Working on Pondu

LOCAL TECHNOLOGY, ARSENE TUNGALI

April 8th, 2011

“I love pondu but I don’t like cooking it because it requires too much work!” often say women when they are purchasing the food, called pondu in Kiswahili or sombe in Lingala, the most spoken language in the West of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Indeed, cooking pondu requires lots of work, from the kasoko—market in Kiswahili—to the moment it is put on the table. You will need many vegetables but especially a lot of time if you want to cook the perfect pondu.

The most tiring stage of the preparation is when you have to smash the pondu. You need a mortar and a pestle and you need to smash and smash and smash the pondu until it is completely ground. This is manageable if you have to cook for up to five persons but it becomes a real headache when you are cooking for a big event such as a wedding.

A part of Congolese culture, some women express the need to eat pondu after giving birth. Once out of the hospital, if a celebration is organized for the birth of the child, pondu will never be missing. But, this is when cooking pondubecomes complicated. Depending on the size of the party, you would need at least seven strong persons, each with a big mortar that they will need to fill two or three times to make sure there is enough pondu for all the guests.

Technology in my Democratic Republic of Congo is not advanced so as to allow for a sophisticated mill to smash the pondu. However, as it is often the case in my dear town of Goma, capital of the North Kivu province, some came up with an ingenious way to overcome this physical activity. There is no longer a need to use physical force to smash pondu for a large quantity of persons. With a little bit of money, in a few minutes your pondu is ready.

“We have this technique that just appeared in my neighborhood of Birere. I started using this tool to smash the pondu, then I realized that this tool could actually help many Congolese households so I decided I should start manufacturing it and selling it.” this 30-something year old man explains.

He then showed me this wooden tool with some parts in steel, that has the mortar form at the top but is larger in length with spirals that seem to serve as a motor where you put a bit of fuel to make it start. Once you start the motor, the spirals start cutting the pondu in small pieces and the cook can simply stir the pondu with a spoon without using any physical strength.

“I got the motor in Uganda and the rest of the parts I got in Goma. Everything cost me around $380. It may sound a lot for most of my fellow Congolese including myself but I knew I’d be able to make some profits out of it so I saw it more like an investment rather than an expenditure.” he explains with a smile and then continues: “I first install this portable mill in a given neighborhood and then I ask for about 300 to 1,500 Congolese francs for anyone who wants to use it, depending on the quantity of pondu they need to cook. Then, all you need to pay for is the fuel to activate the motor.” he ends.

“I make about 6,000 Congolese Francs a day!” he precises. Hence about $8 a day! This is more than enough to take care of a family in a city like Goma.

I’ve never witnessed another device like this…and this young man has the monopoly and pondu is definitely a dish that each and every single Congolese family makes so he will never run out of customers!

“I remember once, my mill was out of service. It cost me three days of repairs. All of my customers were complaining during that time. It really showed me how they depended on my mill and I gained more confidence in my business after that.” he ends with a wide smile on his face.

Arsène Tungali, Now AfriCAN Reporter Hero