Alicia Ortego
African market
African markets are real social events, usually held once a week. As with any event, apart from the festivities themselves, people drink alcohol, generally home-made stuff traditionally made. It's cheaper, after all. ;) In northern Cameroon, millet beer or bil-bil is the creme de la creme, while in the West is palm wine or raffia wine. Taking advantage of market day, we went to one of the bars (huts or barracks) where you can try it... How do they make this wine? It is produced from the sap that emerges from the carved palm trees. The sap is white, highly concentrated, sweet and non-alcoholic in principle, but if left at room temperature for about two hours, it begins to ferment and becomes about 4% alcohol.
If left for the entire day, the flavour will be stronger and acidic ... When we entered the "bar", we found a lot of men sitting on a bench, served by a woman. They were already pretty drunk, I'm not sure how many bottles they had drunk, ha ha. Anyway, when we got to try it it was actually quite sweet, but also a bit watery. I was thinking about it carefully, and I decided not to have any more, I didn't want to have to run to the bathroom in case there wasn't one (nor a sheltered place to go in), or a bug to get into my stomach and make me bloated.... :S
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