The Republic of Congo

Back over in Africa, we celebrated our next country, The Republic of Congo. This one is not to be confused with the bigger, more unstable, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Why are the the 'Democratic Republic's the not-so-Democratic country). This Congo is finally safe and stable after years of conflict, and the country's revenue from oil and timber are actually being put to good use. They are working to improve their infrastructure and rehabilitate their national parks. 

But while we are talking about the two countries, The capital of Congo is Brazzaville, and it is located right along the Congo River. Just on the other side of the river is Kinshasa, the capital of The Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is the only place in the world where two capital cities sit across from each other, divided only by a river. 

The Congo river is also of note. It is something like the 9th largest, but it is the deepest river in the world. It's so deep and mysterious it has it's own 'Loch Ness' type monster. This one is some really long African word, but it means one who stops the flow of waters', and it's said that it  kills elephants who stand too close to the river. 

The rivers are full of wildlife, but that doesn't scare anyone off. Kids travel to school by way of the river in well-crafted, man-made wooden canoes, despite the crocodiles that lurk beneath the water. 

The untamed rain forests here are also full of their own wildlife including lowland gorillas, chimps and forest elephants. 

Deep within those dense jungles live the Mbenga people (previously known as the Pygmies), they survive on bushmeat, or basically any type of mammal, insect or amphibian they can hunt. (It's bushmeat that has been linked to HIV and Ebola). 

But really, that's just a small portion of the people who live in Congo. with the population of about 4 and a half million concentrated in cities. It is actually one of the most urbanized countries in Africa, with around 70% of the total population living in a few urban areas. 

There has to be a way to navigate through those sparsely populated areas to get to the cities though, so enter our landmark, the Congo-Ocean Railway. It was featured on an episode of 'Extreme Railways', and it connects the two biggest cities in Congo, Pointe-Noire with Brazzaville. 

The boys made their Congo postcards. 

Calib's featured a student stepping on a crocodile's head to hop in his boat to ride to school down the Congo River. 

Peyton noted the urbanization with his big city focus (though you can see the river monster down there) 

And Hayden incorporated both the capital cities of the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo sitting just across the river from each other. 

For Congo dinner we had Congo Chicken Moambe, Chapati (African Bread), and Saka-Madesu (Spinach/Cassava Leaves and Beans) 

This dinner earned three-ish spoons up, but they weren't super enthusiastic spoons up. 

I mean, the boys can only be so enthusiastic when they see their plates and can tell right off the bat it's another African dinner. But the flavor on the chicken was good, and everyone had seconds of that. 

The spinach was a little too much beans and not enough spinach- but that's probably our fault for not putting enough spinach in there. It was fine, and we all ate it. But nobody was impressed. 

And that bread (while an East African recipe- I did find it mentioned a few places for Congo) is just flour salt and water fried. And it tasted like it. 

A note for you though: The Chicken Moambe went through this long set of directions about cooking the chicken. Then it said 'or pick up a already cooked rotisserie chicken'. Obviously, that sounded more appealing, and we were already headed to Costco to exchange my tennis shoes (I ended up with one with a stain on them- so we had to swap them out), and Costco has rotisserie chickens the same price as Publix, but twice the poundage. We've never gotten it from Costco before, but I can confirm it is delicious. To keep it warm all day (since we went before Asa clocked in) we put it on warm in the slow cooker with a little chicken stock, and it stayed juicy and warm all day, so it's good to know that works well. 

We colored The Republic of Congo in a dark green color there on the coast, just above dark blue Angola, and just below purple Cameroon, and light blue Central African Republic. 

That's 91 down, 102 to go! 

Next Up: Costa Rica