How to celebrate a country that we hear so little about, and the little we hear is bad or sad news? Recently we stopped in Cameroon and now we have come to stop in its neighbour – the Central African Republic (CAR). It is a country that has been living through one of the world’s forgotten conflicts. The violence has lasted for more than a decade and has resulted in thousands of victims, nearly half a million internally displaced more than 700,000 refugees living in neighbouring countries. The ongoing conflict has also hindered the country’s development with 70% of the population living in extreme poverty (according to several sources, including the World Bank and UNDP). CAR is currently considered the third poorest country in the world (World Bank, October 2024), the third least developed (UNDP, Human Development Report 2024) and the worst country to be young.
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 your fingers and there is less space for everything. We decide to organise a BIG Sunday afternoon incorporating multiple Virtual Nomad food stops. We celebrate Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo all at once. This is not to say that these countries are similar or the same, it is just an opportunity to get people together for one big night and progress 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 of myself and my partner JK, we have my children A (11) and L (17), L’s boyfriend 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 7th stop. A 4th stop for L* and her daughter S*, our first friends in Australia. A 2nd stop for our resident Canadian CL (see the stop for Canada) with his beautiful wife JJ and children EL (10) and SL (12). A Wonderful fellow European CB comes to her 2nd 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 great six 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 Central African Republic (CAR) food of our happy, hilarious, joyful, warm and inviting African Afternoon.
The cuisine in CAR relies on easily available ingredients such as cassava, peanuts, sweet potato and whatever else is available. CB and her wonderful family bring a delicious Masala Vegetable Stew – with the masala being an Indian influence. This stew is a blend of locally grown vegetables with aromatic spices such as cumin, coriander and garlic. The vegetable stew is a typical dish for the region where access to meat is scarce and the population needs to rely on available resources. As with many dishes from the region, it is not rich in flavour or with a particularly exotic taste. Around 45% of the people experience food insecurity so any available ingredients are utilised.
JJ is an outstanding cook and she and family bring Kanda Pumpkin Seed Meatballs (with rice). Meat is not very common in the Central African Republic but Kanda is a traditional meal and a very popular dish. It is usually made with beef, garlic, onion and pumpkin seeds. The meatballs are cooked in a rich tomato sauce with spices. In CAR, there are two versions of Kanda. The traditional Kanda that JJ prepared and a version with peanuts and okra, Kanda ti nyma. The addition of pumpkin seeds in the traditional Kanda really adds something special into the dish. Pumpkin seeds in CAR are an essential addition to the diet as they are very high in nutrients and antioxidants and have many health benefits. I’m told by the meat-eating Virtual Nomads that, just like the vegetable stew, this dish is really delicious.
AK brings a fryer and frozen plantains, and goes to work in the front yard. The result is amazingly delicious fried plantains – very typical of the central African region. Fried plantains are consumed not only in CAR but in all the other countries that we celebrated in the African Afternoon. The CAR climate is perfectly suited for plantains and they constitute an affordable and easily available food source. The most common way of cooking plantains is frying, and AK does an outstanding job. In CAR the plantains are most common as a side dish but can also be consumed as a snack. Plantains are a close relative to bananas but it is recommendable not to eat them raw. While bananas have a soft texture, plantains are firmer.
Cassava is one of the main ingredients in the CAR kitchen. In order to honour the significance of cassava, I decide to offer cassava chips that an online shop sends me. We have four different flavours: original (bland, without much flavour), lime and cracked pepper (probably not very authentic CAR), sweet chilli and sour cream (even less so) and sea salt. In the end, they have very little to do with CAR but at least they give a hint of the Cassava taste. Cassava is also called manioc or yucca and it is a common food crop in CAR. It can grow in dry and nutrient-poor soils and is very resilient to drought. Raw cassava can be toxic so cooking it is labour intensive. Cassava not only feeds the population but is used for many other purposes, from generating ethanol to different industrial products. It also provides food for animals. In regions of food insecurity such as CAR, cassava is a key source of food .
Another food problem is that the CAR cuisine includes a lot of insects, such as caterpillars, crickets and grasshoppers. While hunting for caterpillars in the backyard sounds like a stupid idea and ordering insects online even more bizarre, a way to honour the CAR food tradition of eating caterpillars and other insects is to bring them in a lolly form. The lolly caterpillars / centipedes are a symbolic acknowledgement of CAR’s culinary traditions. The younger Virtual Nomads are especially happy with them as lollies are not usually offered as a part of a main dish.
A turbulent country by the Ubangi River
The paradox is that the Central African Republic is a very resource-rich country with some of the poorest people in the world. Once called the Ubangi-Shari by the French colonisers (due to the name of the two rivers, Ubangi and Chari), it became independent in 1960. The capital Bangui was ranked in 2024 as the most expensive capital city in Africa and the 14th most expensive city in the world. Something does not quite add up, you might say, and that is true. It is again the poor people that suffer the most.
Several peoples have inhabited the lands of CAR for an unknown period of time. One of the first were the Aka but several others followed (including the Ubangian and Bantu people). The area was a source of slaves from the 1600s, with this horrific trade going on for centuries. The slaves were first traded to Europe and the Muslim world. In the 1800s the Bobangi became slave traders and sold their captives primarily to the Americas. The French colonisers arrived in 1885 and claimed the area for France in 1894 as part of French Equatorial Africa. There was some back and forth with Germany as in 1911 the Treaty of Fez decreased the area controlled by France. But the French returned with a brutal hand and the extraction of rubber, ivory and coffee was imposed in a ruthless manner, with any protest harshly quashed. Of all of the French colonies, the rule in ‘Ubangi-Shari’ is said to have been the most brutal.
The first Premier was Barthélemy Boganda, who changed the country’s name to the Central African Republic. He hoped to build a union of African states, designed the flag and wrote the lyrics to the National Anthem. He could have become the first president but died in a suspicious plane crash in 1959. Independence came in 1960 but it was not smooth sailing. Chaos followed and the country rapidly became bankrupt. One of the country’s ‘leaders” was an insane, self-proclaimed Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa who was the country’s second president (unelected) from 1965 to 1979. He declared himself president/emperor for life. His coronation cost a third of the country’s annual budget. He had 17 wives, was sentenced to death for the murder of schoolchildren (a terrible story) and had other criminal charges laid against him, including cannibalism. He was pardoned in 1993 and died soon after. A number of his children have clearly inherited some of his insane tendencies.
Several coups followed the Bokassa regime and even more peacekeeping missions by UN peacekeepers. Volatile and mostly undemocratic leaders wielded power, leading to fierce power struggles and rebellions, weak and inefficient governance and atrocious human rights violations. The Central African Bush War (2004 – 2007) was a conflict between UFDR rebels (Union of Democratic Forces for Unity) and government forces. Violence, instability, displacement and suffering for the general population ignited again in 2013, leading to an internal conflict (also referred as a civil war) that has been ongoing ever since. It is a very complex conflict with deep roots in the country’s unstable past, overlaid with ethnic, religious, political and economic issues. The ethnic tensions include divisions between the Christian and Muslim communities. The economic factors include fighting for control of the country’s natural resources – especially diamonds, gold and timber. The armed groups are numerous and other countries have also sought to get a slice of the pie.
There have been various peace agreements, peacekeeping missions and international efforts but the situation is far from resolved. The latest peace agreement (Khartoum Agreement, 2019) has not successfully ended the violence, conflict and humanitarian crises. The general population is gravely affected. Millions live in very difficult conditions with 70% of the population living in extreme poverty (90% without electricity) and the threat of violence is ever-present.
BOOKS: Co-wives and street kids
“The sun, like the mosquito, was pansexual and gregarious; every variety of flesh was welcome”
“When the presidential elections results came in, the outgoing president had not won the first round with 120% of the vote. He could have, if he’d wanted, but he’d chosen 66%”
My first CAR book is Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza (2015). Adrienne has become a notable figure in the world of literature. She is multilingual and worked as a hairdresser in CAR before fleeing the civil war with her five children, first to the Republic of the Congo and then to France where they gained political asylum. The book is predominantly about female friendship, in this case two women who share a husband and then become co-widows. It is a funny little book with sometimes quite simple – perhaps intentionally – childlike writing, but with hilarious metaphors and a darker background. The co-widows find strength in each other and other women who help them to bring justice to a situation where they have been treated unfairly. Through seemingly simple writing it exposes institutional corruption, political instability, rampant inequality and the fragile place for women in a society where, in the end, women are commodities and money dictates power and justice. It’s a mix of social commentary, camouflaged political statement, romance novella naivety and some degree of fairy-tale.
A book that is very hard to find (and only available in French) is Nago et sa Grand-mère (Nago and his grandmother, 2017) by Georgette Florence Koyt-Deballé. Georgette works at the University of Bangui where she teaches English literature. She is Sorbonne-educated and the Secretary General of the UNESCO Commission for the Central African Republic. I originally wanted to read her book Ravages (2006) but it is even harder to find so I end up reading the only book out of Georgette’s nine that I can find. Nago is a boy who lives with his grandmother and dreams about becoming a boxer, like his hero Muhammad Ali. I feel that I am not the right audience as it is clearly intended for younger readers. There are tender moments, and thoughts about dreams and school, etc. It is a shortish book and whilst I did not find it particularly engaging, I am not the target audience.
Then things get a bit more complicated. It is impossible to get a hold of the next books I have on my reading list. Le Dernier Survivant de la caravane (1998) by Étienne Goyemidé and Daba’s Travel from Ouadda to Bangui (1970) by Makombo Bamboté – the first book published in Central African Republic.
I end up reading a comic book by CAR artist Didier Kassaï and British photojournalist Marc Ellison called A House Without Windows (2018). It is a graphic novel about children in CAR – street kids in Bangui, malnourished children in the countryside, children affected by the conflict. It is an astonishing book that mixes photos, illustrations and a 360˚video documentary. It shows the cruel reality of children in a broken country. The title reflects what the authors believe the Central African Republic has become. When a house has no windows, no one can see in but also you cannot see the world outside. It is a photo documentary and an illustration of what these children are facing. The photos in the book are accompanied by short reflections, many of which are based on real interviews. In one series of illustrations a boy who escaped from a children’s centre says:” I left the children’s centre. They have witches there… I was afraid that one of them was going to put a curse on me, so I got up during the night and broke his nose before he could do that… then I ran away. I am afraid of living on the streets, but I’m more afraid of witches.” The photos show how dangerous it is to sleep outside, and there is only one centre for street kids in Bangui. The priest working for the centre estimates that there are around 6,000 children sleeping rough in Bangui. The children have escaped domestic violence, lost their parents due violence or been abandoned by their mothers once their fathers have died – or they are accused of witchcraft. Then there are all the children that face poverty, hunger and violence. It is a heartbreaking book of devastating, exquisite art.
One movie and many documentaries
The ongoing conflict and severe financial difficulties have put limitations on the potential for film production in CAR. The first feature-length film was Le Silence de la Forêt (The Silence of the Forest, 2003) – a collaborative directional effort by the late CAR director Didier Florent Ouénangaré and Cameroonian Bassek Ba Kobhio. The project was Didier’s idea, based on the book by Étienne Goyémidé. The story is about a French-educated man called Gonaba who returns to his homeland CAR and is consumed by his idea of bringing ‘civilisation’, education and equality to the discriminated Baka people (sometimes referred to with the pejorative name Pygmies), who live in the forest areas between CAR, Cameroon and Republic of the Congo. Gonada ends up in a Baka village with the intent of teaching the village people about modern ways, but of course they end up teaching him more. When he tells village chief that one of the village people, Manga, was beaten and ridiculed by his urban employer, the village chief says that as long as Manga’s spirit was free, he cannot be owned. It is an interesting and respectable, if somewhat clumsy, tale of racism within Africa. The plot itself is well intended but quite mediocre and a bit infuriating when it comes to Gonada’s relationships with women. However the cinematography, scenery, landscape, music and dance, and clear knowledge of the Baka culture makes it quite an intriguing watch.
There are not many other feature films to watch, except those that are filmed in CAR by overseas directors. Examples include Oka! (2011) about an American ethno-musicologist who lived with the Baka for 25 years and Camille (2019) about a 26-year old French photographer Camille Lepage who was killed in CAR in 2014.
So I turn to documentaries
There are an estimated one to two million Chinese immigrants in Africa. Directed by Pascale Appora-Gnekindy (CAR national) and Ningyi Sun (Chinese national), the documentary Eat Bitter (2023) is about the Chinese influence in the CAR building industry. Chinese construction manager Jianmin Luan has moved to CAR from China to further his career. He admits that in China he could not be a manager but CAR gives him the opportunity to bring wellbeing to his family and save for retirement. But the political situation and the possibility of another civil war threatens his business. The Chinese construction workers discuss the situation and some of them consider leaving the country if the security situation deteriorates. Jianmin struggles with external factors (deadlines, weather, the political situation) and family challenges (the mental health struggles of his wife in China). Another participant in the documentary is sand diver Thomas Boa. He is a single father who is employed in an incredibly dangerous profession – diving for sand that is sold to the Chinese construction companies, sometimes in areas controlled by armed militias. He takes risks in order to provide for his family. He dreams of starting his own sand diving business, which begins when he buys his own canoe. While the local workers befriend their Chinese supervisors, they are also aware of the inequality in living conditions, financial remuneration and physical security that separates them and the Chinese immigrants. It’s a very interesting and poignant documentary, currently available on Youtube (October 2024).
Central African Republic, At Your Own Risk (2021) by a French documentary director Guillaume L’Hotellier is a documentary about the challenges of public transport in CAR. It shows a country with a great wealth of natural resources that are not directed to the general population or the country’s crumbling infrastructure. The roads are terrible and dangerous, and public transport is scarce. The documentary shows three different ways of travelling and their perils and challenges each present. It includes a two-day journey in a truck carrying close to a hundred passengers, driving on water filled roads with enormous potholes. Some of the passengers travel for 18 hours standing upright, There is also the perils of travelling on leaking boats that have to employ people to constantly bail out water, and on occasions sink. And then there are the ‘ambulance’ motorbikes that service isolated villages with very limited healthcare. A very impactful and skilfully shot documentary, it is currently available on Youtube (October 2024).
There are incredibly interesting documentaries regarding CAR but as happens with many documentaries that have finished their festival rounds, they are not easily available. We would have loved to watch the highly regarded and awarded We, Students! (2022) by CAR filmmaker Rafiki Fariala about the challenges university students face at the University of Bangui, that vary from terrible living conditions to sexual harassment and corrupt professors. Another documentary that I wanted to watch is The Burden (2023) by Elvis Ngaibino Sabin. It tells a story about a couple with AIDS who are active in their local church where their pastor tells people that AIDS is a divine punishment.
I hope to be able to find these documentaries in the future and then update this part of the stop.
Afrobeat and rhythms from Central African Republic
Marlène Ngaro is an actress and singer originally from Central African Republic but has been living in France for many years. She blends African sounds with modern influences and raises awareness of African music and her heritage through her work. Another strong female vocalist from CAR with a powerful voice is Laetia Zomzambé who uses her platform to advocate for women’s empowerment and African unity. Her genre could be described as ‘Afrobeat’. We especially enjoyed her song ‘Fafa’. Other people on our ‘African Afternoon’ playlist from Central African Republic are Chenceko (afropop/afrobeat), Marie-Josée Kassa (afrobeat), Erik Aliana (afropop/afrobeat), Babo Mado (trad music, afrobeat), Dama Damani (trad music, afrobeat) and Simone Raval (afro-fusion). It is a great, diverse selection.
Next stop: Chad
Thank you JK for your proofreading!