danilo Šerbedžija that AU says is: “a biographical film about Dražen Petrović, one of the greatest European basketball players of all time and a national icon in Croatia. The film traces his rise from Šibenik to international stardom. It matters because sports, ambition and national identity intersect in a story widely resonant beyond Croatia.” The other is a 6-episode mini TV series The Last Socialist Artefact (Područje bez signala,2021–2022) that is based on the novel by Robert Perišić. AU says that:” Set in a remote, economically struggling town, the series follows an attempt to revive a failed factory, revealing community tensions, hopes and disillusionment. It is a sharp, contemporary look at post-industrial Croatia and collective survival. Though a series, it functions well as long-form storytelling for cultural immersion.” 

Eurovision success and vanguard of the naïve art 

We got a glimpse of Croatian traditional music with the first movie for this stop. As for more contemporary music, Croatia does not have many globally known artists and some of the most known ones owe their fame to Eurovision. One of them is Severina Vučković who is the only Croatian artist with over one billion views on Youtube. She has had a very colourful private life and her music has been described as pop-folk. Another successful artist is Grše (Grgo Šipek) who has had much success in recent years and holds the record number of weeks at number one.

I turn to my friend MMP who herself is a musician and of Croatian origin. She recommends Dubioza Collective, who are actually Bosnian. They are a Bosnian avant-garde dub rock band that mixes different styles and genres in their music accompanied with social and political lyrics in several languages. 

MMP also recommends art from several artists, one is Ivan Generalić (1914-1992), a self-taught artist famous for his naïve art. From Hlebine in Croatia, Ivan dropped out of school at an early age and learned through experimentation. His art is a vivid testimony of rural life and its natural and human landscape, and also magical realist in its style. His art has vivid, vibrant colours, and it is described as expressive and emotional. He is considered as one of the most important naïve artists in the world. 

(Ivan Generalić)

Ivan Rabuzin (1921 – 2008) is another of MMP’s favourites, and again it is easy to see why. He is another naïve artist, also self-taught. Son of a miner and the sixth of eleven children. 

(Ivan Rabuzin)

MMP also mentions an experimental artist Tomislav Gotomac (1937-2010) that the Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej describes as “not only a charismatic and exuberant person with an uninhibited lifestyle, creator of films, performances, photographs and collages but also somebody who designed a whole complex world for himself.”

Next stop: Cuba

Thank you wonderful L for your proofreading! (L note: My pleasure! It means I can procrastinate Chemistry study and still feel useful…)

Before my daughter L (then 18) left for her long world travel, we had the opportunity to celebrate Costa Rica and (partly) Croatia before her departure. Virtual Nomad then took a long break due to different life events. It was also a good time to wait for L to return from her real travels, so that we could return to the virtual ones. The Virtual Nomad stop for Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) happened months after Croatia… but that is a minor detail. 

Côte d’Ivoire is the largest producer of cocoa in the world, producing around 40-50% of the global cocoa supply. Cocoa is used for making yummy chocolate, but there is a very dark side to its production – modern slavery which often involves child labour and severe deforestation. That should give us reason to consume ethically produced chocolate (such as Tony’s chocolonely – 100% slave-free cocoa).

Côte d’Ivoire is a nation of the young, as 75% of the population is under 35 years old. Côte d’Ivoire has two capital cities, Yamoussoukro, the political capital, and Abidjan, which serves as the economic capital (and is also the largest city). Its flag has the same colours as Ireland, but in a different order, orange symbolising national growth; white purity and unity and green hope for the future. 

But first, as always, food.

The closest cuisine we could find

Once upon a time there was a well reviewed restaurant in Sydney that served food from Côte d’Ivoire, but it has now permanently closed. I then did some research to find the closest possible option and every search led to the same result, a Fusion West Africa/Ghanaian restaurant The Ghardens in Blacktown, Western Sydney. It is a wonderful, friendly restaurant with superb cuisine at the very heart of Blacktown. While it meant quite a trip for the group, it was worth the travel time as a wonderful find that we otherwise would never have found– if not for Virtual Nomad. 

This outing was planned to be a women’s dinner as a homage to the strong West African women that all of us hold dear in our lives. The planned ten attendees decreased to six on the day, but it did not take away any of the charm of the wonderful night. Present were wonderful friends; my Australian friend L*, whose family is of Cambodian origin, my other Australian friend MMP of Croatian background, my American friend AR whose family background is mixed US-Filipino, my daughter L who is also of mixed cultural background and her new international student friend DL and myself, an immigrant to Australia. It was a lovely night with great conversation, and also music of Alpha Blondy that MMP (who herself is a musician) is familiar with. One really learns to cherish nights like this – sharing a meal with people who are interesting, intellectually curious, multilayered, warm and emotional. We did not have a pure Côte d’Ivoire night in the strictest sense as the food was more Ghanaian than Ivorian, but this was the closest we could get in a multicultural city of Sydney where finding a restaurant from Côte d’Ivoire resulted to be an impossible task. 

The food itself: 

Our party has two vegetarians, so for starters the meat eaters get The Ghardens “Kele-Turkey” which means spiced ripe plantain with turkey. This is not a typical Côte d’Ivoire dish but mainly consumed in Ghana. “Kele” is a typical Ghanaian street food made of deep fried plantains seasoned with spices (primarily ginger, cayenne, pepper and salt), and then combined with turkey. Deep fried plantains are also consumed in  Côte d’Ivoire (known as aloco) even if not particularly in this form. Turkey is a common dish in Côte d’Ivoire and as in Ghana, also a typical street food and often served with fermented cassava pulp. So while we are not trying to sell this dish as from Côte d’Ivoire, there is a West African connection between the neighbouring countries and their cuisines.  

Another starter that we have is Kosua Ne Moko which is another Ghanaian dish not typically consumed in Côte d’Ivoire. The dish is very spicy (poor L took a mouthful and spicy food is not her forte) – boiled egg with red hot chilli sauce. It literally translates into “eggs and pepper” in the Twi language (spoken in Southern and Central Ghana but also to some extent in Côte d’Ivoire). This is a dish served with tomatoes, red onion and spicy pepper. It is very spicy and its spiciness does bury some of the other taste underneath. When I read about this dish later, I found out that in Ghana there have been some health concerns about its very high salt and flavor enhancer content, but that it is still a very popular Ghanaian snack. We order three for the six of us which gives one half for each, and that is quite plenty. We do have different degrees of tolerance for spiciness in our group so some of us are less affected than others. Nevertheless, it still is a great starter for a great meal with its impactful taste. 

L is very intrigued by a dish called Fried yam with giblets / turkey. This is a dish that is popular in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Fried yam in Côte d’Ivoire is a very popular dish and, as in this case, paired often with grilled giblets. Yam is sometimes compared to sweet potatoes but they are different, unrelated vegetables. Sweet potatoes originate from South America and are sweeter and more nutritious than yam due to lower calorie count and higher vitamin A content. Yams have higher calorie count and native to Africa and Asia. They can also be distinguished by the colour; sweet potatoes are orange or white, while yams are white or yellow inside and starchier to eat. Yams take longer to prepare as they must be cooked thoroughly to remove all the toxins. In Côte d’Ivoire yam is often prepared as in this dish; peeled, sliced and deep-fried. They do provide an excellent accompaniment to tastier dishes but on their own are quite starchy and quite dry. Giblets refers to the edible organs of poultry, often chicken or as in this case, turkey. They are a popular and typical component of Côte d’Ivoire cuisine. In Côte d’Ivoire the giblets are often prepared as Choukouya, grilled and marinated in a spicy onion and tomato sauce and served with plantains. 

The Chicken combo comes with jollof rice (tomato rice) and salad. Jollof rice is a staple component of West African cuisine and typical across the region, especially prominent in Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal (where it is said to come from), Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cameroon. In Côte d’Ivoire, jollof rice is often referred to locally as riz gras (fatty rice) and the local version includes ingredients such as palm oil, dawa dawa (African locust beans) and African basil. The Côte d’Ivoire jollof rice still shares the basic elements of the dish: rice and tomato. It is also a staple feature of the West African diaspora cuisine around the world. 

Chicken combo dishes, especially with grilled or stewed chicken, are particularly popular in both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. In Côte d’Ivoire, the chicken combo is often prepared as Kedjenou: a spicy, slow-cooked chicken stew prepared in a canary (sealed pot) and paired with rice. In Ghana, which is the dish our group was served, chicken combo often comes with Shito, a dark and spicy Ghanaian black pepper sauce made from dried fish, shrimp, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and chilli peppers. And it is typical to combine all this with a salad. 

For the vegetarians, we get Red Red with fried plantain, palm oil, gari and boiled egg. Red Red is a signature Ghanaian dish but also consumed in Côte d’Ivoire. It is made from black-eyed peas that are cooked in red palm oil and tomato sauce with onions, which gives the name to the dish. It is a dish of contrasts; the Red Red itself is very spicy but the sweetness of the plantains soften the impact as does the lonely boiled egg. It is very rich in flavour and also quite heavy, which does not make it any less tasty. It is a staple feature of the regional cuisine, especially with the Ga people in Ghana. In Côte d’Ivoire, it often is served with fermented cassava couscous Attiéké. There is a similar dish in Côte d’Ivoire, palm nut soup that uses the same red palm oil as Red Red. Similarly, stewed beans with fried plantain is very typical of Côte d’Ivoire. 

And finally, our party gets a Peanut Soup with goat meat which comes with fufu. This is a dish that is eaten by hand and our lovely waiter brings two bowls of water for washing the hands. Members of our group are not exactly sure how that works so there are a few versions of the hand washing among the group but in general this is a very well received dish. Peanut soup is a staple of both Ghanaian and Ivorian cuisine – in Côte d’Ivoire it is referred as sauce d’arachide (as also in other French-speaking West African regions). The base of the dish is creamy peanut butter with ingredients such as ginger, pepper and garlic. Fufu is made of cassava, plantains or yams – it is smooth, dough-like, smooth and elastic. The group reports that this dish is exquisite.

Côte d’Ivoire, not Ivory Coast 

Côte d’Ivoire has long been inhabited by different nations and like many of its neighbours, the area was part of several empires and nations during different time periods, including Guyaamn/Jamang (around the 17th century and including parts of the present state Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire), the Kong Empire (already mentioned previously on the Virtual Nomad entry for Burkina Faso – from about 1710 until 1898) and Baoulé (established by Queen Abla Pokou, sometimes called Aura, in 1730 – the Baoulé are the largest ethnic groups in present Côte d’Ivoire). 

Côte d’Ivoire received its present name from the Portuguese who in the 15th and 16th century divided the coast of Western Africa into Costa de Marfim (Ivory Coast – reflecting the name of the main trade item from the area); Pepper/Grain Coast (present day Liberia); Gold Coast (present day Ghana) and the unfortunate name of Slave Coast (present Togo, Nigeria and Benin). The government of present day Côte d’Ivoire refuses translations into any other language, so Ivory Coast is not to be used as the name of the country. 

France annexed Côte d’Ivoire as a protectorate in 1843 and then a colony in 1893. France abolished slavery in French West Africa in 1905, and between 1904 and 1958, Côte d’Ivoire was part of the Federation of French West Africa. France and French culture was considered superior to the local culture and population, and while the local people were considered ‘subjects’ of France, they had no civil or political rights (until 1946 when the French nationality was given to all “subjects”). This was partly for gratitude in their fighting for France in the two world wars. Independence was achieved in 1960, and the first president was Félix Houphouët-Boigny who stayed in power until his death in 1993. His home village Yamoussoukro became the political capital of the country and during his presidency, the treatment of political opposition was not friendly. His successor Henri Konan Bédié was even harder on political opponents and was ousted in a military coup in 1999. 

In the 21st century, Côte d’Ivoire has seen two civil wars, one in 2002-2007, and the other in 2010-2011. Since 2010, the President has been Alassane Ouattara who is on his fourth term currently (when the Constitution only permits two) and is curiously winning elections with nearly 90% of votes. A new Constitution was adopted in 2016. 

While French is the official language, there are around 78 different languages spoken in the country. Côte d’Ivoire is ethnically and religiously diverse, with Islam, Christianity and traditional faith systems living side by side. 

Five books from Côte d’Ivoire

Several authors from Côte d’Ivoire feature on a few “best lists” of African literature. Ahmadou Kourouma is probably the most internationally known, but there are several others who have gained international recognition including Véronique Tadjo, Marguerite Abouet,  Bernard Dadié and playwright Koffi Kwahule. A super interesting author is Gauz, and I begin with him. . 

Gauz (Armand Patrick Gbaka‑Brédé) is an author, journalist and screenwriter who grew up in Côte d’Ivoire. After studying biochemistry, he moved to Paris as an undocumented student, working as a security guard before returning to Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. Standing Heavy (2014) is his debut novel that won the Prix des libraries Gibert Joseph.

Standing Heavy is a wonderful, satirical, poignant and hilarious book. It is clever without being gimmicky and displays social criticism without being preachy. The fractional writing is a bit confusing at times which makes it slightly difficult to follow, and it is at its best when including observations of daily customers in department stores. The book spans over three different time periods and follows three undocumented immigrants from Côte d’Ivoire. They live in Paris and work as security guards (hence the name ‘Standing Heavy’ as the job involves many hours of just that). Placed between ‘The Bronze Age 1960-1980, the Golden Age 1990-2000 and the Age of Lead, are the sharp and bizarre descriptions of consumer behaviour. The different times also reflect the changes in French immigration policies,  the world events that affect them, the everpresent racism and the steady but devastating shift against ‘illegal and undocumented’. 

“It is the women who are the worst affected by the epidemic. maybe because it usually falls on them to care for the sick. maybe because they’re the last to leave home and seek treatment. and maybe because, until the very end, they try to keep things going, they try to make things right.”

I expected much more from Véronique Tadjo’s In the Company of Men – the Ebola Tales (2017). It took me a while to get a hold of it and when I did, I was very excited. I knew that the book was about the outbreak of the ebola virus narrated from different points of view (almost like small interviews)  – an old Baobad tree; a doctor sweating in a protective suit; a nurse with a social calling despite the stigma that follows her and her family; a student working in a mortuary when universities are closed; a scientist who discovers the virus; family members of infected people watching their loved ones perish; survivors who do not understand how they were speared; several patients and finally the virus itself. It has stellar moments and definitely is skilled and poetic in understanding the precipice and the extent of the problem. It’s sharp in describing the challenges, the corruption, the stigma, the inequality, the desolation and the indifference of the rest of the world until the virus spreads. But because it is a work of fiction, it does not completely rise to the level of reality, and reading it hits differently after the global pandemic of COVID19. Things are described – rather than felt. And while it is important to recognise and value traditional knowledge, to assume that the outbreak is the result of a disconnection of people from their roots and from nature, is quite simplifying. And quite frankly, I could have finished the book before the last part which starts with “The chilling voice of Ebola out in the early morning” – the narrator is Ebola itself. 

The last chapters are reserved for the virus, the bat and the Baobad tree. The virus lectures how it is happiest when dormant deep in the primordial jungle and that the humans are to blame because they have lost their traditional ways and beliefs. That is the weakest part of the book – trying to give a human voice to the virus, and mixing that with how humans are greedy, bad and destructive, and god is great. The virus even talks about the threat of nuclear war. And then there’s the bat, the origin of the outbreak from animals to humans who also is anthropomorphized and preaches how bad humans are, and talks about space exploration and rockets. The message is important but its preachiness is irritating and tiring, and there are so many books that illustrate the disconnection with the nature and destruction of the environment much better. Of course it is easy to hide behind the “people should do better and return to the old ways” as it was that easy. It was the last part of the book that killed all the narrative for me. It is sad as this book could have been so much better in so many aspects. (And it did bother me a bit that this is an author from Côte d’Ivoire writing about Sierra Leone, DCR, Guinea, Uganda and Liberia). 

Aya of Yop City (2006) by Marguerite Abouet is a fun variation to the Virtual Nomad reading, as it is a graphic novel – so reads like a comic. It is the second installation in a series about life in the 1970s Côte d’Ivoire. Marguerite said in an interview that as she left Côte d’Ivoire to live in France at the age of 12, she wanted to recreate the environment of her childhood. Illustrated by Clemént Oubrerie, the book is a joy to read even if the story is not overly engaging but still opens a window to the rich and vibrant past of the country Marguerite left behind. It is the illustrations that make it especially compelling with the warm and accessible colours. The story itself is a bit light – Aya is 19 and hardworking, dedicated to her studies and keeping away from trouble while her two best friends get themselves into a pickle with contested paternities, single motherhood and affairs with unreliable men. Aya is an observer to the things happening around her but not much happens to her. The illustrations are lovely, and the story comes with a glossary and instructions on how to carry your baby on your back! Depending probably on the edition, but there is an interesting interview with Marguerite at the end of the book. 

Probably the most famous author from Côte d’Ivoire is Ahmadou Kourouma. He came from the Malinké ethnic group and was born in the northern part of the country. He studied mathematics and engineering, and in his youth under French colonial rule, participated in military campaigns in Indochina. After studying in France and celebrating the freshly gained independence of Côte d’Ivoire, Ahmadou returned to the country of his birth. He was not impressed by president Félix Houphouët-Boigny and after being jailed, spent thirty years in exile in Algeria, Cameroon and Togo. 

Ahmadou’s two most famous novels are The Suns of Independence (Les Soleils des indépendances, 1968 – translated into English in 1981) and Allah is not Obliged (Allah n’est pas obligé, 2000). I decided to read both. Let’s start with the first one. 

The Suns of Independence is an interesting portrayal of postcolonial West Africa. The main protagonist is a fallen aristocrat Fama, an anti-hero and the last of a line of Malinké Doumbouya dynasty who no longer has a place in the new order. Independence has arrived in the country and that means bad news for Fama. He has fallen to disgrace and poverty, and is unable to have children with his wife Soulimata. Every day seems to bring more and more humiliation. The promises of decolonisation are not fulfilled and corruption is rampant, and many people are excluded from the benefits and forms of the new system. It is a book that is interesting but difficult to read – both for the experimentation with language as well as with the bitterness of the story. It is about the disillusionment from a promised better future and its impact on individuals, balancing the past and the future, ritual and traditions, and new forms of life. 

It is a book that was one of the first to be written about postcolonial Africa from a critical point of view, and also a book that has been said to ‘decolonise’ French by “forcing it to express African way of thinking”. There are also a lot of old rituals, oral traditions and beliefs included in the storytelling. I wanted to love it more than I did, and I found it difficult to read. I admired it, but I felt disconnected. Fortunately quite the opposite happened with the second book I read from Ahmadou. 

Allah is not Obliged (Allah n’est pas obligé in French) from 2000 is a fantastic, poignant, satirical, violent, hilarious, brutal and sharp book. It is written from the point of view of a 10-year-old child soldier who for different reasons ends up wandering from one West African country to another during the Liberian and Sierra Leonean civil wars in the 1990s. It is narrated by Birahima, the child soldier which some reviewers have said is not believable but that is not the point. Of course it is not believable that a 10-year-old could write such a story – but it serves as an incredibly brilliant gateway to the “West African civil wars for dummies.” The essence of the book goes beyond the political situation in West Africa during the time, it is razor sharp and powerful in its depiction of a world without morality and very little compassion, in which greed, individual gain and extreme cruelty reign – where things can slip if morality is removed. It is of course morally unsettling but immersed in black humour that is incredibly lucid. It is an astonishing and disturbing book that hits bone deep and offers such a deep x-ray of humanity going lawless.

The Ivorian Mini Movie Festival 

Côte d’Ivoire had only 15 cinemas in 2025 and approximately only twenty films were released between 2024 and 2025. There is growing film production in the country but some of these movies lack larger distribution. Nevertheless, I did manage to see three very interesting films and three documentaries.

There are several movies that are set in prisons, and I have seen quite a few for the Virtual Nomad movie path. La Nuit des Rois (Night of the Kings, 2020) by Philippe Lacôte is a stellar one. I watched it without knowing anything about it prior and I am happy that I did. It is a surprising mix of fantasy, thriller, drama and mythology. It plays like a homage to cinematographic storytelling and you can find references to world cinema throughout – it has clearly been influenced by Latin American (e.g. City of God), Asian and French moviemaking, but all those influences are cleverly mixed in a whole that looks and feels fully authentic. The story is simple but there are so many nuances that I feel that I should watch it a couple of times to understand all its themes – succession power struggles to politics to sacrifice to survival to loyalty to the corruptive force of power to mythology, rites, traditions, treason, gender fluidity, just to name a few. It is almost an impossible feat to cover so many themes in one movie in such a subtle, effective way. It is astonishing, vibrant, surreal, enthralling. I aim not to reveal too much of the plot because that is the best way to take it in, and it is an unexpected, thrilling ride. 

The compelling Adanggaman (2000) by Roger Gnoan M’Bala looks into slavery from Western Africa through the lens of tribal warfare. In the 17th century, a young man Ossei’s village is burned down by the Dahomey Amazons of the (fictional) Empire of Adanggaman (the history of female Dahomey warriors is described in the Virtual Nomad entry for Benin – these were feared female warriors not allowed to marry or have children) and the survivors are taken as slaves (either for the empire or sold to Europeans). Ossei races to save his mother from being sold as a slave after he has disobeyed traditional marriage customs. It is an interesting movie with an amazing soundtrack (mostly by Lokua Kanza). There are many parts that are filmed in pitch black, which asks a lot from the audience, but it is a fascinating film. The dreadful history of slavery is shown as a part of the greediness of unstable tyrannies susceptible to rum and guns. ‘Africa’ is not one, but made up of nations and tribes that capture and sell people, from neighboring tribes to white slave traders. Weak and greedy rulers make everyone prey to European slave trade. The film is dedicated “to all the Africans who suffered the iron collars and chains of slavery, and to their children and grandchildren who bear their scars.” 

What is remarkable about the movie Black Tea (2024) by Malian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako is that it follows a love story between an African woman and an Asian man, not often seen in movies. It is stunningly filmed – the camera really loves Nina Mélo who plays the main character, Aya, who leaves her husband-to-be on their wedding day and travels to China to work in a tea shop. She falls in love with an older Chinese man, and of course their story does not come without complications. This is one of those movies that you really want to love, and there is warmth and plenty of melancholy but overall the movie fails to develop fully and feels a bit flat. But it is beautifully shot and there are moments of deep melancholy and longing in scenes of forbidden love. The actors do a very good job. African immigration to China is such an interesting and underdeveloped theme that it is disappointing that the movie does not really fully go where it could go. It is still better than some the reviews suggest (33% in Rotten Tomatoes) even if not mindblowing storytelling-wise. 

The visually impressive Chimpanzee (2012) was filmed in the Taï National Park in Western Côte d’Ivoire for Disneynature. The park is both the largest intact and one of the last primary rainforests in Africa, and also a natural reservoir of the Ebola virus. It became a national park in 1972 and a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1982. It is  home to many species, including chimpanzees that are known to use tools (such as rocks to crack nuts). In this documentary, some of the footage of the rainforest is breathtaking and the ability of the crew to capture the life of chimpanzees is amazing. It took four years to complete, and was quite a feat to film in the rainforest. It is a very a cute story even if sometimes a bit simplifying and dramatised – there is a central survival story of a little chimp that is quite astonishing and rooted in the reality but dramatised at the same time – the chimp is “played” by several little chimps, but what happens to him is what happened in real life. Disney donated some of the proceeds to the Jane Goodall institute for its chimpanzee programs. Overall, even if a bit Disney fairytale-esque, it is an astonishing testimony to these amazing creatures and their society, including some surprising bits such as that they hunt and eat monkeys. 

The Dark Side of Chocolate is a 2010 Danish documentary about the child exploitation and trafficking for chocolate harvesting. The documentary films and follows children that are trafficked from Burkina Faso and Mali and transported across the border to plantations in Côte d’Ivoire. The film shows that despite an international agreement signed in 2001 to ban child labour and trafficking in cocoa plantations, the practice was very much alive in 2010 and thousands of children were taken as child slaves and subjected to forced, unpaid labour. In order to see a more contemporary situation, I watched another documentary from 2019 called Chocolate’s Heart of Darkness by Paul Moreira, 2019.  It is a better quality documentary than the Danish one but follows the same thematic, the exploitation of children in cocoa plantations. In this documentary it is shown that despite the promises of major chocolate companies to end child labour, thousands of children are still being trafficked, abused and subjected to conditions of slavery in order to harvest cocoa for chocolate production. The documentary covers the social and environmental impacts of child slavery and cocoa production, and the hypocrisy of the chocolate industry turning a blind eye to the conditions of these children, often separated from their families. It is eyeopening and heartbreaking. 

The top ethical chocolate brands are Tony’s Chocolonely (its mission is to make chocolate 100% slave-free “using direct, traceable sourcing from cooperatives in West Africa), Original Beans, Beyond Good, Divine Chocolate, Alter Eco, HALBA, Seed and Bean, Up-Up Chocolate, Lucocoa, Booja-Booja and Raw Chocolate Company. 

(L proofreading note: A major brand responsible for chocolate products is Nestle. I have been boycotting Nestle for many years, for several reasons, including child exploitation and slavery. Additionally, Nestle is infamous for the ‘Baby Killer’ scandal (peaking in 1981) in low and middle income countries- Nestle (often quoted with derogatory and racist language) aggressively marketed an infant formula targeting mothers, falsely claiming nutritional superiority over natural breast milk. By dressing saleswomen as nurses and introducing sales pitches in hospitals, Nestle continuously guilted mothers into buying their product, in order to meet profit margins. The push of infant formula usage is suspected to have caused around 212,000 infant deaths yearly in areas without safe drinking water, as prepared formula often carried pathogens causing disease, and the passive immunity of breast feeding was not achieved, so mothers paid for the compromising of their infant’s health. (Source: Voxdev, 2023) This doesn’t strictly apply to Côte d’Ivoire, but it makes me so intensely angry that I wish to share! This is the world we live in, friends- unjust and unimaginably cruel!)

Alpha Blondy

Alpha Blondy is the most famous Ivorian musician whose songs are often politically and socially motivated, singing about peace, politics and spirituality. Born Seydou Koné, he records mainly reggae in several languages; his native Dyula (widely spoken in Côte d’Ivoire but also in Burkina Faso and Mali, and some parts of Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau), French and English, and occasional Arabic, Hebrew, Jamaican Patois and other languages. He is often called the Bob Marley of Africa and he often performs with a 12-piece band called the Solar System. His career has spanned over several decades and over 17 albums. 

My musician friend MMP (who participated in the Côte d’Ivoire dinner) loves his song Cocody Rock, and when we have our Côte d’Ivoire dinner, we asked the lovely The Ghartans waiter to put some Alpha Blondy music for us and we ended up listening a long playlist of his wonderful reggae. The song Cocody Rock (1984) is described to be a “celebratory anthem honoring the music, culture and people of Côte d’Ivoire. It promotes unity and positive vibes, with “rocking representing” joyful energy and spiritual connection, often referencing Rastafarianism and ‘Jah time;.” 

This was another fascinating stop on the Virtual Nomad journey. Thank you wonderful L for your proofreading. (L: And my famous Nestle rant!)

Next stop: Croatia

Some things need to be said. Costa Rica is a country that is home. Usually in the Virtual Nomad path, we try not to bring individual experiences in more than necessary, but sometimes when there is a long history and deep personal connection with a certain place, we just have to. Costa Rica is one of those countries that can be described as ‘home’. 

While Finland may have been consistently ranked as the happiest country in the world (based on metrics such as education, social support, life expectancy, trust, work-life balance, fundamental freedoms, equality, safety and low levels of corruption), the Happy Planet Index ranks Costa Rica first based on ecological footprint, life expectancy and general well-being. Costa Rica has one of the five blue zones in the world, Nicoya. Blue zones are regions where people live longer and healthier lives on average than anywhere else in the world. Costa Rica has made monumental efforts to protect the environment, with 29-30 national parks covering  25% of Costa Rica, including forest and biological reserves, wildlife refuges and coastal areas. Costa Rica started conservation efforts already in the 1960s and has become a flagship country for sustainable tourism. The breathtaking Corcovado National Park is the biggest protected area in Costa Rica and named the “most biologically intense place on earth” by National Geographic. 

But first, as always, food.

The Tico Night – la Noche Tica

The Costa Rican Virtual Nomad gathering is a fairly small one. Gathered around the table are my partner JK and myself, and our children L (18), FK (15), A (11) combined with my children’s dear friend NA (18). We are accompanied by my dear lovely friend L* and her daughter S* (both on their 7th Virtual Nomad stop). My daughter L (18) is about to start travelling the world so it is also a chance to say farewell before her long journey. And what is a better way than with a place that is dear, as is Costa Rica. We celebrate a ‘Tico Night’, Tico meaning Costa Rican (our night would be la Noche Tica in Spanish).

The most typical dishes in Costa Rica are Gallo Pinto and Casado (meaning ‘a married man’). They are both constant daily features of Costa Rican cuisine (la cocina tica). They might seem similar but there is a clear and important distinction between them. Gallo Pinto is an important part of the breakfast table – it contains mixed rice and beans (with generous coriander and stir-fried onions, garlic, capsicum and salsa Lizano) that is often combined with eggs, tortilla and sour cream. As for Casado, it is a lunch or dinner dish, it also includes rice and beans but prepared separately. Casado includes white rice, black or red beans, meat (chicken, beef, pork), salad and plantains. For our Tico Night (la noche tica), I prepare gallo pinto but then serve it with salad, tamales and plantains.

An urban legend has it that the origins of Gallo Pinto are from San Sebastián (a neighbourhood in the capital San José). A farmer was going to prepare a rooster (gallo pinto) for dinner and the people in the neighbourhood thought he was preparing a feast and everyone was invited. When they turned up, the rooster was not enough so the farmer prepared rice and beans. This became local news and people would joke about the delicious “gallo pinto” of the farmer. 

My gallo pinto turns out well and even if a bit unorthodox I accompany it with Tamales. Tamales are consumed in all Central America and Mexico, and in Costa Rica are particularly part of the Christmas table. Costa Rican tamales are different from the Mexican ones in that they are wrapped in banana leaves which gives them a unique aroma and moisture. We could not find banana leaves or banana leaf tamales in Sydney so I bought Mexican ones. Tamales, in all Central American countries, and Mexico, share certain characteristics but also have regional/local differences. In Costa Rica, tamales are, again, above all a Christmas dish, filled with savory corn dough and rice. In Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and other Central American countries, tamales do not often have rice cooked in them and are consumed all around the year. The Mexican tamales that we have in our ‘Noche tica’ (Costa Rican night), are more spicy and have more sauce than Costa Rican tamales would be. Costa Rican tamales are more mild, and the rice is cooked inside the tamal. Nevertheless, they do give an idea to the group about tamales – and we will then just wait for the next Costa Rican trip to maybe indulge in the Tico ones. 

The salads that accompany the main dishes are the Ensalada de Palmito (the heart of palm salad) and a cilantro salad. In the palmito salad the hearts of palm (edible inner core of palm trees; texture and taste similar to asparagus or artichoke hearts) are sliced and then mixed with other salad ingredients, most typically tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and coriander. (L proofreading note: I have since begun to eat Palmitos out of a tin, delicious!) I used lime juice, olive oil and cilantro (coriander) for the juice and achieved an authentic Ensalada de Palmito taste, I must say. 🙂 The other salad was based on a generous use of cilantro/coriander that is a common feature in the Cocina Tica. It worked perfectly with the fried tortillas and plantains, also common in Costa Rican savory landscapes. Overall, it was a very successful night that succeeded in being as authentic as possible. 

As a dessert, I prepare pan de maiz, called Pan de Elote in Costa Rica. I made it from fresh corn and mix it with milk, butter, eggs, brown sugar and condensed milk. It is sweet, buttery and delicious – and well received by our Virtual Nomad group. 

A country without an army

While in the Pre Colombian times there were no significant empires in Costa Rica (such as the Incas, the Aztecs, the Mayas), the lands were inhabited by tribes and civilisations, including the Diquís (until approximately 1530). They were famous for their gold but also produced rock spheres (round rock balls) that appeared everywhere but whose purpose has remained unknown. Cristóbal Colón (or Christopher Columbus as referred to in English) sailed to the shores in 1502 and is believed to have the land named ‘Rich Coast’ for the golden treasures that the Indigenous people brought him. Or it could be Gil González Dávila who arrived in 1522. 

Costa Rica was not the favored destination of the conquistadores and therefore left to its own organisation and the status of a peripheral colony, keeping to itself for a while. It was not rich but quite poor and isolated from other colonies. The independence arrived in 1821 without too much trouble, and after some back and forth (like Nicoya Province joining sometime later). Costa Rica became part of the Federal Republic of Central America 1823-1838. An important event of the country’s future state was the Battle of Ochomogo in 1823 that ended with the victory of the republicans and settled the way to become an independent country (as opposed to being part of Mexico). 

Costa Rica became a coffee producer in the early 1800s and coffee has remained one of its main exports, together with bananas. Like some other countries in the region, Costa Rica has a complicated relationship with fruit companies whose actions easily diverge from modern standards of fair labour and environmental conservation. Nevertheless, Costa Rica’s past is fairly peaceful with the exception of a few hiccups such as the dictatorship of Federico Tinoco Granados and the 44-day civil war in 1948. Since 1948 Costa Rica has not had an army and has built a society of stable democracy, environmental protection, progressive social policies and high social well-being. Around five million people live in Costa Rica, with approximately two million in the metropolitan area consisting of the capital San José and its surroundings. Costa Rica has also received large quantities of refugees from the neighbouring Nicaragua and immigrants from other Central American countries. There are eight recognised Indigenous populations which form around 2.4% of the population – around 1% is Afro-Caribbean (centralized above all in the Caribbean coast and the Province of Limón). The land is volcanic and Costa Rica has between 5 and 7 active volcanoes. As mentioned before, 25% of the Costa Rican territory is national park land.

Six books from Costa Rica 

I am lucky to have many amazing, wonderful Costa Rican friends, some of which I call family. One of my dearest friends is FQ, scholar and Professor of Latin American Studies who is a trained historian specialist in urban cultural history – and who is an inspiring, magnetic and deeply charismatic person. FQ and her family are those kinds of people that are so generous with their time, friendship and hospitality that it makes you always feel inadequate when responding to their love and care (but then FQ’s wonderful husband kindly reminded me that friendship is not transactional). She is my definite go to person when it comes to Costa Rican literature and history, a well of knowledge and humour, and very generously finds and shares information with me. So as with other countries that I have close friends in, I will follow the recommendations that she has given me. She gave me six titles and luckily I can access five of them. I have another very dear friend LH who while not Costa Rican by birth, is married to a Costa Rican and calls CR her second home. She is a journalist and has studied literature, and is well read, so she is my other reference point for books. She approves the selection by FQ and then suggests a few others based on the recommendations from her well read and very helpful friend in Costa Rica . The recommendations from LK somewhat interlap with FQ’s; if not fully at least when it comes to authors, so I choose six books and then I am ready to indulge into my Costa Rican literature trip recommended by my beautiful friends.

Anacristina Rossi was born in Costa Rica and studied in the Netherlands, France and England. Her environmental novel La Loca de Gandoca (1991) was part of the Costa Rican school curriculum for 17 years and is a ‘muckraking’ novel to defend the Gandoca Wildlife Refuge. My friend FQ recommends Limón Blues (2002), a meticulously researched book that mixes fiction with real events and historical figures. Limón is a coastal town on the Caribbean coast and central to the Afro-Caribbean culture in the country. While Spanish is the official language of Costa Rica, English Kreole is widely used in Limón. The novel tells the story of Orlandus, a Jamaican national who moves to Limón in the early 1910s, and his wife Irene – and their disappointing marriage and attraction to other people. Central themes of the book are ever existing racism, ethnicity and belonging. Anacristina has done a tremendous job in researching for the the book in which fictional characters and events are matched with historical figures and events, most notably Marcus Garvey, Jamaican political activist and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) whose life story is quite compelling (in this book, and in general). She used local newspapers as references, and through her meticulous research, the book portrays a super interesting photograph of Limón and its traditions, music, demography and history. 

In the book, Orlandus is a colleague of Garvey and the story develops not only in Limón but also in Jamaica, Cuba, New York and Africa. The narrative alternates between third and first person covering mainly the view points and experiences of Orlandus and Irene. While the historical and sociopolitical development of Limón, UNIA and the presence of United Fruit Company in Costa Rica are fascinating and serve as a wonderful testimony, the love stories feel clumsy and forced, containing basically graphic sex scenes, and unrealistic relationship development, in simple romance novel fashion.. But the overall theme is racism; rampant and ever present, also a window to the Costa Rican past of discrimination against black populations. A fascinating anecdote is that the chapters are ordered under odd numbers – the even numbers are reserved for Anacristina’s subsequent novel, Limón Reggae. 

La ruta de su evasión by Yolanda Oreamuno was published in 1948 and unfortunately has never been translated into English (or any other language), so the title would be something like The Route of Her Escape which does not sound as good as in the original language. The lack of translation(s) is very unfortunate as it is quite an interesting book. It sometimes rambles unnecessarily as some scenes and dialogue feel repetitive and go over reasonable length, but overall it is a great book, and certainly innovative and fiercely feminist for its time. It is a story of a dysfunctional family – cruel and insensitive, abusive men and voiceless, submissive women. The father and his three sons are either controlling, insensitive and abusive, or weak, or both. One is health obsessed and cold until a significant tragic life event changes his path, one is flegmatic and indifferent (especially towards a woman that for some reason worships him like a dog) and the third is an insignificant wretch who mainly masturbates behind closed doors. Most women lack their own will, being subject to the cruelty, indifference and control of the men around them, mostly surrendering to their unfulfilling fate without complaint. When reading the book, sometimes I was mesmerised by its skillfulness and elaborate language, and sometimes I was frustrated by a tendency to get stuck in the same place. The resolution for me was less satisfactory than I had anticipated, but it was still a resolution. It is an interesting book and I am not quite sure how to rate it and swing between three to four stars in my Goodreads account. It is without a doubt a significant testimony of the patriarchal and misogynist society of the time, and follows a similar pattern as Anacristina’s book which alternates frequently and without warning between the first and third person. 

In several sources, the life of Yolanda (the author) has been described to have been divided into two very different phases: the first twenty years of happiness and achievement, and then twenty years of tragedy and challenges. She died at the age of 40 in Mexico. La ruta de su evasión has been described as innovative in its narrative and advanced in its description of the suffocating traditions and the role of women of the time. 

En una silla de ruedas, which I think also has not been translated into any other language, was published in 1918. The debut novel of the highly acclaimed Carmen Lyra who according to several sources is considered as the most important female author of the first half of the 20th century. She is a distant relative of FQ which makes reading her even more intriguing. The title translates into In a wheelchair and the basic storyline is about a boy called Sergio who after a mysterious childhood illness ends up in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. 

Carmen’s real name was María Isabel Carvajal Quesada and she was quite an activist; the founder of the first Montessori school in the country, a co-founder of the communist party and also the founder of one of the first women’s trade unions in Costa Rica. She protested against fruit companies, taught underprivileged children and was sent to exile for being a communist in 1948. Denied the right to return, she died in Mexico in 1949 of a serious illness at the age of 61. 

The language of the book is beautiful, poetic and descriptive. Some readers have described it as boring and excessive in its descriptions of people and places, and too optimistic in its resolution, but I found the language gorgeous. It is a bit fairytale-esque, but shouldn’t be taken as a social construction but rather as a story, the story of Sergio that is full of melancholy but also affection and small miracles. It would make a very feel-good movie. But more than the story, it is the language that captivates me. 

While it has not been translated, let me try to show how some of its narrative floats. This translation is mine so if anyone would like to try a different one, I am happy to replace it:

Para los niños era algo tan indispensable como su madre. La llamaban Mama Canducha. Ellas los quería a todos, pero su cariño por Sergio era casi un fanatismo. Cuando murieron sus hijos y su marido, su amor quedó flotando como una hebra de miel en el espacio; un día se encontró con esta vida triste y delicada y allí se prendió y tejió en torno suyo un capullo de ternura. which would translate to something like: 

For the children, she was as indispensable as their mother. They called her Mama Canducha. She loved them all, but her affection for Sergio bordered on fanaticism. When her children and husband died, her love remained floating like a strand of honey in space; one day it encountered this sad and delicate life and there it attached itself and wove a cocoon of tenderness around it. 

Or

Las golondrinas atravesaban el encanto de la tarde y volaban sobre el agua dormida. Cuando el crepúsculo era dorado, se ponía el agua de color miel, las golondrinas mojaban la punta de sus alas y al remontarse dejaban caer gotas que parecían abejas de oro. Las ramas de los sauces cosquilleaban el agua que se estremecía. Los cipreses altos, oscuros y terminados en punta parecían husos de donde salían los hilos que tejía el silencio maravilloso que envolvía este lugar. Entre la hierba habían gusanillos de luz.

The swallows crossed the enchantment of the afternoon and flew over the sleeping water. When the twilight was golden, the water turned honey-colored, the swallows wet the tips of their wings and as they rose, they dropped drops that looked like golden bees. The branches of the willows tickled the shivering water. The tall, dark, pointed cypress trees looked like spindles from which threads emerged, weaving the wonderful silence that wrapped this place. Among the grass were little worms of light.

Both FQ and LH have on their list the book Larga noche hacia mi madre by Carlos Cortės, published in 2013. The title would translate to something like ‘The long night towards my mother’ and it is a book about the intense hate that the narrator (Carlos? autofiction?) feels towards his mother (and the search for his fallen father, killed before Carlos’ birth). ‘Hate’ is probably the most used word in this book. It is intellectually interesting and well formed, with interesting psychology of the labyrinthine decadent family (with so many members that the lector loses the conductive thread at times). He is well read and connected with many things and incorporates interesting details that carry the narrative in some parts despite the core message that is the hate towards his mother. There are interesting, captivating parts (although not always easy to follow) but then it is again pages and pages of mommy issues and self-centerism of a man who hates his mother but abandons his own daughters to live in Paris with his young lover. I would like to see the book that they (the daughters) write about him. All that hate hate hate of the mentally ill mother makes me want to throw the book away. When he flies from Paris to his mother’s deathbed he ponders: “Do I hate her? Or do I just despise her? Or do I just not love her? Or what, if not? Is it all the same thing?” and that is the essence of this book. That swinging between the hate towards the mother and complicated stories of family members that at times form a cohesive structure and at times are just tiring anecdotes, and the enigma of the murdered father. Some family secrets yes but we get it, families have issues. I really disliked the first fifty pages, then somewhat enjoyed the following fifty but then the narrator briefly becomes the mother herself which is a bit too much. Then the last hundred pages are again at times interesting but not wholly. The whole book feels like a therapy narrative that the narrator (Carlos?) has written to himself in order to understand his own story but he fails to see how he carries the torch of the neglect forward. 

My friend FQ is a great fan of the poetry by Luis Chaves. In a short span of time, Luis has become the leading figure of Costa Rican poetry. His poetry books have won several national and international awards and nominations. Poetry is not my favourite genre (as can be seen from some of the previous Virtual Nomad entries) but I fully trust my friend and I give it a try. Published in 2001, Historias Polaroid is Luis’ third collection of poems and eagerly received by a growing public of fans. He was recently awarded the National Prize in Poetry by the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture. 

Now to the book itself. Poetry is not my favourite genre and poems need to be really sharp, rich and stuffed/filled (I am thinking of a Spanish word el relleno, the stuffing, filling something solid with something else) for me to like them. The poems of Luis achieve all that. This is poetry at its best and even if I did not love all the poems,  many were beautifully crafted and touching. With poetry, what happens is that they hit you or they don’t, and most of the time stay in the middleground. Most -not all – of the poems in this collection were a hit for me. 

As the sixth and last book of the Costa Rican stop, FQ recommends Fieras domésticas (2019) by Maria Montero but I am unable to access it. Therefore my friend LH comes to help and recommends some other authors (and other books from Anacristina and Carlos). I decide to go for Una mujer insignificante by Catalina Murillo, but the others recommended authors are Arabella Salaberry and Javier Tapia which I will now leave for a future occasion. 

“Days began to pass. I write this sentence and stop myself. I rethink it. Days began to pass, they say, as if they ever stopped. Better: the days passed us, paying no attention to us.”So, my last book for this stop comes from Catalina Murillo, an award-winning author who was born in a taxi in 1970. Una mujer significante (An insignificant woman), that she also won awards for, is from 2024. It is smart, hilarious, fresh, dynamic, short and very personal. Catalina’s writing is straightforward but poignant, and the language is so effortlessly rich – I almost feel like highlighting some of the thoughts and phrases. Catalina writes about her mother, just as Carlos did, but her writing is different; much more nuanced, fresh, contemporary – and notably less bitter. Sarcastic but never bitter, truthful but never cruel, hilarious but never pretentious, honest but never uncomfortable (well um, maybe just a bit). She approaches the theme of ‘insignificant women’ in such an ingenious way that it affects the perception of the reader. Such a simple but revealing theme – her mother is one of those women who are never considered as individuals but simply mothers or wives, those women that are always there but fade to the background into servitude for others. Her mother lives a life of convenience, following the social expectations of what is permitted,  and then for a short period becomes aware and in touch with her own spirit. It is such a simple but effective book that became my favourite of the Costa Rican stop. So raw and ingenious. I have not loved a book like this in a while. ¡Qué bárbaro!

The Costa Rican movie festival 

Costa Rica has a growing movie industry, and between 2011- 2017 over 50 movies were produced in the country. But before that, the development of cinema production was quite slow. The first ever directed and produced film in Costa Rica was El retorno (“the Return”) in 1930, but the movie industry did not get active really until the 2000s. In fact in the 1990s, there was only one movie made in Central America (El Silencio de Neto, Guatemala, 1994). But despite the growing production, distribution remains difficult. There are a number of very promising directors in Costa Rica, including a Sweden-born (to Costa Rican and Uruguayan parents) Nathalie Álvarez Mesėn who has a background in mime, physical acting and directing from studies in Costa Rica, Sweden and the US. Another prominent director is Antonella Sudasassi Furness from whom  I watch two films from as well as Laura Astorga and Sofia Quiros Ubeda. In the end, I feel very lucky to be able to see so many movies from this dear country, and the Costa Rican Movie Festival includes nine movies and one episode of a Netflix series (due to the fact that the documentary I really wanted to see is not out for streaming yet) which is a sublime treat. They are all quite amazing (well, nine out of ten even if I do have some love for the 10th as well). Despite broadly appreciating everything I saw, if I do have to pick my favourites (which is difficult), I would say  Princesas Rojas by Laura Astorga and Ceniza Negra by Sofia Quiros Ubeda. And maybe Tengo sueños eléctricos by Valentina Maurel: uncomfortable and unsettling but memorable. 

Clara Sola (2021) by Nathalie Álvarez Mesėn belongs to the powerhouse performance by Wendy Chinchilla Araya, a Costa Rican actress and principal dancer for the Costa Rican National Dance Company. Wendy has a strong physical presence in the movie as a 42 year old Clara who lives in a remote Costa Rican village under a repressive rule of a religious mother. Clara is a “special creature by nature” with a skewed spine and visited by the spirit of Virgin Mary (according to her mother). A child-like Clara struggles to understand the emotions she is having, including sexual awakening and slowly understanding the patronising and repressing environment that she has been forced into as a ‘freak of nature’. Understated and slow, the movie has great performance overall and is very powerful in portraying the effect religious moralism and control has on individual lives.

Both Nathalie and Wendy have a background in mime or physical theatre, and that shows in the poetic, visual language of the movie shot beautifully by Sophie Widen. More is said about how people move and look at each other than the dialogue that is used. Just how Clara stands in different scenes is important. The humid Costa Rican rainforest is a strong part of the story, and the connection that Clara feels to insects and nature around her. It is not probably a movie for everyone but I found it quite magnetic, similar to La Sirga (William Vega, 2013) that I watched for the Colombian entry; more is said in the silences and glances than in the spoken word. An amazing debut by Nathelie and I cannot wait to see more of her work (she has another movie under development).

Memorias de un cuerpo que arde (Memories of a Burning Body, 2024) by Antonella Sudasassi Furniss continues the theme of repressed female sexuality, this time through a real-life narrative of three women around the age of 70, interpreted by one 65-year-old woman. They reflect their sexually repressive youth and their current life. One of the women who happily announces that she is not dependent on anyone, also reflects on the loneliness of old age that is symbolised by things breaking down in her home. The narrative floats between the loneliness of old age and the memories of growing up as a girl in an environment of taboo and secrets. It is not groundbreaking in the depiction of the repression of female sexuality, but it is refreshing in giving voice to older women and their sensual regrets and desires. It feels a bit long, like a flow of memories. The sexual awakenings feel less interesting than the description of the domestic hell that comes later in the movie. The conventions of the time, the lack of opportunities and the later will and push to move things was for me a deeper and more interesting theme, even if I think it is great that the movie brings attention to sexuality in an older age in a society that worships youth. 

El Despertar de las Hormigas (the Awakening of the Ants, 2019) is another movie by Antonella Furniss. Antonella says about this movie that she wanted to “reflect on those small actions that teach us every day to please, serve, care for others, be married, be mothers, be there for others; inherited teachings and demands that do not arise from bad intentions, but from habit.” It has a similar energy and pace to the first movie I saw from her. It unfolds almost like a documentary and feels intimate which is great and not so great at the same time. It is great because of the subtle and personal portrayal of gender expectations through a very real and effective performance by Daniela Valenciano. It is also a burden because not much happens, even though the beginning of the movie is fantastic and says so much in little time. The main character is preparing a cake surrounded by her mother-in-law, sister-in-law, husband, children, etc. and the subtle and small interactions are ‘all-talking’. It is a small and quiet, well executed movie with a strong docufiction atmosphere, but not much dramatic development. 

One of my favourites of the Costa Rican Film Festival is Princesas Rojas, (Red Princesses, 2013) by Laura Astorga. Laura’s parents were involved in revolutionary activism in Central America in the 1970-80s and she spent her childhood in Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica and Miami. This could be why the movie has such a strong personal presence – it is a story of a Costa Rican pro-Sandinist revolutionary family who flees Nicaragua back to Costa Rica, thus placing the family under danger of political persecution and family breakdown. The two girls of the family (aged 9 and 6) are adjusting to life in Costa Rica while needing to hide the ‘red’ past and navigating a difficult situation with the parents, who could face prison if revealed to be Sandinistas. 

The ideological tensions between tradition and building a new life for the family is brilliantly portrayed through the two girls. Their parents go missing from time to time and so many things are left unspoken. The chaos and confusion is well documented through the eyes of the girls, still just children adjusting to a new life with its challenges and longing for the red pioneer past that was so familiar. The acting from the girls is top notch, and the ending is superb, albeit devastating. It is also a movie in which the use of light seems to have a great importance – there is warm light in the interior scenes and nearly pastel light in the exterior shots. This is very different from the crude lighting of Tengo sueños eléctricos that I also watched for this stop. 

A dream-like Ceniza Negra (Land of Ashes, 2019) by Sofia Quiros Ubeda moves in the territory between reality and magical realism. It is a movie about transition: between childhood and adulthood, life and death, reality and mysticism. Wide-eyed Smashleen Gutiérrez as the 13-year old main character Selva (which means jungle, forest or rainforest) is a perfect choice for her role. She is loved by the camera. She is mesmerising and magnetic in a static film that relies on the mystical atmosphere of the coastal rain forests of a Caribbean sea beach village in the Province of Limón – where most of the Costa Rican Afro-descendent population lives. The nature of the region is strongly present, introduced as a cradle of magic, spirituality and connection with the unknown. It is a beautiful and peaceful movie with stunning photography and location. The actors are non professionals but very natural, very present. It is a beautiful, nearly haunting film in which the real and spiritual worlds overlap peacefully and moments are full of symbolism, calmness and ethereal stillness. 

El Sonido de las cosas (The Sound of Things, 2016) by Ariel Escalante, is a small movie about grief, or the inability to express grief. The blockage that some people have when faced with grief and loss, even if surrounded by well-meaning others. It is a small movie basically about that; an emotional blockage and finally the way to release it. It is an interesting, understated and intimate movie. Nothing spectacular or profound but I still enjoyed it. It follows the Costa Rican cinematographic tradition, that I have now seen in the previous movies, of long silences and long takes. The main character is often filmed standing on a quiet street smoking, walking down stairs, looking out the window. It is a skillful portrayal of understated grief. 

Tengo sueños eléctricos (I Have Electric Dreams, 2022) by Valentina Maurel is a movie that is ‘cruda’ (raw). It is an effective but uncomfortable portrayal of ugly parenting. After her parents divorce, 16-year-old Eva wants to live with her father. Her mother is renovating the house to erase all reminders of her challenging ex-husband, and Eva’s dad drifts between friends’ couches trying to find a place in life. The movie is at once harsh, moving, disturbing and uncomfortable. Eva’s troubled parents are very real people, and the adult life shows its unstable and unsettling face while she navigates the challenges of growing up. It is an uncomfortable movie about uncomfortable themes, but filmed with much sensitivity and care. People are ugly (not physically but in their actions) and lonesome. If growing up with dysfunctional parents was difficult in Laura’s Princesas Rojas, in this one, the soft nuances are gone and people and situations are raw and vibrantly unpleasant. The movie won several international awards and shows how unsettling and chaotic it is to grow up with parents with mental health struggles. 

Las Hijas (Sister & Sister, 2023) by Kattia González continues the theme of dysfunctional families and difficult fathers – and it is the 4th Costa Rican movie of this stop about two sisters. In this movie, the sisters travel from Costa Rica to Panama to look for their father whom they have not seen since they were small. 

It is a vibrant small movie about adolescence, summer holidays, relationships and a beautiful location of Panama. It is not exceptional in its portrayal of youth – kissing, drinking, dancing, worrying about aesthetics, sexual awakenings. The storyline with the father feels secondary to all the rest of teenage life. Compared to some of the other Costa Rican movies with sisters and family dynamics, it feels more shallow. There is nothing particularly wrong with it and it is entertaining enough, not just particularly memorable. 

El Pȧjaro de Fuego (Bird of Fire, 2021) by César Caro Cruz makes the noble intent similar to the movies of Colombian director Víctor Gaviria (see Vendedora de Rosas – the Rose Seller (1998) and Rodrigo D. No Futuro (1990) of the Colombia Virtual Nomad stop), using amateur actors from low-economic high-risk urban areas to tell a story loosely based on real events. It does not fully accomplish this task and rise to the level of its intentions, but is successful in filming life in La Carpio, one of the most populated, poorest and challenging neighbourhoods of Costa Rica and Central America, where 40,000 mostly undocumented immigrants are packed between two polluted rivers. The beginnings of La Carpio are in the immigration floods fleeing from poverty, natural disasters and the Nicaraguan civil war in the 1980s, and nowadays it is estimated that approximately half of the population in La Carpio is from Nicaragua or descendants. In Rodrigo D. No Futuro, the main character tried to find a way out of a high-risk criminal life through heavy metal and drumming, in this one the main character Tony wants to become a rapper and break dancer. But a plane full of cocaine falls into the neighbourhood (“a bird of fire”) and finding a way out of the spiral is challenging. 

The story itself suffers from a predictable, unoriginal plot that drags unnecessarily, honest but thin interpretations and a confusing ending, but the description of La Carpio and real surroundings are interesting. After all the amazing movies watched for the Costa Rican stop, this one falls flat and does not rise to the level of the other movies. 

The 2025 documentary El monaguillo, el cura y el jardinero (The Altar Boy, the Priest and the Gardener, 2025) is not available yet for streaming so I will have to wait to see it. It is a documentary about two men who take to court the priest that sexually abused them as children. Instead, I watch episode 3 of the Netflix series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones are five regions with the highest rates of living centenarians in the world (Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica). Nicoya is situated in the Northwestern part of Costa Rica. The episode follows the secrets of healthy centenarians in Nicoya which include diet, dancing, continuous movement and family connections. 

The warm silk of Debi’s voice 

The national instrument in Costa Rica is Marimba which has its origin in African instruments. Marimba is also the national instrument of Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico. But when it comes to contemporary music, which is more interesting for our young Virtual Nomads, Debi Nova is probably the most successful Costa Rican artist. She started her career as a backup singer for several national and international artists until 2004 when she released her debut record. Debi is the most followed Costa Rican artist on Spotify and Apple Music, and the only one to have been nominated for a Grammy. She is the founder of Círculos 3:33, an all-female platform of support and empowerment. There is a beautiful clip on youtube of Debi Nova live at Paste Studio on the Road: LA that – in a stripped production and unplugged – really showcases her warm vocals. Her version of Juan Luis Guerra’s Bachata Rosa is also magnificent. 

P.S. My dear friend FQ reminded me, after writing this entry, that the favourite Costa Rican band of us both is CANTOAMERICA. The music of Cantoamérica takes its influence from the Afro-Caribbean heritage in Costa Rica. Since FQ said that, I have returned to listen to their music and it is indeed wonderful, highly recommended.

Next stop: Côte d’Ivoire

Thank you for your proofreading dearest L!

Is it a country or is it not? Cook Islands is a South Pacific nation of 15 islands in a free association with New Zealand, so some would not consider it sovereign but in the end, it is self-governing with its own distinct culture and foreign policy, custom regulations and defence. The official name in Cook Islands Māor is Kūki ‘Āirani which is a transliteration of “Cook Islands”. It has a fascinating history and great food. After the underwhelming RoC stop, this one was great, albeit short. 

But first, as always, food.

The Islands Party: the Cook Islands 

Sometimes the Virtual Nomad stops combine countries, just out of convenience for chefs and visitors involved. We decided to organise an Islands Afternoon Party to celebrate both Comoros (see a Virtual Nomad Comoros entry) and the Cook Islands which although quite different, both are island states composed of several islands and that is a good enough coincidence to host a garden party for these two. On a wonderful, slightly overcasted, early autumn afternoon we invite Virtual Nomads to the garden party and in the end twenty people show up. Most of the attendees have been to at least one or two food stops before but we also have two newbies in the group, one brought by my lovely friend AR (her first stop was Colombia). AR’s friend is actually my work colleague which was a nice surprise. And the other newbie is my son A’s (11) young friend.

As I was in charge of the Comoros food, other Virtual Nomads brought dishes from the Cook Islands. They are all quite amazing and super yummy. The Cook Islands are famous for the curry – and because the Cook Islands menu is an open invitation one (meaning this time Virtual Nomads were not assigned a menu item), we end up having two different chicken curries, both from seasoned Virtual Nomads. AK brings the one in the middle photo, and JD the one on the left. They are both well equipped in curries, and both have done a splendid job.

Migration has influenced the Cook Islands local cuisine over time, and Asian migration particularly has introduced diverse spices and cooking techniques. Spices such as curry powder, garam masala, herbs and turmeric are often combined with more tropical ingredients such as coconut. Chicken is commonly available in the islands, which has made chicken curry a popular, convenient and familiar dish. Chicken Curry has also been said to reflect the cultural blending of the Cook Islands; mixing together many local flavours and traditions to the point that it becomes a solid and hybrid element of the local culture.

My lovely Colombian friend TAV (who was in charge of the splendid Colombian Afternoon) and her family bring a dish called Mainese or more colloquially a Pink Potato Salad to the Islands Garden Party. It is a laborious salad to make but TAV is a masterful cook; it’s fresh and incredibly tasty. Mainese is a traditional salad dish that is typical especially in Rarotonga. It usually includes potatoes, carrots, beetroot (that gives the pink colour to the salad), eggs and other vegetables such as cucumbers or celery – and at times corned beef or tinned fish. The salad dressing is mostly mayonnaise.
According to several sources on food history, Mainese cannot be credited to one sole inventor but it is considered as a community-developed dish. By no means is it an ancient dish; it emerged sometime around the 1940s-1960s when European influence in the cuisine became stronger and canned foods started to be available. Just like with the chicken curry, the locals started to blend imported ingredients with locally available products. At the beginning, it was not a cheap dish as many of the imported products (mayonnaise, corned beef, beetroot) were expensive. It has become a ‘must-have’ in many family events and celebrations.

Umu/Umukai is not a dish itself, but a way of preparing food in a hot oven (usually underground) . The food itself is wrapped in banana leaves which makes the result very tender. My lovely neighbour PH used to have a restaurant and is a great chef. He arrives at the party later so those still there have the privilege to enjoy his amazing cooking; tender meat with vegetables in a banana leaf and really masterfully made. He accompanies that with small fish smoked in sea salt. Meats used in the way of Umukai can be anything from pork and chicken to fish mixed with local vegetables (breadfruit, cassava, sweet potato etc.). Umukai is one of the oldest continuous cooking traditions in the Pacific dating back to the ancestors of Cook Islanders from Eastern Polynesia. They brought the earth-oven cooking practice to the islands, similar to other practices around the Pacific (called Imu in Hawai‘i, Hāngī in Aotearoa New Zealand). It worked in islands that might not have an abundance of mechanical tools but rather volcanic stones, banana leaves and coconuts. In today’s Cook Islands, Umukai is practiced in more ceremonial events as modern technology has made cooking faster.

We also enjoy Banana Pudding Poke Cake served on a banana leaf.

Kūki ‘Āirani

The first settlers on the Cook Islands were Polynesian voyagers from different islands (Tahiti, Samoa, etc.) first settling in Rarotonga, and Maori ancestors who travelled in Vakas (large double-hulled canoes). The Cook Islands official website states that 87% of Cook Islanders are Polynesian Cook Island Maori. 

Travellers from Europe started to arrive in the 1500s as Spanish explorers sighted some of the islands. The Islands are named after Captain James Cook who landed in Manuae in 1773 and visited several islands 1773-77. In the 1820s the Christian missionaries arrived and their impact on the local culture was heavy. Christianity spread from island to island, and while the missionaries prohibited practices such as dancing, drumming and singing, the local culture survived and gradually island traditions were blended with Christianity. 

The islands were named Cook Islands in 1823 (previously known as Hervey Isles) and in 1888 they became part of the British Dominion, a move that was intended to block the French influence in the region. In 1901, the Islands’ administration was moved to New Zealand despite the opposition from local chiefs (each island had their own chief system). In 1965, Cook Islands became a self-governing state in free association with Aotearoa New Zealand. Cook Islands is in charge of its domestic policy and some foreign policy, while Aotearoa New Zealand is in charge of defence. This gives the Cook Islanders automatic New Zealand citizenship. In 2024, Prime Minister Mark Brown asked for Cook Islanders to have a separate passport while also retaining the Aotearoa New Zealand citizenship. This was rejected by Aotearoa New Zealand on the basis that Cook Islands cannot have its own passport unless it becomes fully independent. 

Today around 100,000 Cook Islanders live in Aotearoa New Zealand while the population on the islands is about 15,000. 

The Cook Islands has fifteen islands, with two main groups: the Southern Group (Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Mangaia, Atiu, Mauke, Mitiaro, Manuae, Takutea, Palmerston.) and the Northern Group (Penrhyn (Tongareva), Manihiki, Rakahanga, Pukapuka, Nassau, Suwarrow.). The Islands have three languages: Cook Islands Māori (with several dialects), Pukapukan (spoken in Pukapuka) and English. The capital is Avarua, located on the most populated island Rarotonga. 

Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka

I absolutely loved Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka: The Autobiography of a Sea Trader’s Daughter by Florence (Johnny) Frisbie. It is the first book ever written by a Pacific Islander woman and is based on the diaries of Johnny when she was 12-14 years old – and published in 1948 when she was 15. It is an absolutely delightful, vibrant and simple but joyful description of life in remote atolls and islands in the Pacific. It is written in a youthful and dynamic way through the lens of a child and how she observes the life around her. She travels around the Pacific with her father and three siblings and puts so much delicious energy in telling about growing up in Puka Puka (​​A remote atoll in the northern group of the Cook Islands, also formerly known as Danger Island) and learning how to survive in a demanding environment from an early age. She accompanies her father on travels and lives with the family in remote atolls, and describes her visits to Fiji and Samoa. 

The book is remarkable in that it is, what has been said “one of the earliest insider accounts of Polynesian island life written in English.” Johnny herself is the daughter of Robert Dean Frisbie who was an American author and trader who settled in Puka Puka with his local wife Ngatokoraa. Johnny writes in her diary about her childhood in the atoll with family, describing also the local customs, culture, celebrations, gender roles and how the community worked at that time. Someone stealing a wife for themselves was not a big deal, and children are left to roam independently from an early age. This helps Johnny and her siblings survive a 1942 cyclone  later in the book, a terrifying and traumatic event. Johnny talks a lot about her family; her American father who educates the kids and encourages them to write, her Puka Pukan mother who is gentle and loving, and on her deathbed makes her husband promise to keep the children together after her death (contrary to the Puka-Pukan tradition in which children should never live with a single father), and her four siblings (three of whom she shares a lot of time with and one brother in a boarding school). 

Johnny wrote a sequel to her first book, published in 1959, The Frisbies of the South Seas and there is a fascinating documentary about her returning to Puka Puka in 2021 The Island in Me. 

Stranded pearl 

There are not many locally made or produced feature films from the Cook Islands. One of the first is a 2024 feature film Stranded Pearl that made its way to international film festival circuits and in-flight entertainment in the Pacific. It is wonderful to see that it is currently available (2025) on some platforms which makes this pioneer movie from the Cook Islands more accessible for international audiences. 

Stranded Pearl (2024) by Ken Khan & Prashanth Gunasekaran and produced by the leading actor Anand Naidu is a lighthearted romantic comedy with gorgeous landscape and a silly plot. Filmed in Rarotonga, the movie almost serves as a travelling advertisement for the beautiful locations. The plot itself does not offer anything new; girl (entitled, rich brat) ends up on an island and meets boy (skillful but nervous native). Locations are great, the characters do not seem overly traumatised or desperate. While the story is silly and acting a bit clumsy, there is a lot of heart put into the movie making. A lot of local people were involved in the filming and production, which brings an ounce of authenticity to it. This said, it is not remarkable in dramatic terms. There are moments that are exaggerated that makes the audience think this was tongue-in-cheek deliberate. Nevertheless, it has its own charm and the location shots are beyond gorgeous. 

Apart from the fiction film Stranded Pearl, there are a few interesting documentaries available, and I choose to watch a 2022 documentary short Taonga: An Artist Activist by Glenda Tuaine on Michael Tavioni, a Cook Islands artist in his 70s who says that for him, art represents being next to god. Michael, or Mike, is a painter, poet, writer, cultural leader, canoe builder and traditional navigator. He is considered to be a master and protector of traditional cultural knowledge and has spent most of his life preserving, teaching, and revitalizing traditional Māori Kūki ‘Āirani arts. It is an interesting portrayal of Mike and gives a lot of space to his thoughts and practice. With his wife Tepaeru Maiata Tavioni, he founded Tavioni Arts in Rarotonga – a creative hub where they teach traditional arts and tattoo symbolism.

Next stop: Costa Rica

Thank you beautiful L for your proof reading!

There are two countries that carry the name Congo. – the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville)  They are next to each other and share a similar culinary tradition but a separate history. Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, are the closest capitals in the world. They are separated by somewhere between one to three kilometres. A ferry between them takes ten minutes to actually cross the river (but with customs takes a bit longer). The relationship between the two has at times been tense but currently,the two are generally on good collaborative terms. 

After the Virtual Nomad stop in DRC which was so impactful and devastating at times, this stop was interesting, but felt a bit in-between, and I am not sure why. The food was similar to the DRC, there was only one movie available and the three books were intriguing but not the best of the Virtual Nomad literature journey. 

But first, as always, food.

Food: Five countries in one afternoon

When life gets incredibly busy and weeks are filled with final exams and end of year events, time slips through our fingers and there is less space for everything. We decided to organise a BIG Sunday afternoon for a few upcoming stops and celebrate Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, DRC and the Republic of Congo in one afternoon. This is not to say that these are similar countries or the same, it is just an opportunity to get people together for one big night and proceed on our Virtual Nomad path. Therefore this introduction will be the same for the five countries but each time the specific entry will focus on the country that the stop is about.

The African Afternoon gathers 30 people around th e table, a mix of seasoned Virtual Nomads and delightful newbies. Besides myself and my partner JK, we have my children A (11) and L (17), NA (18) and their lovely friend CC (17). Then on their 12th stop are AK, DK and their adult child AK (their other child MK usually comes along but today she is unfortunately sick). Other seasoned Nomads are dear friends JD, KD and their son KD (15), on their 7^th stop. A 4^th stop for L* and her daughter S*, our first friends in Australia. A 2^nd stop for our resident Canadian CL (see the stop for Canada) and his beautiful family wife JJ and children EL (10) and SL (12). A Wonderful fellow European CB comes to her 2^nd stop with her delightful daughters JB (11) and EB (8), bringing her husband CBB along (his first stop). And then we are lucky to have six great newbies – a joyous family of four KFFJ (including children aged 11 and 13) and a lovely couple ER that lives next door. And then of course my stepchild FK (15) and CH, Special Adviser to Virtual Nomad – she has been to over 140 countries and counting, and always joins in between her travels. A wonderful group of amazing people, and everyone brings a dish. 
In this entry, I will only talk about the DRC and the Republic of Congo (RoC) food of our happy, hilarious, joyful, warm and inviting African Afternoon. Many of the food traditions are shared between DRC and RoC as they both sit along the Congo River and have Bantu and Central African cultural roots. Therefore the food entry for both will be the same.

Congo Poulet Moambe – Moambe chicken is particularly popular in both the Republic of Congo and the DRC to the point that it is considered a national dish in both countries (as well as in Angola). It is usually prepared in moambe (palm butter sauce) with spices such as red pepper. In the DRC it is often cooked with peanut butter and served with cassava paste (as we do). In the RoC the onion-based palm oil is mixed with tomatoes and onions with spices like chili and garlic. The sensational Moambe chicken prepared by JD looks wonderful and the Virtual Nomads report to the vegetarians in the group that it tastes amazing. JD’s recipe follows more the tomato-based, lighter version of RoC than the heavier, peanut-butter filled DRC version. Nevertheless, this amazing dish follows the culinary traditions of both countries. Poulet Moambe is a very common dish in the region, especially in areas where meat is more accessible. Where meat is scarce, it can be replaced by fish.  

Okra is a very typical ingredient in both countries and commonly served in a stew. Okra is farmed in both DRC and RoC which makes it very available to be used in cooking. For the African Afternoon, I decide to prepare an okra stew in the Congolese way. For the stew, I chopped okras and cooked them together with onions, tomatoes and garlic. I did not use palm oil which is the most common strategy, but apart from that I followed the recipe as faithfully as possible. I cooked the ingredients in generous peanut butter which gave the dish a creamy, thick and lovely texture. This heavier version of the okra stew is most common in the Western part of DRC and in RoC; in the Eastern parts of DRC it is typically much lighter and cooked in coconut milk rather than peanut butter. The result was quite successful and yummy, and further established the sense that the peanut butter, like in other Western African dishes from previous stops, really gives the dish more flavour and texture. As okra is not a huge hit among the Virtual Nomads, this dish was highly enjoyed, which proves my point about peanut butter. 

My daughter L (then still 17) and NA are in charge of preparing the  Congolese beignets with mango sauce based on the dough that I have masterfully, at least I hope, prepared. The dough is a bit sticky and that makes the preparation difficult for our clever young people. Beignets are the most typical dessert in both countries. They are known as puff-puff in Western Africa and mikate in DRC and RoC. Dough balls prepared and deep fried in oil,  usually served with mango sauce and mint leaves. The dough is a simple yeasted dough with flour, sugar, water, and optional milk. Our beignets were more flat than round, but the result was nevertheless well received. 

Another dish that I prepared for this stop was the Kachumbari Salad. It is a typical Eastern African salad made of fresh tomatoes, onions, cilantro and chilli pepper, with lime juice and spices. It is more common in the Eastern parts of DRC where Swahili culture is strong. The DRC regions where Kachumbari Salad is a typical part of the kitchen are North Kivu Province (its capital Goma is a major site of internally displaced people and in 2025 is under the control of the March 23 paramilitary group),  South Kivu Province (its capital Bukavu is also under the control of M23 in 2025) and Tshopo Province (its capital Kisangani is the country’s most important inland port after Kinshasa). The Kachumbari salad has a very refreshing taste and accompanies some of the heavier dishes of our African Afternoon. It is less typical of RoC and therefore not included in its country stop. 

Plantains have a similar function in a Congolese kitchen (regarding both countries) as potatoes, maize or rice have in other countries. They are rich in fiber, potassium and carbohydrates. Makemba (fried plantains) is the most common form. Plantains have a similar texture to yuca, which we have tried in other Virtual Nomad stops. Fried plantains are often served as a side dish, just as they are for our gathering. AK is in charge of this dish and she brings a frier with her and prepares them in the front yard. She also uses a pepper sauce recipe for the plantains. She doubled it and used olive oil and jar chilli instead of canola and scotch bonnet chillies. She says it is because she had them and is of the opinion that canola is bad. The plantains were frozen and deep fried in peanut oil without any coating or anything extra. And they were delicious!

CH brings Palm Wine – fermented low alcohol drink collected / tapped from trees such as raffia palm and oil palm. Raffia palm usually grows in swampy areas, whereas oil palm is spread around both countries. In DRC and RoC, Palm Wine is collected through tapping, or cutting the trunk and is usually consumed fresh, most commonly the same day it has been tapped. This is not of course the case of our Palm Wine which is a more preserved product, but it still has a clear distinctive sweet taste. It has low alcohol content and it doesn’t taste very different from coconut water. Palm wine has an important role in the social and cultural life in both countries.

Many forms of governance

The Republic of the Congo (RoC) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, see previous Virtual Nomad stop) share many common historical roots. Both were inhabited by the Pygmees before the arrival of the Bantu people. The Portuguese arrived and traded with the powerful Kingdom of Kongo. And the RoC has gone from a kingdom to a colony to a marxist state to a dictatorship to a nominal democracy that is really not very democratic. And this with oil and wealth that has not truly been distributed even if the country has a higher standard of living than many of its neighbours. 

The first people to inhabit the banks of the Congo River were the Pygmies. Then the taller Bantu people arrived, as we have seen in other countries of the region. The Bantu had kingdoms that came and went. The powerful Kingdom of Kongo, (that existed from c.1390 until a much weaker version in 1914) was ‘discovered’ by the Portuguese in 1483. As in other parts of Africa, the arrival of Europeans changed the course of history. Local kings, such as the the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo, were involved in slave trade and in exchange received European luxuries, including guns and other firearms. 

Where the RoC history differs from DRC is that while DRC was under Belgian rule, what nowadays is the Republic of the Congo was colonised by France and joined the French Equatorial Africa in the late 19th century. In 1958, the Republic of the Congo was established and in 1960 it gained independence from France. In 1969 it was named the People’s Republic of the Congo (until 1992) as it was a Marxist-Leninist state. The President from 1979 to 1992 was Denis Sassou Nguesso, who became president again in 1997 (after the Civil War 1997-98) until today. His regime has been accused of corruption and abuse of power. His defenders say he has brought stability to a country in a very volatile region, and critics say he and his family use state funds for personal gain, poverty rates stay high despite oil revenues, there is lack of transparent and fair elections, and abundant violations of human rights. His daughter married the President of Gabon (who had over 30 children with several women) tying the two countries close to each other. The family has had several scandals which make an engaging read to say the least. 

The capital of RoC is Brazzaville, named after an Italian-born French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, described as a “peaceful explorer” compared to others of the era but nevertheless a colonist. He was working for France and negotiated a treaty with King Makoko to place the area under French protection. The French outpost was placed by the Congo River directly opposite what would become Leopoldville (today Kinshasa). 

Three books from Sony, Emmanuel and Alain 

While the cinematographic offer is very limited, there is a great variety of books and authors, some of them very famous. Probably the most globally recognised authors from the RoC include Sony Lab’ou Tansi, Emmanuel Dongala and Alain Mabanckou. I decide to read one book from each. 

Sony Lab’ou Tansi is considered to be one of the greatest African authors. He was born in the ‘Belgian Congo’ (present DRC) where his father was from. He moved to Congo-Brazzaville, where his mother was from, at an early age. He was politically active and part of the opposition movement. He died of AIDS in 1995 at the age of 37, after he was denied a passport for political reasons, therefore limiting his access to medical care. He is known for his books and plays, and for founding the Rocadu Zulu Theatre Company.

Sony’s books The African Saga (1994) and La Vie et Demie (Life and a Half, ) are considered classics of African postcolonial literature. The one accessible for me is La Vie et Demie, and only in French. It is also said to be one of the 100 best African books by the Leiden African Studies Centre (but this for me is an uneven merit as O testamento do Sr. Nepomuceno da Silva Araújo that I read for Cape Verde, and absolutely hated, is on that list). 

Anyway, back to this book. It has been said to be one of the monumental books so my expectations are high, and they do not fully fulfill. It is a complex, heavy and at times grotesque  book. It is satirical, cynical, confusing, very very violent (especially the beginning). It is set in a fictional African country that may or may not resemble Congo, ruled by a dictator called “the Providential Guide”. The heroes of the story are Chaidana (forced to marry the dictator) and the spirit of her martyr father. It is heavy with magical realism and not always for the better. But in general I did find it an interesting, maybe not captivating, tale of power, corruption, cruelty, resistance and survival.

Johnny Mad Dog by Emmanuel Dongala (2002) is famous for its movie adaptation (by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, 2008). The movie itself was set in Liberia and used first-time actors, some of whom were former child soldiers. I saw the film years ago and it left a strong impression. I did know at the time that it was based on a book, but it was a surprise that I was familiar with the story. 

The book has two protagonists, a 16-year old vicious child soldier Johnny Mad Dog and a 16-year old  Laokole who is part of the targeted civilian population.  It is fascinating at first and then loses steam towards the end. The stories of both are first interpolating and then come closer together. I might need to watch the film again to see whether it is still as impactful as it was all those years ago because the book does not rise to the same level of impact. It starts strong and the contrast between the two characters is striking. It becomes less powerful towards the end and drags a bit, but nevertheless, there are very powerful, disturbing and devastating images transmitted through the text. It is still quite a fascinating read even if, as said, it becomes less compelling.

Emmanuel himself has a very interesting life story. He is a chemist, specialised in stereochemistry, environmental toxicology and asymmetric synthesis. He was born in Brazzaville and studied in the US and France before returning to teach polymeric chemistry in Brazzaville. He combined his scientific career with art, founding a theatre group and writing. He had to leave RoC with his family during the Civil War 1997-98 and has lived in the US ever since, still combining science and the arts. 

My last book for RoC comes from Alain Mabanckou, probably the most prolific Congolese author,  nicknamed ‘the African Samuel Beckett’. He was born in Congo-Brazzaville and spent his childhood in a coastal town of Point-Noire in which Black Moses (2015) is situated. He lives in the US but is a French citizen and one of the most known French speaking African authors, and has won so many awards that I lost count of them.

The original name in French of Black Moses is Petit Piment (“Little Pepper”) and it is not the most acclaimed of Alain’s novels (but the one I found at the local library). He is best known for Verre cassé (Broken Glass, 2005) and Memoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine, 2006). I have both on my ‘to read in the future’ reading list because Black Moses did not completely achieve what I was expecting from it. It follows an orphan Moses, nicknamed ‘Little Pepper’ but with a very long and quite funny name given to him by one of his favourite adults. The first part (100 pages) of the book happens in a catholic orphanage in Pointe-Noire and it is the best part. It is clever, delicious, satirical, ironic and has a very good rhythm. It reflects political corruption, human decadence, solidarity and survival in a sharp way. When Moses leaves the orphanage and lives in Pointe-Noire the book becomes rushed and not completely thought through, and then a bit absurd when Moses has an emotional reaction that leads to a situation that feels a bit like lazy writing and a completely different story that just does not serve the whole well. The story does not come together again until the very last page, with a small clever scene. I was glad that I read the last page because it gave me some sense of satisfaction after a frustrating read of the last part of the book.

Only one movie

The Republic of Congo has a very small film industry with a long time between films. There have been a few pioneers including Sébastien Kamba who directed the first fiction film in 1964, called Le Peuple du Congo–Léo vaincra. Another important director was a France-educated Jean-Michel Tchissoukou, whose film M’Pongo (1982) is the one I set to find. What is really interesting about Jean-Michel is that he was assistant to Sarah Maldoror on Sambizanga (1972)  that I watched for the Angola stop of Virtual Nomad.

 I do not have access to a film I really wanted to see, Journey to Ouaga (2001) by Congolese director Camille Mouyéké. So, in the end I am lucky to find Jean-Michel’s films.  

M’Pongo / Les Lutteurs (English title the Wrestlers) by  Jean-Michel Tchissoukou (1982) is an interesting movie with strong intentions and uneven results. The central theme is built around a traditional Congolese form of wrestling, M’Pongo. M’Pongo was practiced in the Republic of Congo above all between 1930 and 1960 (the film itself is also situated in this timeline). It is a form of non-violent resistance-wrestling in which the intention is to flip the opponent into the ground. It is different from the other forms of wrestling practiced in both RoC and DCR; Voodoo Wrestling, Libanda and Kipura. In the film, the locations are beautiful and the insight into an old tradition is interesting. Wrestling is used as a symbolism between a generational divide and the tensions between the traditional and the modern/colonial, and as an expression of identity. It is an interesting film for what it intends to portray even if the plot is thin and the characters lack depth.

Next stop: the Cook Islands 

Thank you L for your proof reading!

After Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second largest country in Africa, and it is also the home of the second biggest rainforest in the world. Blessed with vast natural resources and cursed by years of armed conflicts and the shadow of one of the most brutal colonial rules, it is a country of high rates of malnutrition, poor education, insufficient infrastructure, widespread sexual violence and vast inequalities. Producer of 70% of the world’s cobalt, it is also home of one of the largest human displacements in the world. The Eastern side of Congo has been labeled as the most dangerous place for a woman in the world, and DRC has not only the highest rates of intimate-partner violence in the world with over half of the female population over 15 experiencing physical violence but also the highest rates of sexual violence in the world (for women and men). Not much to celebrate. 

One of the most important lessons of this stop is to recognise the fearless work of Congolese activists, including gynecologist and pastor Denis Mukwege whose work has helped nearly 100,000 women who are victims of sexual violence. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 (together with Iraqi Nadia Murad) for their “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”. 

But first, as always. Food.

Food: Five countries in one afternoon

When life gets incredibly busy and weeks are filled with final exams and end of year events, time slips through our fingers and there is less space for everything. We decided to organise a BIG Sunday afternoon for a few upcoming stops and celebrate Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, DRC and the Republic of Congo in one afternoon. This is not to say that these are similar countries or the same, it is just an opportunity to get people together for one big night and proceed on our Virtual Nomad path. Therefore this introduction will be the same for the five countries but each time the specific entry will focus on the country that the stop is about.

The African Afternoon gathers 30 people around the table, a mix of seasoned Virtual Nomads and delightful newbies. Besides myself and my partner JK, we have my children A (11) and L (17), NA (18) and their lovely friend CC (17). Then on their 12th stop are AK, DK and their adult child AK (their other child MK usually comes along but today she is unfortunately sick). Other seasoned Nomads are dear friends JD, KD and their son KD (15), on their 7^th stop. A 4^th stop for L* and her daughter S*, our first friends in Australia. A 2^nd stop for our resident Canadian CL (see the stop for Canada) and his beautiful family wife JJ and children EL (10) and SL (12). A Wonderful fellow European CB comes to her 2^nd stop with her delightful daughters JB (11) and EB (8), bringing her husband CBB along (his first stop). And then we are lucky to have six great newbies – a joyous family of four KFFJ (including children aged 11 and 13) and a lovely couple ER that lives next door. And then of course my stepchild FK (15) and CH, Special Adviser to Virtual Nomad – she has been to over 140 countries and counting, and always joins in between her travels. A wonderful group of amazing people, and everyone brings a dish. 

In this entry, I will only talk about the DRC and the Republic of Congo (RoC) food of our happy, hilarious, joyful, warm and inviting African Afternoon. Many of the food traditions are shared between DRC and RoC as they both sit along the Congo River and have Bantu and Central African cultural roots. Therefore the food entry for both will be the same.

Congo Poulet Moambe – Moambe chicken is particularly popular in both the Republic of Congo and the DRC to the point that it is considered a national dish in both countries (as well as in Angola). It is usually prepared in moambe (palm butter sauce) with spices such as red pepper. In the DRC it is often cooked with peanut butter and served with cassava paste (as we do). In the RoC the onion-based palm oil is mixed with tomatoes and onions with spices like chili and garlic. The sensational Moambe chicken prepared by JD looks wonderful and the Virtual Nomads report to the vegetarians in the group that it tastes amazing. JD’s recipe follows more the tomato-based, lighter version of RoC than the heavier, peanut-butter filled DRC version. Nevertheless, this amazing dish follows the culinary traditions of both countries. Poulet Moambe is a very common dish in the region, especially in areas where meat is more accessible. Where meat is scarce, it can be replaced by fish. 

Okra is a very typical ingredient in both countries and commonly served in a stew. Okra is farmed in both DRC and RoC which makes it very available to be used in cooking. For the African Afternoon, I decide to prepare an okra stew in the Congolese way. For the stew, I chopped okras and cooked them together with onions, tomatoes and garlic. I did not use palm oil which is the most common strategy, but apart from that I followed the recipe as faithfully as possible. I cooked the ingredients in generous peanut butter which gave the dish a creamy, thick and lovely texture. This heavier version of the okra stew is most common in the Western part of DRC and in RoC; in the Eastern parts of DRC it is typically much lighter and cooked in coconut milk rather than peanut butter. The result was quite successful and yummy, and further established the sense that the peanut butter, like in other Western African dishes from previous stops, really gives the dish more flavour and texture. As okra is not a huge hit among the Virtual Nomads, this dish was highly enjoyed, which proves my point about peanut butter. 

My daughter L (then still 17) and NA are in charge of preparing the  Congolese beignets with mango sauce based on the dough that I have masterfully, at least I hope, prepared. The dough is a bit sticky and that makes the preparation difficult for our clever young people. Beignets are the most typical dessert in both countries. They are known as puff-puff in Western Africa and mikate in DRC and RoC. Dough balls prepared and deep fried in oil,  usually served with mango sauce and mint leaves. The dough is a simple yeasted dough with flour, sugar, water, and optional milk. Our beignets were more flat than round, but the result was nevertheless well received. 

Another dish that I prepared for this stop was the Kachumbari Salad. It is a typical Eastern African salad made of fresh tomatoes, onions, cilantro and chilli pepper, with lime juice and spices. It is more common in the Eastern parts of DRC where Swahili culture is strong. The DRC regions where Kachumbari Salad is a typical part of the kitchen are North Kivu Province (its capital Goma is a major site of internally displaced people and in 2025 is under the control of the March 23 paramilitary group),  South Kivu Province (its capital Bukavu is also under the control of M23 in 2025) and Tshopo Province (its capital Kisangani is the country’s most important inland port after Kinshasa). The Kachumbari salad has a very refreshing taste and accompanies some of the heavier dishes of our African Afternoon. It is less typical of RoC and therefore not included in its country stop.

Plantains have a similar function in a Congolese kitchen (regarding both countries) as potatoes, maize or rice have in other countries. They are rich in fiber, potassium and carbohydrates. Makemba (fried plantains) is the most common form. Plantains have a similar texture to yuca, which we have tried in other Virtual Nomad stops. Fried plantains are often served as a side dish, just as they are for our gathering. AK is in charge of this dish and she brings a frier with her and prepares them in the front yard. She also uses a pepper sauce recipe for the plantains. She doubled it and used olive oil and jar chilli instead of canola and scotch bonnet chillies. She says it is because she had them and is of the opinion that canola is bad. The plantains were frozen and deep fried in peanut oil without any coating or anything extra. And they were delicious! 

CH brings Palm Wine – fermented low alcohol drink collected / tapped from trees such as raffia palm and oil palm. Raffia palm usually grows in swampy areas, whereas oil palm is spread around both countries. In DRC and RoC, Palm Wine is collected through tapping, or cutting the trunk and is usually consumed fresh, most commonly the same day it has been tapped. This is not of course the case of our Palm Wine which is a more preserved product, but it still has a clear distinctive sweet taste. It has low alcohol content and it doesn’t taste very different from coconut water. Palm wine has an important role in the social and cultural life in both countries. 

The Dark tale of an exploited land

The history of DRC is a history of greed, violence, and devastating, long-lasting conflicts and exploitation. Millions of people have lost their lives during the armed conflicts and millions of people lost their lives during the extremely cruel colonial rule of King Leopold II of Belgium. One of the minerally richest countries in the world is exploited and abused, with civilians always carrying the toll of the atrocities. It is really hard to summarise all the injustices that have rained on the local population during the last decades, and centuries. 

The first people to inhabit the banks of the Congo River were the Pygmees. Then the taller Bantu people arrived, as we have seen in other countries of the region. The Bantu had kingdoms that came and went. The powerful Kingdom of Kongo, (that existed from c.1390 until 1914, ending much weaker than it began) was ‘discovered’ by the Portuguese in 1483. As in other parts of Africa, the arrival of Europeans changed the course of history. Local kings, such as the the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo, were involved in slave trade and in exchange received European luxuries, including guns and other firearms.

In 1885, the Berlin Conference granted Congo to Belgian King Leopold II which led to one of the most brutal and horrific colonial chapters in human history, with an approximate death toll of 10-15 million people. The horror stories of killed and mutilated people took a while to reach the ‘Western world’ but once it did, in 1908 Belgium finally took over the administration. Independence finally came in 1960 with Patrice Lumumba as the first Prime Minister. He was tortured and executed in 1961. In 1965, the country entered a US-backed dictatorship ruled by Mobuto Sese Seko, who named the country Zaire and used country resources as his own possession while the people suffered. He was finally ousted as the result of the First Congo War (1996-97) and Laurent-Désiré Kabila became the president. The Second Congo War, the deadliest conflict since WWII took place (1998-2003) and Kabila was assassinated in 2001 by his bodyguard. His son Joseph Kabila became the president and stayed in power until 2019. Over one hundred armed groups have existed in the country and the Human Rights Watch report (2025) indicates that more than six million people have died in DRC in ethnic conflict and disputes over natural minerals. Many multinational companies from around the world have tried to take their slices which has not helped the situation. A peace agreement was signed in June 2025. However, the violence has not stopped and local population has suffered murder, mass killings and sexual violence. 

The several armed conflicts, ethnic tensions, culture of impunity and deeply rooted patriarchy are some of the reasons for the widespread sexual violence in the country, the highest rates being in the Eastern parts of DRC. The provinces of North and South Kivu have staggering statistics, with 40% of women having experienced sexual assaults with a large proportion of girls under 16. As of 2025 only, several international reports (Action Aid, Save the Children, etc.) show that sexual violence have increased 16-700% depending on the province. 

Four books from the rich and diverse land of also unthinkable horrors

The terror of the colonial rule of King Leopold II of Belgium was largely ignored until the publication of the book King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by American author and journalist Adam Hochschild (1998; new edition, 2006). It was, at first, a controversial book in Belgium where King Leopold had been considered to be a “civilizing force” despite the evidence that his rule was one of terror, exploitation and abuse. The book exposed the horrors of colonialism, the tyranny and the atrocities towards the people in the Congo which had led to the death of approximately 10-15 million people (according to most estimates, the real number will never be known). This legacy of terror had been largely ignored for nearly a hundred years, buried under the political unrest and the effect of the cruel dictatorship in the country. The book reignited conversations around colonialism, systematic racism and economic exploitation of natural resources by foreign (and domestic) forces. 

It is a remarkable book. Thoroughly researched and really well written. It exposes the tyranny and cold calculation of Leopold but also the greed, lies and weaknesses of his supporters and of colonial, Western and domestic powers that have led to today’s tragedies. Good outsiders are very few and far between, but they are also given space and credit, including George Washington Williams who was one of the first to denounce the atrocities taking place under colonial rule, or E.D.Morel. Roger Casament and Alice & John Harries, as well as the nameless voiceless local people who Adam tries his best to find sources that give voice to them. It is really a remarkable book that should be mandatory reading on the abuses of power and greed that is not singular to DRC, but visible in so many places. I had wanted to read this book for a long time, and it is worthy of its praise. 

“When it came to war, my parents could shelter us from only so much. I knew the sounds of war before I knew how to do a cartwheel. I became accustomed to those sounds as a kid, I was never afraid of imaginary monsters at night, the monster I knew walked in daylight and carried big guns.” 

Sandra Uwiringiyimana belongs to the Banyamulenge ethnic group, sometimes referred to as the Congolese Tutsi. She is a survivor of the 2004 Gatumba massacre, an attack on a refugee camp in Burundi close to the border with DRC. The massacre was carried out by the Forces for National Liberation, a Burundi-based political party and former rebel group. Sandra’s family had escaped violence in her native DRC (South Kivu) and pushed the family into refugee status. Banyamulenge are ethnically linked to Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi, and they predominantly speak Kinyarwanda. 

The book could be described roughly in two parts; first the description of Sandra’s idyllic childhood with her parents and five siblings, the threat of violence, the escape and the life as a refugee in neighbouring countries. The second part is about life in the United States, the race relations, the struggles as a refugee and finding a voice. 

It is a powerful memoir, written in quite simple and accessible language. It has its flaws and the overall quality is uneven, but it overcomes these obstacles with emotional power. I felt as engaged with the description of the stateless refugee status in Africa as the observations on race relations and what it means to be black African in the United States. It is another reminder of the emotional burden of forced otherness, and the absurdity of political and ethnicity based violence and discrimination. 

Fiston Mwanza Mujila took the literary world by storm in 2015 when the English translation of his debut novel Tram 83 was published. It centers around a club called Tram 83 in a fictional African city (that could be Lulumbashi where Fiston is from). Fiston currently lives in Austria where he teaches African literature and it is said that his writing is influenced by the turbulent times of his childhood and youth in DRC. 

The book itself is the sort of book that literature critics love. It has “fragmented poetic scenery” as one reviewer wrote. The text is frantic, twisting and baffling – and a bit hard to get into. There are two main characters: a corrupted, scheming, sex-crazy Requiem and an emotional, semi-intellectual writer Lucien. There is not much of a story, as the narrative is based on the language rather than a plot, and sometimes resembles a semi stream-of-conscious style or indeed, poetry. Female characters are mainly sex workers, single mothers or underage girls who serve as props to the story more than fleshed-out characters. There is a lot of sex in the book, especially easily-accessed sex offered by prostitutes through the “Do you have the time” proposal,  repeated a lot in the book. 

It is an interesting piece of writing and I can understand why many love it. It is fragmented, contains long lists of things and mixes poetic language with prose. It succeeds in linguistic acrobatics and musical narrative, a description of a decadent place and urban jungle that mixes prostitution with miners, politicians, students and drifters such as Requiem and Lucien. It is experimental and musical in its poetry which at times is effective and interesting, and other times gimmicky and tiring. When I read other reviews of the book, many say that the book describes the chaos of a modern African city very well, as if it was played by jazz music. I did not ever get fully engaged apart from interesting moments here and there.

“I don’t live in exile, exile lives in me”

“Not blood but the Congo River sloshes in my veins”
My last book for DRC comes again from Fiston. It is in the genre that is not my favourite, poetry, but I give it a try as it is dedicated to the Congo River and its mighty power. In this book, the Congo River is not only a mythological strong body of water but a witness to atrocities, violence, environmental damage and loss. The book contains 101 numbered “solitudes”, with different lengths and styles which makes the book feel more like experimental narrative than poetry, and that makes it more interesting for me. The solitudes are not only reflections of violence and destruction but also a cradle of longing for the past, longing for home and a sense of belonging (as Fiston lives in Austria). I read the translation in English so I might have missed some important nuances (there are words from Lingala and Swahili embedded in the text), but in general the language is graphic and intentional in its rawness.

Disappointing fiction and skillful documentaries

Film production in the DRC is scarce and evidently affected by the armed conflict and instability in the country. After independence, there were a few films made, but Belgian-educated, Congolese film pioneer Djo Tunda Wa Munga, revitalised the film industry by funding the first film school and first production company in Kinshasa. He left DCR as a child but returned at the end of the dictatorship of Mobuto Sese Seko. His first big gig in DCR was to be the production manager of a BBC series Congo: White King, Red Rubber and Black Death (2002) about the terror of the times of King Leopold II. Currently the film industry is slowly growing and there are about 36 film production companies in the DCR. Congo Rising and CongoFilmz are among initiatives to revitalise the Congolese movie industry. 

There is not much to choose from, but luckily I find access to six cinematographic products, some of which I enjoyed more than others. I am overall pleased that there is the possibility to see Congolese made film, and additionally happy to see the movies Sema, supported by Nobel Peace Prize winner, the amazing Denis Mukwege, and Downstream to Kinshasa, about the survivors of an armed conflict in Kisangali. The rest of the documentaries, the outstanding Viranga and City of Joy are also absolutely remarkable (and currently available on Netflix – 2025). Overall, it is the fiction that proves to be disappointing, as the documentaries are impactful and very skilled. 

Viva Riva (2010) by Djo Tunda Wa Munga was the first Congolese film filmed and produced in the DRC in 28 years. It was successful with critics and audiences alike, and won many awards, including several Africa Movie Awards and a MTV Movie Award (Best African Movie). It is a fast-paced crime movie with lots of sex, violence and action. A small hustler Riva steals from an Angolan gangster who enlists a lesbian commandant to find Riva. In the meanwhile, Riva falls for the wife of a Kinshasa gangster who he sees urinating (the wife, not the gangster) in a scene that is also shown to the audience and feels exploitative and unnecessary. What follows is a parade of two timings, betrayals left and right, every person for themselves and a lot of beatings, some gratuitous sex, overarching misogyny and a lil’ bit of domestic violence. Women in general are beaten and abused, the plot is not overly interesting and tries too much. The interesting bit is the portrayal of Kinshasa, the landscape and its people. I read several interviews of Djo and his intention of showing the dark side of Kinshasa, the side that everyone knows that exists but is not talked about. I feel that I did not need to see that, but there are quite a few enthusiastic people that did, based on the reviews the movie received. I can see the interest and value of this movie, but I did not enjoy it myself – except of course for the interesting urban landscape and its people, the aesthetics and glimpses of the environment.

The Six-Day War was a June 2000 confrontation between Rwandan and Ugandan armed forces around Kisangani, the capital of the Congolese province of Tshopo. The conflict resulted in more than 1000 dead and 3000 wounded. Downstream to Kinshasa (Dieudo Hamadi, 2020) is a documentary that follows survivors of the war on their way to Kinshasa to seek compensation. Many of them have not only lost family members but were wounded in the aftermath, several with one or more limbs missing. The documentary follows the community preparing the trip to Kinshasa, and their trip down the river (sometimes days in pouring rain) and then their stay in Kinshasa. Parallel to the trip is a theatre performance prepared by the survivors.

Dieudo is a Congolese filmmaker with a strong social calling and tendency to explore critical societal issues. He studied medicine before entering the film and documentary world, and his documentaries have won several international awards. He has achieved a very human and touching documentary that celebrates and underlines the bravery, spirit and strength of these people without infantilising, patronising or instrumentalising his subjects. It is a documentary about the tragedy of 2000, but also about the richness of individuals and the diversity of their characters.

There are several foreign-produced documentaries filmed by European and There are several foreign-produced documentaries filmed by European and North American film makers. While the intention of Virtual Nomad is to prioritise the local film industry, sometimes these foreign productions are worth a watch. This is the case of Virunga, a documentary on the park rangers of the Virunga National Park during the increased activity of the rebellion group M23, or March 23, and the plans of oil expeditions in the area of a multinational company SOCO. Directed by a British director, Orlando von Einsiedel in 2012, it did help to bring attention to the park, the last remaining living place of mountain gorillas, and stop the oil explorations. Virunga is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the rangers do an incredibly important and dangerous job in protecting the park wildlife and supporting restoration. Several rangers have lost their lives in the process. The documentary shows very touching moments, including a gorilla caretaker André Bauma (who is basically a foster parent to four small gorillas whose parents were killed by poachers) telling how his father, who perished in the neverending Congo war, taught him to love and care for animals. “Today I am doing what my father created in my heart when I was a little boy,”.. He says, when the armed conflict is getting nearer, that he is ready to die for the gorillas he takes care of. The documentary also follows three other people; park warden Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo (who after fleeing from being recruited a child soldier later risked his life in exposing the SOCO corruption attempts), chief warden Emmanuel de Merode (who was shot in an assassination attempt in 2014 – he has received several awards and is the director of the Virunga National Park); and a French investigative journalist Mélanie Gouby.
Ndakasi, one the world’s most famous mountain gorillas, is part of the document. She died in 2021 and the photo of her dying in André’s arms is world famous.  The Senkwekwe Center where André works, is the only facility in the world for orphaned mountain gorillas.

(Photo: Getty Images) 

The situation in the park more than ten years later is not much better and conservation efforts are disrupted for safety concerns due to continuing armed conflict. Many parts of the park are closed, tourism has stopped and conservation efforts have suffered. Around 200 park rangers have lost their lives in protecting the park.

André’s and others work can be supported at: https://virunga.org/support-us/donate/

Sema by Machérie Ekwa Bahango (2020) is a movie made in partnership with the National Movement of Survivors of Rape and Sexual Violence in DR Congo. Sexual violence in the DRC is widespread and the DRC has long been labeled as the “rape capital of the world”. Sexual violence is particularly frequent in the Eastern part of the country and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF – Doctors Without Borders) has reported an increase in sexual violence as a result of the armed conflict, in which the different parties use sexual violence as a weapon to terrorise local populations. The movie Sema shows not only the traumatic event of mass rape but also the stigma and impunity that often follows the rape victims. Raped women are abandoned by their husbands and families, and the children born out of rape chastised and isolated from the community. The victims trying to find justice see the perpetrators go unpunished and unharmed. The movie won Best International Film and the DC Independent Film Festival, and even with its flaws is a truly remarkable, deeply alarming and an important movie – from the region labeled as the most dangerous to be a woman in the world. 
It is based on the idea of Dr Denis Mukwege, Congolese gynecologist and a pastor, winner of a Nobel Peace Prize (2018). He is the founder of the Panzi hospital that treats women who have been raped by armed forces. He has been called “the world’s leading expert on repairing injuries of rape” and he is famous for working tiredlessly and nearly without rest to help as many victims as possible. He left DRC in 2012 due to a failed assassination attempt but returned in 2013 – and his patients paid his return ticket by selling pineapples and onions. His hospital has treated nearly 100,000 women and he is a fierce speaker revealing the consequences of rape as a weapon of war. It is hard to do justice for all the work that he has done.

Another foreign-produced documentary about the rampant sexual violence in the country and the important work of Dr Denis Mukwege is the outstanding documentary City of Joy by Madeleine Gavin (2016). Dr Denis and Mama Christine (Christine Schuler Deschryver) founded City of Joy, a training centre for female survivors of sexual violence. The centre trains 180 women every day to become leaders in their communities and give their means to survive the shame that follows sexual violence. 

The documentary shows the connection between the fight for mineral sources and sexual violence – where there is mining, there is an increase of systematic rape. Rape is used as a weapon of war, sexual terrorism as Mama Christine calls it. Foreign companies fund the militia who used rape and mutilation to break communities and bring shame to families. 

The documentary describes the horrific forms of systematic rape and the profound devastation  faced by survivors. Some of the stories are so heartbreaking that it is almost impossible to imagine someone could cause such suffering to another human. But while the documentary does not shy away from the individual stories of sexual terrorism, it underlines the compassion, empathy, joy and companionship that comes from taking collective and individual ownership of one’s story and injecting joy and love in survival. It is a remarkable documentary of remarkable people; Dr Denis (whose life due to the death threats is limited to travelling between the hospital and the City of Joy with seven bodyguards), Mama Christine and survivors like Jane, a fountain of joy and survival of the most unfathomable experience possible. (Mama Christine also has an impactful TED talk about the five tenets of the City of Joy for turning pain into power).

This Virtual Nomad stop has been devastating and heartbreaking but at the same time impressed by the outstanding human dignity and quality of those who unselfishly work for a better world through caring for others and the environment we live in. To learn more about these people has been the greatest gift of this stop.

Next stop: the Republic of the Congo 

“Where is this country” is the first question from the Virtual Nomad community. The tiny Comoros is a fairly unknown island nation off the coast of Mozambique, between Madagascar and mainland Africa – and one of the 54 African countries. It constitutes three major islands (Grande Comore, Mohéli and Anjouan – the local names of these islands are Ngazidja, Mwali and Nzwani), and several smaller islands. Close by is the island of Mayotte, an overseas department of France, disputed by Comoros – the two referendums in 1974 and 2009 have kept Mayotte as part of France. Comoros itself became independent from France in 1975.

But first, as always. Food. 

The Islands Party: Comoros 

Sometimes the Virtual Nomad stops combine countries, just out of convenience, and this is the case with Comoros. We decide to organise an Islands Afternoon Party to celebrate both Comoros and the Cook Islands, which are quite different in other aspects, but are both island states of several islands. That is a good enough reason for us to host a garden party for these two! On a wonderful, slightly overcasted early autumn afternoon we invite Virtual Nomads to a garden party, and in the end, over twenty nomads show up. Most of the attendees have been to at least one or two food stops before, but we also have two newbies in the group, one brought by my lovely friend AR (her first stop was Colombia). AR’s friend is actually my work colleague which was a nice surprise. And the other newbie is my son A’s (11) young friend. In the end, we have 22 people at the garden party. 

As for the Comoros menu, that is my responsibility. I have set my sights on four different Comorian dishes but in the end, as I cannot find breadfruit in Sydney to prepare Inafliton Lemai (a popular snack in Comoros made of breadfruit, salt and coconut oil) so I end up preparing only three. The national food of Comoros is Langouste à la Vanille (Vanilla Lobster) but not only is that expensive to prepare and hard to find, I also do not trust that my ability would result in a good result. Therefore I go for Mshakiki, a dish of skewered and grilled meat marinated with spices. I prepare the marinade (lemon, salt, black pepper, cumin, turmeric, chilli, garlic, onion, ginger, coriander, and a little bit of kiwi) the night before, and then prepare the dish in the oven for several hours.  Traditionally it is prepared on a charcoal grill, but I trust my oven to do at least a decent job. Mshakiki is a common dish during Ramadan and is said to blend several culinary traditions – African,Arabic, Indian and French. It is also typical in Yemen and some Eastern African countries. It is a well received dish. I do not eat meat myself but the strong blend of spices gives the dish a very pleasant aroma. It does not look exactly as it should (as I am not a masterchef) but the taste is what matters and by the end of the afternoon, the dish has disappeared. 

Mshakiki is often served with flatbread, or yeasted leavened bread with sesame seeds, called Mkatra Foutra. It is an easy dish to make and I get A (11) to help me in the preparation. What makes it different from a ‘normal’ flatbread is that it is prepared with coconut milk. It is a very easy recipe with eggs, yeast, flour (both wholemeal and all purpose flour) and warm water. I did prepare a gluten free-option as well which was not a complete success but edible enough. 

My third Comoros dish is called Soupe Faux Pois (meaning a fake pea soup) – a refreshing pea soup. Not everyone in our Virtual Nomad party is a fan of peas and some give it a pass. But in the end it is quite a light, refreshing soup – but yes, with a lot of peas. The base is coconut milk again, and besides peas it has onion, tomatoes, and spices (cumin, coriander, cayenne, garlic). It has been called the national soup of Comoros and is often served as a starter to more substantial meals. Like many features of the Comorian cuisine, it is a fusion of African, French and Arab influences. It is served cold, so it works well on a warm autumn afternoon.

Islands in the sea 

As mentioned before, Comoros is made of three major islands and some smaller islands. The name of the country, Comoros, comes from an Arabic word al-qamar, meaning the moon. The first settlers were likely the Bantu people, who were then joined by Persian and Arab traders. The islands became important ports of trade, which also meant the spread of Islam around the 10th century. The islands were also visited frequently by the Portuguese and then by the 19th century, France had also taken interest. First, they claimed Mayotte (that still is an overseas department of France) and then, in 1886, the rest of the islands. Comoros (sans Mayotte) gained independence in 1975 but turbulent times followed, with coups, political instability and several presidents, some worse than others. The current president Azali Assoumani has been in power since 2016 but the country’s elections have been accused of being rigged and fraudulent. Comoros does not score well in terms of transparency, and corruption is rampant. Comoros is a fairly poor country with most of the population finding their livelihood in agriculture. 

One book from Comoros 

As for books from Comoros, I decide to read only one book, as the offer is not very broad and apart from one or two books, also not very accessible. 

Ali Zamir (born in 1987) is an author from the island of Anjouan, the second largest island of the Comoros, who studies French literature and lived in France for a while. Ali’s debut, A Girl Called Eel (2016) won several awards, including the Prix Senghor in 2016. Since 2014, he has been the Director of Culture and Cooperative Activities in Anjouan. 

“He didn’t realise that although you can overpower the body and keep it immobilised and lifeless, you can’t pin down the souls, it won’t be forced to the ground with broken wings.” 

This is an unusual book – it is basically one sentence for 300 pages (divided in five parts), a stream of consciousness of a drowning 17-year old girl Eel (Anguille) who remembers her life in one prolonged sentence (or a breath). She seems to talk to her own mind as she rambles, as teenagers sometimes do, from one theme to another, sometimes sounding very mature and sometimes very young. She has a twin called Rattler, a father called All-Knowing and a lover called Veracious. She lives in the city of Mutsumudu, on Anjouan and she describes what her life was like. It offers a fascinating glimpse of life in the Comoros, but the themes are universal – hope and betrayal. The pace of the narrative sometimes tumbles which I understand is meant to seem like her distorted thinking when approaching death.  It is a story in which winners are few, losers are many but also the survivors are surprising. 

Absences, residences and the grand marriage 

Not surprisingly, there are not many films made in Comoros. The first feature film was a 2000 comedy film Yéyamba Wandzé Mdrou Ndo? by Arsin Soiby. It is not available on any viewing platform so unfortunately we are not able to watch it for this stop. Fortunately we can watch a short film made in Comoros, and a super interesting documentary about a fundamentally important cultural tradition for the Comoran society, the Grand Marriage. 

La Résidence Ylang Ylang (2008) is a short fiction shot on 35mm and written and directed by Hachimiya Ahamada who was born in France to Comorian parents. She has directed a few documentaries about the Comoros – especially about immigration, from both angles; those that leave and those that stay.  La Résidence Ylang Ylang runs only for 20 minutes but deals with  the theme of immigration in a deeply touching way. A villager Djibril takes care of his brother’s house – the brother left the country over twenty years ago and seems to not be coming back. The islanders like Djibril live in huts made of straw or metal while the village is filled with empty houses (of permanent structures) built by those that have left the country. When Djibril’s hut burns down, he is faced with the decision of whether or not to move to his brother’s empty house. Hachimiya’s most recent film Ivresse d’une Oasis (2011) “explores the relationship between the inhabitants of the Comoros and the Comorian Diaspora that return to the homeland”. 

Le gran marriage (2013) is a documentary by Faisal Al Otaibi (produced by Al-Jazeera) that explores the importance of the traditional Grand Marriage in the Comoran culture. The Grand Marriage is a Comoran tradition that has been passed from generation to generation. The basic idea is that the Grand Marriage takes place some three to twenty years after the first wedding (the “small wedding”). In general the couple saves for years to have the celebration that in general takes about a week, and it is very important to obtain social status, and some traditional

costumes are allowed for men only after they have celebrated the Grand Marriage – they gain new social status as full adult members of the society.  The preparations for the grand wedding might take up ten years. It is an important social rite and an important part of a person’s social standing, and the respect they have from the people and community of Comoros.  

In the documentary, a former government minister Yehia Mohamed Elias married his first wife twenty years ago and they have seven children. He also married another, younger, woman two years ago – and he wants to celebrate le Gran Marriage with both. This is the first time that anyone has celebrated Le Gran Marriage with two wives – some men do have several wives but then celebrate the Grand Marriage only with one of them. In Yehia’s case,  the first wife approves, and says she loves her husband even more after he married the other young wife. But at 23 minutes of the documentary she says ”I have done my best to make him happy. This did not stop him from taking a second wife”, and then she assures that she approves of this and that she thinks he even waited too long for taking another wife. 

The preparation is important and when it comes to the wife/wives, a beauty process is a must and can take up to six months. It is called Mesenzal, and it takes place at night in order to make the bride “as beautiful as the moon”. 

It is a super interesting and easily digestible (50 minutes) documentary that truly shows the importance of this tradition and ritual in Comoran society. It is eye opening and informative, but also shows well the Comoran natural and human landscape, and that is even more interesting than the tradition itself. 

This was an interesting stop about a country that we knew so little about.

Thank you L for proofreading

Next stop: The Democratic Republic of the Congo

Colombians are often crowned as the happiest people on the planet, and are famous for their hospitality, joy for life and bubbly energy. I have several close Colombian friends and I agree with these sentiments. They are joyful and magnetic people. 

Colombia is a country made famous by a range of vastly different things, such as coffee production, drug lords, the non-lying hips of Shakira and the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Battered by a long-standing internal violent conflict, it is an amazingly friendly country of breathtaking landscapes and interesting culture. 

But first, as always. Food.

La tarde colombiana – the Colombian afternoon

I have a wonderful Colombian friend in Sydney, TAV. She is super smart, has an infectious smile and a beautiful family. When we invited her to curate the Colombian Afternoon, she enthusiastically jumped into the task, designed the menu, prepared a large quantity of sensational food, built a playlist of Colombian music and, on the day, ran our activities with efficiency, humour and warm energy. The Colombian afternoon was an outstanding success with amazing, rich flavours and a crowd of 26 people combining seasoned Virtual Nomads and several newbies. It was a wonderfully diverse group of people of different origins and a lot of kids running around. Apart from the several seasoned nomads (fellow Europeans KB and K+ with their families, DK and AK with their family, and my partner JK and our combined children L (18), FK (15), A (11) accompanied by NA (18). We also welcomed to the tribe my wonderful American friend AR, my lovely old friend NE with her incredibly cute very young son and my beautiful friend LW, a human rights warrior. And then of course our in-house Colombian TAV and her beautiful family.

When I met with TAV to plan the menu, she suggested that we order some Colombian delicatessen online. As TAV already decided to make quite a few of the planned dishes, I offered to carry out the ordering. I used the online option of Fruta Foods  – which was not only incredibly efficient, but also had outstanding customer service and high quality products. I could not praise this little business more. What was on my list were cheese arepas, green plantains, yellow potatoes, cassava croquettes, and other Colombian delicia. I still had no idea how to prepare them, but lucky as we were, TAV took over on the day to make sure that the food would be perfect. And it was!

The essential part of the Colombian kitchen is Arepas and Empanadas. TAV prepared meat and cheese empanadas with a delicious sauce. Empanadas are said to be originally from Galicia in Spain and brought to Latin America during Spanish colonisation. ‘Empanar’ in fact means to “wrap in bread or dough”. Colombians, like other Latin Americans, have adapted the recipe and localised it according to available resources. In Colombia (like in Venezuela) empanadas are prepared with corn flour, and usually contain meat, chicken or cheese filling. TAV is incredibly skilled with her cooking, and the present Virtual Nomads are completely gobsmacked with how rich and delicious food can be. I have bought some Arepas con queso from Fruta Foods. Arepas are round, flat cake-like patties made of white or yellow corn. The cheese filled arepa is a very popular choice and is delicious – but not as delicious as the homemade empanadas TAV brings. 

In my Colombia-box, there are Cassava Croquettes that are made of yuca. TAV placed them in the air fryer and made sure that they were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. For TAV it is important that we get to taste different traditional foods all around Colombia – yuca is very typical of coastal, Amazonian and Andean regions, being used instead of potatoes or rice. Cassava croquettes are similar to French fries made of potato. Yuca is native to South America and was first cultivated by Amazonian rainforest Indigenous peoples. It is a good starch to grow in challenging climates (such as arid environments and tropics). Yuca has a musical Latin name, Manihot Esculenta and it is an energy-rich food. Yuca should never be eaten raw but properly prepared. The Virtual Nomads turn out to be big fans of yuca and the bowl is empty in record time. 

As part of the goody box, we also have flat green plantains and preparing them is a bit of an art. Just like yuca, they are supposed to be crunchy on top but soft on the inside and again it is TAV that supervises the preparation. In Colombia, green plantains are served in different forms and on our Colombian Night, TAV prepared them as patacones (tostones) which are often served as appetizers with the hogao sauce (that my old friend NE brings). Hogao sauce is a tomato-onion sauce used to accompany many dishes in Colombian cuisine, particularly in the Andean region. It is said to be a dish of mixed origin – Indigenous, Spanish and African. It is often associated with the Antioquia region (where Medellin is situated). The patacones and hogao sauce is a fantastic combination. 

Fellow Europeans KB and K+ (with their families) prepared one rice-based dish each. KB and family brought arroz con coco – rice with coconut. It is a traditional dish of the Caribbean coast (where there is easy access to coconuts) and has strong roots in Afro-Colombian heritage. It is prepared with rice, coconut, salt and sugar, and raisins that give it a sweet taste. K+ (and family) brought arroz con pollo – rice with chicken. (L proofreader note: very convenient names!) Arroz con pollo is not unique to Colombia but a very typical dish in the region with local variations. It is still a very constant feature of the Colombian kitchen and often home-made regular family food. Both rice dishes are delicious and taste very authentic. 

AK brought carne desmechada which is a traditional Colombian dish made of shredded beef, cooked until it becomes tender enough to be pulled apart into thin strands. It is typically served with (or on) arepas, patacones (the green plantains) or rice and beans (which TAV also brings). Carne desmechada is a dish that is eaten across Colombia,  especially common on the Caribbean coastal region mostly mixed with arepas, and in the Andean region often accompanied by rice or yellow potatoes. We decide to bring yellow potatoes (in my goodie bag from Fruta Foods), called Papa Criolla, typical of the Andean region – and they do not need peeling. They are small and round with very thin skin, and quite soft and creamy in their taste. 

During dessert time, we were beyond spoiled. My beautiful American friend and first time-Virtual Nomad AR has prepared Arroz con leche – a very yummy, very traditional Colombian dessert made of rice, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and milk (L proofread note: I love arroz con leche, milk with rice, so much you might hear me yell it out from the rooftops). It is strongly embedded in Colombian culture and TAV explains that for many it is the taste of their childhood. There is even a nursery rhyme in Colombia that refers to it. AR has done a stellar job and Virtual Nomads are thrilled with the result. TAV also served dulce de leche – we really wanted to find the Colombian version that is arequipe but could not find an authentic one so opted for the thicker version of this sweet treat. Dulce de leche (as witnessed in our Argentinian stop) is beloved in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, whereas arequipe is the Colombian and Venezuelan version. The consistency of arequipe is usually slightly lighter than dulce de leche but that varies. We eat arequipe in the form of obleas, thin crispy wafers with arequipe on top. 

For drinks, we had the adult Colombian section and the youngsters section. TAV’s lovely husband took the bartender role and offered two types of Aguardiente. Aguardiente, consumed in different parts of the Iberoamerican world, comes from ‘agua’ meaning ‘water’ and ‘ardiente’ which means ‘burning’, so… burning water! It is usually high in alcohol, ranging from 29% to 60% depending on the brand, region, production methods, etc. In Colombia, it is distilled from sugarcane with added anis to give flavour. The 32 departments in Colombia each produce their own aguardiente, but in February 2025, the Colombian Constitutional Court declared the departmental aguardiente monopolies unconstitutional, therefore producers from different regions can now make their products available nationwide. TAV and family offered the famous Aguardiente from Antioquia (Andean region where Medellin is situated) as well as Apple Aguardiente from Manzanares (Department of Caldas). The non-alcoholic option is Pupa de Fruta– preparation is entrusted to L and NA. Pupa de fruta is blended fruit that can be used for juice. Our choice (again from Fruta Foods) is made of lulo, a native Colombian fruit with a citrusy flavour. The juice tastes amazing.

The second most biodiverse country in the world 

After Brazil, Colombia is the second most biodiverse country – with the highest bird diversity in the world. 

In ancient times, several people inhabited the lands of now-modern Colombia, including the Quimbaya people, famous for their goldwork and ceramics, the very advanced Muisca and the war waging Muzo people. Then, as in everywhere in Latin America, the Spanish came and conquered the continent. Colombia was first referred to as New Granada as part of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish brought slaves from Africa to work on the land, and a few conquistadors even thought that the musical El Dorado was placed somewhere in the Colombian rainforest. 

In 1819, Colombia gained independence as part of Gran Colombia (consisting of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama) after the Independence movement (1810-1819) led by the legendary Simón Bolívar. In 1831, the Gran Colombia dissolved and Colombia became independent, finally abolishing slavery in 1851. Independence came with a toll in the form of civil wars, including the Thousand Days’ War (1899-1902). In 1948, politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was murdered, which pushed Colombia into a very gruesome, politically motivated violent period lasting ten years known as La Violencia. Despite attempts to stop violence, the country spiralled deeper into armed conflict with guerrilla groups (FARC, ELM), drug carters and paramilitaries. In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar’s carter-dominated Medellin was the most violent and dangerous city in the world with unprecedented levels of death and terror. A historic peace treaty was signed with FARC in 2016, but the challenges are far from over. 

FOUR COLOMBIAN BOOKS

As I have mentioned, I am blessed with several Colombian friends scattered around the globe, including TAV,  whether roaming around different parts of mother earth or living in their motherland. I decided to turn to them for book and film recommendations and of course, as Colombians, they are up to the task.  Four wonderful Colombian friends took the task: TAV. my dear old friend and children’s book author storyteller DC (who lives in Canada), my other old gorgeous friend CV who lives in Colombia, does immensely important work around social dialogue and cultural heritage, and SJR who I met years ago and we ended up working together years later. They are all amazing people and therefore I decide to read and watch all that they have recommended. 

One Hundred Years of Solitude

This is one of the most famous – and one the very best books ever written – and constantly in the top 10 of any kind of best of the very best, bestest, better than best lists. I have read it in the past, and I have read it in the original language (ahem) so I will give this space to my daughter L (18) who reads it for the first time. Even if one of L’s native languages is Spanish, the original version could result complicated for her so she has chosen to read the translation. Her review of the book will appear here once she has read it [L note: just finished reading the book for China so will see to this asap!!]. 

My storyteller friend DC who lives in Canada with her beautiful family, recommended that I read something from William Ospina who writes about the conquest of Amazonia, the Americas and Colombia. I choose to read Ursúa, the first book of a trilogy DC mentions. It is a beautifully written book in which every page is almost like poetry. The language is truly masterful with amazingly beautiful descriptions of terrible and cruel things. Again, I have the advantage of being able to read in the original language. The book is about Pedro de Ursúa, a real-life Spanish conquistador from Navarra who sailed to the Americas in the 1500s. Pedro is first a loyal follower of the Spanish order but becomes corrupted by greed for gold and power, and ends up being a ferocious killer. The historic accuracy is astonishing, and it shows that William has done his research. There are so many names and places, and overlapping storylines that I do have to google some of it to understand who is who. It is a compelling read and first instalment in a trilogy that includes El país de la canela (hailed as the best of the trilogy) and La serpiente sin ojos.

Another Colombian friend, SJR, recommends Delirio (Delirium, 2004) by Laura Restrepo that he says his wife loved. Laura Restrepo is a renowned Colombian author and journalist who has been politically active. She was forced into exile in Mexico and Spain due to the death threats she received in the 1980s for her activism. Delirio is probably her most known book and it won her the prestigious Alfaguara de Novela award. Dragging at times, and confusing in places, it is a story narrated by several different people with the voice of the narrator changing to the point that it requires persistence from the reader to understand who is talking. It is a story of a young unstable wife (Agustina) of a penniless university professor and her sudden slip into insanity. Agustina goes missing for four days and her husband is trying to put things together to know what happened to his young wife. Other characters play significant roles in the story, from aunts and brothers to ex partners. Some parts of the story are interesting, especially when it comes to the 1980s Colombia that the book depicts. but other parts were less interesting (Agustina as a character was quite infuriating). It is an interesting, confusing and uneven book that speeds up and becomes quite thrilling towards the end. 

My dear friend CV, who does very important work in Colombia, recommends reading anything from Alfredo Molano, a sociologist who dedicated his life to documenting the stories of displaced people, and victims of the long and grueling internal conflict in Colombia. I decided to read Desterrados (2001), which is his internationally most famous work. Written while in exile in Barcelona, it contains eight real life stories of people affected by the conflict. The stories are first-person narratives in which the narrative itself is given to the people and Alfredo documents them in a form of narrative journalism. It is a remarkable testimony of the absurdity of everyday violence and the effect it has upon people, many of whom have absolutely nothing to do with any of the parties in the conflict. People stuck in between and suffering the consequences of, sometimes completely absurd and sudden, violent outbursts and actions. A remarkable, deeply touching book. 

Laura Quintana is another author recommended by my Colombian friends, so as the last of my four Colombian reads, I decide to read one of her books. Laura is an academic scholar and her literary production is not fiction, rather focused on political philosophy, social sciences and the dimensions of aesthetics. One of her most famous (The Politics of Bodies: Philosophical Emancipation and Beyond Rancière, 2020)  refers to the “politics of the body” which refers to the “political emancipation of the body”. It sounds interesting but I decided to read Rabia. Afectos, violencia, inmunidad (2021) instead. I am not going to lie: I did think that it would be more connected to Colombia but it approaches the theme of anger and resentment more broadly, and that is a slight disappointment for me. She introduces very interesting elements such as the concept of rabia digna; a collective, justified anger that can be turned into a non-destructive political action or movement. She also talks about affective economies – processes in which emotions and affections are circulated as goods, e.g. how [collective] fear, anger or resentment is produced and used as currency in political and social actions. It is a very interesting book and relevant to times we live in, even if it is quite long and repetitive in parts. 

THE COLOMBIAN FILM FESTIVAL

My four wonderful Colombian friends are quick to give recommendations and I decide to be completely guided by them, and see all the movies they say I should see. In the end the Colombian Film Festival includes eleven movies that my friends recommended, one that they did not recommend but I wanted to see anyway (because it has Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz); and then JK and I also decide to watch the Netflix series based on one of the best books in the universe, 100 years of solitude. 

Let the Colombian Film Festival begin.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the City of Medellin was the most dangerous city in the world. The murder rate in the city reached an unpresented incomprehensive 385-395 (depending on the source) murders per 100,000 people and violence was the cause of 42% of the deaths in the city with an average of 16 people being murdered every single day. The violence in the city was the result of a combination of things, most significantly the urban warfare of drug cartels. This was the peak time of Pablo Escobar, the most famous drug lord in the world. The movie Rodrigo D. No Futuro (Rodrigo D. No future, 1990) was filmed in Medellin 1986-88 by Víctor Gaviria, with mostly local amateur actors against the background of the daily violence. The sad backstory is that four of the young actors, mostly members of local gangs, died in gang-related violence before the movie’s premier. The movie is dedicated to their memory. 

The movie focuses on Rodrigo D. who has a passion for punk music and dreams to be a punk drummer. He is surrounded by friends who find themselves deep in the violent lifestyle of the city, and slowly the walls around Rodrigo start to draw closer. The violence in the movie is never explicit, but ever-present. It is an incredibly brave and honest film not only describing life in the violent communas (where a sight of a dead body does not affect anyone much, even children) but also the draining nature of a future with no hope. It is also a testimony to the punk scene of the time that offered an outlet to the youth in the area including some of the actors in the film. It is a devastating film to watch, but raw and thoughtful in its portrayal of wasted lives. 

The most famous movie of Víctor Gaviria and one of the most internationally known Colombian movies is La Vendedora de Rosas (the Rose Seller, 1998). This is another tough movie to watch, for similar reasons as his Rodrigo D. No Futuro. Again, Víctor opted to use non-professional actors from Medellin, people with life experience and knowledge of what it is like to grow up surrounded by violence, drug trafficking and poverty. And again, the ever-present violence is the umbrella overshadowing everything; it is astonishingly normal, so much that when two people kill a wrong person, there is no remorse, only a blunt statement of: “well, he was no good anyway.” And again, some of the actors met a violent end on the streets of Medellin. In 2014, out of 15 male actors that participated in the movie, only three were alive. What makes this movie, like Rodrigo D, so remarkable is the rawness and truthfulness of it. It is not meant to be social pornography but almost a documentary dressed up as fiction to tell what life is like when options are few and almost all the energy needs to be dedicated to surviving an urban jungle of violence, betrayal and vice. 

The absurdity of a violent conflict is shown most effectively through the eyes of a child. Los coleres de la montaña (The colours of the mountain, 2010) by Carlos César Arbeláez shows the crude reality of people in a remote part in the countryside living pressed between the paramilitary, the army and the guerrilla. 9-year-old Manuel loves football and drawing, and for his birthday he gets a real football. Once the football falls in a minefield, the conflict becomes very real for Manuel and his friends. The movie grows gradually from idyllic living in a beautiful countryside, to a life without options, affected by senseless violence and desperate people finding themselves in an impossibly narrow place. Most people end up leaving their homes in a hurry and where do they end up? In urban environments of social and economic problems such as the two previous movies by Víctor, Rodrigo D. No Future and the Rose Seller. My friend CV says of this, and Víctor’s movies, that “this country hurts but this reality cannot made invisible.” 

There is something magnetic, haunting and chilling about the movie La Sirga (the English title is The Towrope, 2013) by William Vega – even if not much happens. The movie is shot in an intriguing and unusual location, the Wetland of la Laguna de La Cocha (in Nariño, close to the border with Ecuador) surrounded in winter by an everlasting mist and constant rain. In the movie a young woman called Alicia arrives at the remote location of her estranged uncle’s house after her family is burned alive (due to the armed conflict). The violence is never explicit or shown, but somehow the atmosphere is filled with unspoken quiet fear and the armed conflict is gearing nearer very subtlety. It is a quiet movie of vulnerable people and the stalking shadow of armed conflict. Everything is understated and subtle, even the most devastating details. Alicia starts to heal but the threat returns when her cousin Freddy returns after years of absence. The actress, Joghis Seudin Arias, does an outstanding job in the role of the deeply traumatised, sleepwalking Alicia. In real life, she lost her father and grandfather to the guerrilla and that brings an unusual depth and rawness to her performance. Some reviewers have called the movie boring but I found it mesmerising. Of all the amazing films that I have seen for this stop, this is my top one. 

Pájaros de Verano (Birds of Passage, 2018) was a huge winner in the 2019 Macondo Awards (The Colombian Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences). Filmed in the very cinematographic Guajira Peninsula, it is a Colombian drug mafia movie of easy money, reckless young men, corrupt police and senseless violence. But it is also a movie about the Indigenous clans in Guajira during the peak era of the Colombian marijuana trade (called the Bonanza Marimbera 1975-1985 – in 1975 approximately 75% of all farmers in Guajira substituted their crops with marijuana plants) when drug money was pouring in and old traditions were mixed with ‘Western values’. Greed is a universal human characteristic, and no community is saved from it, often leading to tragedy. The movie by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra (who were married and divorced during the filming of this film) is filmed in the languages of Wayuú (part of the Arawak language family), Spanish and Wiwa (and a little bit of English). The film shows a gorgeous landscape, but also uneven rhythm and several plot holes. It is enjoyable for the fact that Indigenous clans are not portrayed as victims, but not as saints either. The western ways are clearly seeding destruction but the ancient ways in which women were treated as property and prisoners of tradition are also shown as flawed. Both JK and I enjoyed watching it and were quite mesmerised by the impactful landscape.  

Maria, llena eres de Gracia (Maria, full of grace, 2004) belongs to its main actress, Catalina Sandino Moreno. She is mesmerising and nuanced in the role of Maria to the point that it does not feel like acting. In the movie, she becomes a human drug mule and gives such dignity to the simple country town girl in a desperate situation. It is painfully shown how she must swallow 60 pellets made of cut plastic gloves full of cocaine. It is an impactful movie that almost feels like a documentary at times. First-time director Joshua Marston was inspired by a real-life former drug mule in his neighbourhood of Brooklyn who told him what it was like to swallow tens of small heroin pellets. And yes, Catalina’s performance cannot be praised enough. She manages to make Maria a real person; someone not particularly brave or extraordinary; a young country girl with limited options in life choosing a dangerous path to survive. Hers is one story among many mules, and it becomes painfully clear in the movie. 

Paraiso Travel (2008) is a movie about a current theme, illegal immigration – even if the premise of the movie is a bit silly, and there are much better movies about the topic. A young middle class Colombian man is obsessed with a girl called Reina (“queen”) who in turn is obsessed with moving to the United States – but not through an official way, insread bytaking a plane to Guatemala and continuing from there towards the US border. Marlon (the obsessed man) drains all common sense down the sink and follows her through a dangerous road to misery. He meets good and bad people on the road. It is not the first story in the history of cinema in which a young man is obsessed with a manipulative and deceiving Sexy Girl. He basically throws his life away for a promise that once they reach New York, she will finally have sex with him. The director, Simón Brand, had directed mainly music videos, which showed the overall quality of the film. There are references to the hardship immigrants go through when they take a perilous journey towards north but besides that it is a fairly shallow and cliché movie that does not really reach what it intends to do. The main actor (the sex-craving young man) is quite wooden in his role and not charismatic enough to carry a movie. The scenes in Guatemala and Mexico, albeit short, are the most impactful as they do give a glimpse of the cruel and devastating world of desperate people trying to find a better tomorrow.  

La Virgen de los Sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins, 2000) by Barbet Schroeder is another movie about the spiral of drug wars and violence in Medellin in the 1990s. It is based on the controversial biographical novel of Fernando Vallejo who returns to his hometown Medellin after thirty years of absence and gets involved in the world of teenage assassins, sicarios. Pablo Escobar has just died and the city is a war zone. The drug cartels are or have been contracting teenage killers from the communas who now are not only aggressive and trigger-sensitive but also without work. There is much to unpack in this movie including Fernando’s (who is in his 50s) involvement with teenage boys, the senseless daily violence (“that was the second of the day” says the pharmacists about a dead body to Fernando when he goes to buy ear plugs in the morning), the impact of religion in the lives of killers and drug lords (teenage killers go to pray to virgin Mary to bless their business of murdering), and the urban warfare. In one scene the characters go to the hills around Medellin and there is a sign : prohibited to throw dead bodies. It is a strange movie – very impactful in its depiction of the absolute senseless violence and the forensics of the transformation of Medellin from a textile industry city to a blood filled playground of young boys with guns. It is also disturbing in the portraying of the middle aged Fernando and his pseudointellectual lecturing to his humilde teenage lovers who are basically obliged to listen to his babbling. 

It is probably fair to say that Los Viajes del Viento (The Wind Journey, 2009) is a road movie about music. Directed by  Ciro Guerra, the other director of Pájaros de Verano (Birds of Passage, 2018) from whom I end up watching three movies for this Colombian Film Festival. This one is a slow-spaced, quite still movie about an old expert accordion player who, after his wife’s death, stops playing. He starts a long and slow journey to return the instrument to the master who gave it to him. He is accompanied by a young apprentice who wants to learn the secrets of accordion playing. The movie floats or drifts like a wind – the landscape is majestic (different locations in Northern Colombia), the plot is ’floating’ (not much happens and things just ‘float’), and music plays an important role. There are several still moments, long takes of landscapes, or groups of people or just people looking at the camera/to the distance for a long time – which makes it sometimes feel like a David Lynch movie. It is worth watching for the landscape and music.

El abrazo de serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent, 2015), again by Ciro Guerra, is an unusual and impactful movie. Filmed almost entirely in black and white, it is an astonishing tribute to the Amazon and its ecology. The main character is Karamakate, the last surviving member of his tribe, portrayed both as a young and old man through his relationship with two foreigners, forty years apart. It really is quite a captivating, remarkable movie that spans so many different themes; environment, memory, colonialism and Christianity. It is dream-like, poetic, haunting and a true homage to the majestic Amazon forest and the people that inhabit it. It is worthy of all the praise that has come its way. Even if La Sirga remains as my favourite of the Colombian Film Festival, this one is a close second.

La Tierra y la Sombra (Land and Shade, 2015) is another very still, quiet movie of minimal dialogue, long pauses, and a fascinating landscapes – situated in the Cauca Valley, close to the Andes, also the place of origin of the director César Augusto Acevedo. It won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It tells about destruction and the disappearance of traditional livelihoods. An old man, Alfonso, returns to his old house where his ex-wife lives with their son and the son’s family. The son is dying of the chemicals that surrounding sugarcane plantations release into the air. It is about remorse, loss and a struggling rural community. It is a movie of long silent shots, weather-beaten faces of former farmers working for the plantations (one of the most terrible jobs there is). It is beautiful and effective, but inevitably feels long. The director has said that the slow pace is deliberate as it is to reflect the atmosphere better. And it does feel slow, even if some of the photography is outstanding, almost like photos. 

I decide to watch Loving Pablo (Fernando León de Aranoa, 2017) because of its leading actors, the amazing Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem. It has not been recommended by any of my Colombian friends, and it really is not a very good movie. But both Penélope and Javier are extraordinary – especially Penélope who seems to get better and better with age. My theory is that because of her unreal beauty, she has not been able to show her talent in good roles until later in life, and again in this one she is outstanding. The movie of course is about Pablo Escobar, based on the memoir of journalist Victoria Vallejo called Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar describing her five-year affair with him. It describes the rise and fall of the King of Cocaine, the world’s most famous drug lord and is weirdly filmed in English with occasional Spanish. The decision to make all the characters speak in broken English is very strange.  In conclusion, a mediocre movie with first class acting – especially in a scene in which Victoria (Penélope) faces sicarios who are after her.

JK and I finish the Colombian Movie Festival with the first eight episodes (the other eight episodes still in production in 2025) of the One Hundred Years of Solitude, produced by Netflix. When Gabriel García Márquez was alive, he did not grant film rights to the book. Therefore the family demanded that the series was to be filmed in Colombia, with a Colombian cast and in Spanish. The result is nothing short of magical, and quite loyal to the spirit of Gaby’s Opus Magna. It is such a complex and multinuanced book that some compromises have been made, but that does not matter as the result is quite mesmerising, visually and aesthetically impressive.  

There is more than Shakira

Shakira is without doubt the most famous musician coming out of Colombia. Her break to the international market is nothing short of impressive and her transformation into a global stardom is quite unique. When TAV and I built the playlist for the Colombian afternoon, her request was “not just Shakira”. Without taking any merit out of Shakira’s success (if you watch her superbowl performance, it is quite easy to understand why she is as successful as she is from her cultural hybridity dancing to being a multi-instrumentalist), it is important to underline that there are many, many other musicians in Colombia. Colombia has a very rich musical tradition and has produced quite a few big stars, including Karol G, Maluma and Juanes. 

Next stop: Comoros

Thank you wonderful L for your proofreading!