Cashew Factory

When we got back from Gabu we met with Richard and Matt at Francesca’s house.  Richard and Matt are a story in-and-of themselves, but to be brief, Richard is a chemist who has his own chemical testing lab. Armindo, my step-dad’s best friend who is also from Bissau but lives in California, has been working for Richard for 20+ years. Last year Richard went with both Armindo and my family to visit Bissau for 3 weeks. Richard was really moved by his experience and saw there is dire need for access to clean drinking water. He came back for a week to start a water filtration project using clay pot filters.

 Francesca, who is Armindo’s cousin, lives in Bissau and is very interested in Richards water project. I’m not exactly sure what her role in government is, but over her career she has moved from one upper level government position to another. Her Ex-husband was the Ambassador for Guinea-Bissau in countries like Cuba and Portugal. Anyways,  she wanted a chance to chat with Richard before he returned to the states, so she invited everyone over for lunch.

Opened and roasted cashew shells with cashew

Her home is very nice and we had some amazing food.  My step-dad acted as a translator for Richard and Francesca. In the conversation we found out Francesca has a cashew processing company. While my step dad didn’t mention that we are here to try to sell the cashews on his property, some how, someway he got her interested in having him help her turn her business around. You can tell her wealth from the fact that she doesn’t even know how much money she brings in annual with her company! But it isn’t doing as well as it could and given that Bissau is covered in cashew trees, her business has lots of potential

Two days later we arrived at Francesca’s factory.

Cashew nut machine

            I’ve always been interested in understanding where we get our food from, and today really emphasized the importance of that understanding . The factory was small, an old house completely cleared out.  There were men outside working the cashew nut machines, other men working construction, and women inside cleaning up the nuts.  It was loud because the generator was running, but there were no lights. The inside was dark and smokey from the fire used to roast the Cashews. There was a cook outside making lunch (fun fact: most jobs provide lunch and transportation in addition to what they pay their workers).

Before I get into any more detail, there are a couple things you have to understand about cashews. First thing is that they also come in a shell. Not like a peanut shell where you can crack it with your hands, but like a walnut shell where you need some tool to help you open it. But before you can even crack it, the shell has to be hardened. To do this the shell is usually roasted. Presto, you’ve got your harden shell and now all you need to do is crack it to get the cashew nut right? Unfortunately it’s not that simple. The oil from the cashew shell is actually toxic to humans. And since by hand (with a tool or machine) is the only way to de-shell the  nuts, the most common solution to the problem has been to provide the workers with oil for their hands to prevent direct contact to the nuts. Even with the oil, most workers (who work directly with the shells) hands looked like they had been bleached at the fingers. Despite its toxicity, cashew nut oil is very valuable and is the best known natural wood preservative. Potential market? I think so.

Women sorting and touching up the cashews

Once you have removed the nut from the shell, the nut must be roasted again to cook the nut. Then there is a flaky layer that pops up that must be peeled off before you get to the nut. To clean it up you must finesse your way to the nut with a knife and also remove any burn marks. The last step is to sort out any nuts that are not “commercial”, meaning they are deformed, blemished, or not the right size in relation to cashews you find in the stores. 

The process is exhausting and not at all what I had imagined. It got me thinking. If this is the process for a cashew, something I eat pretty regularly with raisins or in trail-mix, then literally every nut (or even other food products) has a multi-step factory process similar (or not) to this. Then scale that to how many cities, states, and countries are involved in food processing and have food processing factories. That's alot! The US has unions that fight for workers rights. But when you see that the nut or product is imported from another country, you can never be sure what the factory atmosphere is in terms of cleanliness, worker rights, or the source of the product. Unions don't exist here.

The final stage of screening and processing the cashews.

            Back to the factory, My step-dad went around talking to all the workers  to get a sense of how they like their job and what they would want to see improved. Since I couldn’t participate due to the language barrier, I walked around with the logistics coordinator. He showed me around the place and explained the process to me in Portuguese.  By then end we reconvened with Francesca and my step-dad gave her some feed back. He is very weary of the workers because he thinks they are just doing the minimum they need to do. He has repeatedly told me Guineans don’t like to work, they just want to get paid. At this factory they get paid by the day, not the hour. He suspect’s people are showing up when they please and getting paid for a full day of work. We are getting up early tomorrow to see what time people show up.

Trip to Gabu

Dominges Ramos is a very famous man here in Bissau, although I’m still not 100% clear on why that is. He is my Step dad’s older brother and his daughter is Ramos’ niece. A couple days ago her husband passed away and had a funeral ceremony at her home in Gabu.  We drove the 4 hours out to Gabu to attend the ceremony.

We were supposed to leave the house at 9am. Ramos predicted we wouldn't leave till much later and true to Guinean form we left the house at almost 1. The drive was long, but I slept most of the way there nestled in between my dad’s heavier set niece and 6 foot 4 nephew.

We arrived in Gabu around 5 and found some chairs to occupy in the back. I can never tell if people can speak Portuguese or not. Since I don't speak creole, Portuguese is my main form of communication. In Gabu you have some people who don’t even speak Creole, only Fula. I spoke with Ramos’ nephew, who, like my step-dad, also grew up in Portugal. He is now living in Bissau and has an export business for rice and other staples from Europe to Bissau.

There were lots of women cooking and that’s pretty much what happened the whole night. I watched as they slaughtered a pig, butchered it, then seasoned and cooked it.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen the process from a whole live animal to a meal on a plate in one sitting. A women I had met days before named Maria brought some fish from Bissau to cook. I helped her out, and by ‘help’ I mean held her flash light while she gutted and cooked the fish. 

The night was incredible. The sky was glittering with stars and everyone was out side cooking and talking. Some folks brought out some drinks and Ramos' neice made a rum infused drink with herbs from the yard and some lime. They also had this crazy coconut infused, sweetened condensed milk drink that is as thick as condensed milk. It was suuuuuuuper strong, but also really sweet to match.

I slept in a bed with 3 or four other people. I'm not exactly sure about the number because people just kept coming and going from the bed. The vultures crash landing on the tin roof woke me up. It was only 7am and the bed was already empty. I got up and joined one of the guys who was sent to buy some tooth brushes at the market. Along the way he gave me a tour of part of Gabu. It’s a small town with lots of houses and huts. The biggest market in Bissau is in Gabu, so we went to check out what all the talk is about.  

After breakfast we headed back to Bissau. We stopped at another market along the way and Ramos’ niece bought milk that looked like runny cottage cheese. Apparently there are things, like milk, that you can only get in Gabu. You can get milk in Bissau but it is boxed and imported from Europe. I’m talking about fresh milk that only lasts a day or two. 

Gabu is the home of many cows and thus, cow herders. My dad told me about how growing up in Bissau he was a cow herder. In my mind I created an image of what that might look like. On the drive home we had to pull over 3 separate times to let heards of 40+ cows run by. My mental image was far from what I experienced.

We also got attacked by women selling food on the road.  I was sitting in the middle and I had bags of potatoes and oranges in my face from everyone trying to make a sale. Competition is fierce! Ramos’s niece grabbed one bag and paid.  We said we were done, but we had to start driving away before anyone would take their arms out of the car. 

To give that some context, on the way to and from Gabu there are stops where police had us get out and show our passports  and identification and ask where we were going. At these stops lots of people congregate because it’s a chance to sell food to hungry travelers. You’ll find bananas, oranges, peanuts, drinks, potatoes, and other tubers. I even saw someone butchering a cow at one of the stops.  But stopping and showing our passport was kind of intimidating.  Sitting in a row on the side of the road are men and women dressed in military uniform carrying guns (not all of them). It felt so informal and simultaneously unpredictable, like anything (good or bad) could have happened.  But apparently they are on high alert since the coup in April. They have cracked down on who is and can traveling with in the county.
 

Africa e Africa

I was sitting in the living room reading a book I found in Portuguese by Jorge Armado, a great Brazilian author, when in walks a middle aged man I found out to be a Cuban Medical Doctor at a nearby clinic.

Alice introduced me and he immediately began to speak frivolously about Bissau. It all happened too fast for me to get anything from it. But at the end he slowed down and said, "Africa e Africa." Then he looked at Alice and together they looked at me and said, "Africa e Africa!"

Whoa, what does that even mean?

My internet access here is limited, but in a recent web session I found this article. Guinea Bissau: Fear Amid Human Rights Abuses. 

Almost exactly a month before we arrived at the airport it was reported that "soldiers stormed barracks near Bissau's main airport, targeting military figures and leaving six people dead." Surprisingly, the casualties are not what makes this article disturbing, but rater that a reporter mentions,  "the last time I saw this level of fear among activists and commentators was in the build-up to the civil war in the late 1990s."

I read the article in disbelief! None of that could be going on, everyone here seems to just doing there thing. And I hadn't heard a word about any of this until I looked it up just now!

I talked to my mom about it for a bit. When violence, political corruption, and military coups are part of the norm, things like what happened in the article is probably like hearing there was a death in Richmond or Oakland. Unfortunately, it just becomes the norm.

It's hard to really understand on an outsider surface level what is understood on an imbedded social and cultural level.  Can an outsider ever really understand? I feel like i'm walking around having no idea whats really going on. I guess its the traveler's blessing and curse.

But it did give me some insight: Maybe that's why no one will let me go anywhere by myself and why my step-dad insists I be home before it gets to dark.  The fear is real, but it's so contradictory to what I have been experiencing because everyone is so nice!

They may not talk about the immediate local politics, but Africa is Africa. I take that to mean uncertainty is guaranteed. Lets see if that holds true.