As Wheat Prices Rise, Students Reimagine a Brea

By Zita Amwanga

EVERY MORNING, MADE L Chololo, a technical school in on the hob and begins cook passersby.

Kombozi, a mother of five, is Kisangani by selling spaghetti residents are known. But she’ cassava flour.

After working as a street fo wheat to cassava spaghetti w markets and drove up prices. DRC imports nearly all of its the region.

Kombozi buys her cassava University of Kisangani by a gr will help offset wheat shortage

Enabel, the Belgian governm 10 students work on a volunte

“I am very proud of these stu to ensure spaghetti remains a Each day, the students can p which they sell for 1,000 Congo of wheat spaghetti sells for u spaghetti to restaurant owner student.

Sembaito grants that the wo have to purchase the manioc to dry it in the sun because we The packaging is made o

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With the help of Enabel, the Belgian development agency, students from the University of Kisangani have set up a small plant to manufacture cassava spaghetti. They are able to produce over 100 packets of 250 grams (9 ounces) each per day ZITA AMWANGA, GPJ DRC ment’s development agency, donated the equipment, and eer basis, advised by professor Onauchu Didy. udents, who learned to mix business with pleasure in order vailable for housewives,” Didy says. produce over 100 packets of 250 grams (9 ounces) each, olese francs (49 cents). In Kisangani, a similar size package up to 30,000 francs ($14.77). “We are already supplying s and other merchants,” says Jonathan Sembaito, 28, a ork isn’t easy, as the production is entirely manual. “We [cassava] from 10 to 11 months before, and then we have e do not have dryers,” he says. of paper imported from Uganda — to combat non- biodegradable waste and mitigate environmental pollution, Sembaito says — and delivery delays can also slow down the process.

L EINE KOMBOZI, 38, sets up a stall in front of the Institut the Makiso commune in the center of the city. She turns ing pasta, known locally as spaghetti, for students and s one of many women who make a living in the streets of , a popular breakfast among the Boyomese, as Kisangani ’s probably the only one who cooks spaghetti made from ood vendor for over two years, Kombozi switched from when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted global grain wheat. Cassava, on the other hand, is widely available in spaghetti from a small manufacturing plant set up in the roup of biotechnology students who hope their experiment es.

While 25 kilograms (55 pounds) a day will hardly supply a city of 1.37 million, Kombozi’s clients at least are pleased. “They eat without complaining,” she says. “They have never mentioned the different tastes.” https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/democraticrepublic-of-congo/wheat-prices-rise-universitystudents-reimagine-breakfast-staple/