What is the link between food, Africa and happiness?

 

Following is my review of Food, Africa, and the Pursuit of Contentedness, by Mark Schultz, Backwood Basics Press, 2021, which I wrote at the behest of PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org and which is published on that site. 

    The title tells it all. This book is a memoir about Peace Corps service in Africa with side themes about food eaten there and the relative contentment of most citizens (and PCVs) with their lives.  No one had much but they made what they had suffice.  After Peace Corps, the book morphs into advocacy for fresh food for Americans through organic gardening and disdain for commercially produced sugar and fat filled foods.

    Schultz was a fisheries volunteer assigned in 1982 to Basse Kotto prefecture east of the capital city of Bangui, Central African Republic. The terrain of the region was conducive to the establishment of fishponds for growing tilapia. That was Schultz’s task. Convince farmers to dig ponds, help them do it, provide fingerlings and teach aquaculture.  A reader will learn lots about fish culture. What worked and why.  Beyond that the author’s descriptions of everyday life ring true for all who have served – insects, darkness, inquisitive children, always being the butt of the joke, crowded markets, motorcycle maintenance, malaria, the joy of growing understanding of culture, and even the thrill of an ice-cold coke.

    An astute observer of life around him, Schultz notes the difficulties of poverty in villages – inadequate nutrition, nonexistent medical services, subsistence agriculture, lack of opportunities, no monetary income - yet he concludes villagers were generous, sharing and content with their lives.  He contrasts that with the western quest for possessions, more and more of everything, including non-nutritious food.

    Returning from Africa in the mid-eighties, Schultz devoted himself to trying to find that balance of contentment he saw in villagers. He believes that a pathway to such harmony is fresh food via sustainable, organic practices. A bricoleur (handy man) at heart, Schultz fabricated, tested and operated several systems for fish or poultry production plus various greenhouse heating and irrigation systems.  Much “how to” is included in the book.

    In sum Schultz’s book is an interesting combination of an evocative portrait of a fisheries volunteer in the CAR and his later in life advocacy for contentment through wise eating. At first glance it seems to be an unworkable link, but it works. The Central African portions clearly provide the basis for the convictions and advocacy that followed.

 

Robert Gribbin built rural water systems as a PCV in Kenya in the late 1960s. He subsequently spent forty years with the State Department, mostly in Africa, including five years in the Central African Republic. He is the author of two memoirs In the Aftermath of Genocide – the U.S. Role in Rwanda and My African Anthology, plus five novels set in Africa.