Doctor Zhong With People In Africa Demonstrating Use Of Pestle And Mortar To Make Maize Flour.

One of the basic foods of people in Africa is made with, or made from, maize. A lot of time is spent milling the maize grain to turn the maize into a useable flour, and to make the flour into different dishes, by adding whatever is available. Often during our visits to the small communities in Niger, we would come across the women busy in preparing the meals for the day. Before they could start using the maize much time was spent grounding the grain into flour, by use of large sized pestles and mortars, as shown in the photo above. The women used these pestles and mortars to mill the maize grain with much skill, not easy for the Chinese doctors to copy.

Our visits to these small communities gave us an opportunity of meeting the local people, and getting to learn a little about their customs, and their way of life. For many such communities, visits by foreign people were few and far between, so when a group of Chinese doctors arrived, they became the center of attraction. These visits were also a means of gaining the confidence of the local people, should they ever be in need of medical attention.