Fufu Explained

Seeing that fufu is such a main part of my life and diet here, I have decided to explain it in full. It is the staple food here in the South West. It is eaten with any and all soups that people prepare. If you ask someone what their favorite food is, 90% chance they’ll answer “fufu.” They won’t even qualify a soup or something to go with it. It’s just a gooey ball of starch with a bit of a twang, but people here love it, and I must admit, I’ve become rather fond of it as well.

Making fufu is one of the most laborious, most intensive, most ridiculous endeavors that I have ever seen. The process lasts over 6 days. That’s right, over 6 days to prepare just one portion of your meal. Talk about commitment. The women here do it around the clock so that their families have a continuous supply of fufu.

First, you harvest the cassava plant. These plants take 2 years to mature (again, see previous comments about commitment). They have to harvest roughly 8 square feet of land to produce one vat. Cassava is a root, and is similar to other tubers. It is elongated like a yam, with a thick brown skin and a white flesh. This is what will eventually become fufu. To start the process, you clean and peel the cassava. Then you soak it in water for 3 days. It sits in a giant pot, near the fire during those days. From time to time you stir the contents of the pot and mush the cassava. 

After three days you strain the remaining chucky cassava from the cassava water. You throw out the leftover root and keep the starchy water. You put this strained mixture into bags and again let it sit for 3 days. Then you strain the excess water out of the bag and keep a gooey cassava paste. This is then pounded and it becomes a crumbly, clotted dough. To prepare this, you mix it with water over the fire. You then remove it from the fire and pound it, adding water as needed. 

Finally, it is ready to be molded into balls. You finally have your ball of fufu, ready to eat. One batch lasts about a week or two, depending on how often you substitute other starches for your meal. 

More On the Water Project

The project in Akid is truly almost finished now! It feels like I’ve been saying that to myself for quite a while now (because I have been), and I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but I think it’s really within sight now! We’ve had to adapt our plan yet again, but hopefully it will make for a more sustainable and lasting system. The river we initially wanted to use has become to powerful for people to enter it to manipulate to our purposes, and it looks like the dam will sustain damages every rainy season. Therefore, we have decided to use a nearby smaller stream as an additional source. This stream dries up in the dry season, but is clean and pure and is sufficient in the rainy season. We will hook it up to the system so that in the rainy season, the small stream (which they have named “Albert Mndep” or Albert Water) will provide the water to the filter, but that in the dry season, when it is workable, the larger river will again be responsible for supplying the system. In some ways this is preferable because if one source fails, the other will serve as a backup while the community fixes the problem, and the smaller stream provides better quality water anyway. The people have already made the initial connection of the small stream. They have also created a holding pool for the water and a place for the pump and finished all the pipeline. Our last steps will include installing the pump and laying the pipes and then building standtaps. 

How I Once Spent Three and a Half Hours Trying to Send an Email

This is the true story of how I spent an entire morning attempting to send a single email. I was in the big town, where they have stale baguettes, yogurt, several bars, and, most importantly, internet. Needless to say, it’s a pretty exciting place to visit. I had some work to do and was planning on using some of that precious internet. I left the house around 8:00 am to go to the internet café. The ma was just setting the place up. I had to wait for the computer to turn on and then the ma activated the internet key. After several minutes, the home page loaded and I signed in to my account. I noticed one particular email that was important to respond to, and started with that. I began writing my response (it was a bit lengthy), when about half way through, the power went out. The computer shut off and I lost everything I had written. It was a bit disheartening and frustrating, but what could I do? I’m sorry to say, I did not learn from my mistake. After waiting for the ancient computer to start up again and reactivating the internet, I began working on my response for a second time. I figured since I already had the main ideas worked out form the previous attempt, if I just wrote it quickly, things would be okay. Unfortunately, I did not write quickly enough. Just as I was wrapping up the email, the power shut off for a second time. I lost every thing again. Now, I was just plain frustrated. By now, over an hour had passed. (Which the ma kindly reminded me as she demanded I pay for internet use). I might have been fooled once, but by this time I was smart enough to learn form my mistake. I decided to go and write the email from my own computer at home and then put it onto a flash drive and email it. I went home and wrote out the email without any hitch. Great, I thought, now all I have to do is upload it onto a computer and send it, it’ll be over and done with in just a few minutes. Wrong. I really should have known better, I should not still be so naïve. I went back to the internet café, flash drive in hand. Power was back on, but now the internet network was down. I waited around for about ten minutes to see if it would come back on, but I eventually had to give up. I then went to a different internet café to see if they had a working connection. The place was open, but no one was in. I called the number written on the shop to let them know I was here. The auntie said she had stepped out, but that she would come right away. I sat down to wait. Some little kids came up to me and played with my hair and sang songs to me. That was nice. They did that for over half an hour, because that’s about how long it took for the auntie to show up. She came and switched on the computer and set me up. I plugged in my flash drive and opened up the internet. I went to log in when the computer froze. I had to relocate the auntie, who had disappeared again, and after tampering with the machine for a bit, she decided it would have to be restarted. I waited for the computer to restart. When that was finally accomplished, we activated the internet again. I tried to open the home page, but nothing happened. Her credit for the internet had finished. She would have to add credit to her account. She removed the key and went off to purchase more credit. This also took about half an hour. She finally came back and then went through about ten minutes of activation procedure. She plugged in the key again and the internet worked. I logged into my account, copy and pasted my email, and pressed send. At last, I had finished my mission. My mission of sending one email. It was now past 11:30 am. And that’s how I spent my entire morning trying to send an email.

On a similar note, if you ever feel like I’m not communicating with you enough or I don’t write often, please, it’s nothing personal. It’s to preserve my own mental health.