Pepe at the Convent

Making Pizza at Reese's house... SANS pepe.



“My life makes me laugh.” – Kate Reinsma, my postmate in Mambu

The other day, sitting on the convent dining table at Kate’s post in Mambu, there lay a cleaned-out pickle jar filled with pepe on the table. Pepe is hot sauce for those of you not living in Cameroon presently… hot Scottish bonnet peppers, usually in oil. It is the only standard condiment of this country (Maggi, a delightful MSG-laden-soy-sauce-taste-alike, is a close second…but don’t ever count on mustard… it can ruin a day). Luckily for all of us, pepe is quite good…

Pepe comes in varying degrees of hotness and also different styles of finished product. I have sat in restaurants and heaped two or three spoonfuls of the stuff on an omelet and not only survived but have barely felt a tingle. Other times, I find myself stuffing fermented cassava wands into my mouth to try and absorb the awful burning sensation. Sometimes there is nothing to dig into… folks will press the pepe through a cheesecloth to get pepe oil, chunk free. Then there is my favorite, the ground pepe swimming in orangy-red oil. Another is the lazy mans pepe… common amongst the meat-on-a-stick guys in town… consisting of either roughly cut up peppers in some oil, a whole pepper slightly roasted or dried pepe powder (the latter is a favorite, if only because it was the cause for Alex Lindeman vom-ing in his bed during training… I just adore bloopers– love you, Al).

Back to the convent… “They’re nuns,” I was thinking. I think I read one time that the pious Catholics eat bland things… no fire allowed, unless you’re burning incense or witches. Sister Presca passed the pepe down to me. I’m not really sure why, but Cameroonians think its just wild when you eat something distinctly African... every time somebody new serves up some achu with yellow sauce or njama njama, they ask if I have “this is my own place.” Well, no… maybe at specialty restaurants… but we have a diversity of food unimaginable to your taste bud. “Ah-ah! After 7 months, surely you are used to,” they will say. Well, yes. Used to, and tired of, and ready for horseradish and general tsao.

This is proves to me that many Cameroonians really have no idea what America is. People in my village will eat the same thing three times a day for three days in a row… and it has cow stomach in it. I couldn’t have Chinese food twice in the same week. Not surprisingly, then, that Sister Presca commented on my choice. “You eat pepe?,” she asked condescendingly (nuns!) with a mouthful of something she had for lunch and breakfast and for dinner the night before. “Oh, yes! Toooo much,” I replied while placing one spoonful on my ndole, one on my boiled carrots and beans and one on some cold macaroni… musing, “take that, penguin. I’ll prove to you my tastes are superior. I’m invincible to your boring Catholic pepe. Mwhaha!”

After a few bites, I knew I had made a semi-grave mistake. The kind that would haunt me for about 6 minutes. Horrible, horrible burning! Sr. Presca spat plantain as she laughed. I tried in vain to stifle a flesh massacre in my mouth. It was the kind of holy heat that made you want to cut out the outermost part of your tongue and cheeks, just for a few moments of relief. Sisters passing to put their plates in the sink seemed aware of my ignorance… and their learnedness in the way of hot things. Their eyes gleamed at the education of the white girl living in the Bafut bush… oh, yesss… Catholic pepe is hot. Moments later the lesson is forgotten… and I dig in for another bite of the most flavorfide boiled carrots ever. I’m begging for water (purified or not!) and stuffing myself with excruciatingly hot corn fufu while (it seems) my nose and eyes drain pepe oil. Its that good kind of hurt, when you know you can handle it and the nuns know you actually cant… I’m sure you know.

So, this is Cameroon. I mean, it’s really paining me… but it just tastes so good.