Visit to Chikuni Catholic Mission, by Cory

The Chikuni Mission is about 90 minutes drive away and was started in 1905, a bit after Jembo, but has grown much larger.

Rev. Benson planned to go to get oil pressed from some of his soybeans.

We had never been there and I volunteered to go to see the mission. 

We left with 4 bags of soybeans (about 8 bushels) and stopped in Pemba to pick up 5 more but the people bringing them from the farm to the road had trouble with transport.

So after waiting more than an hour we continued to the mission

On the mission grounds we saw it was cattle dip day so many herds were gathered in a field and others on the road coming and going.

We found the press and the person running it advised us to put the beans in the sun while they finished a job because the outer beans had picked up some moisture recently due to the rainy season and that would slow the press.

The press is very slow. You can see the drizzle of oil in the photo as it runs into the collector with a cloth and vacume hose to help draw the oil through the filter.

It was now close to noon so we went to find something to eat.

That is a tall pile of thick cornmush, to be eaten with the (collard/rape) greens and chicken.

The price was amazing here off the beaten path, I don't think I have ever felt so full after a restaurant meal for 80 cents.

I don't look or feel very tall next to this palm!

We also explored part of the campus and had a brief meeting with several of the priests.

Like most Zambia schools it was not open yet due to the Cholera outbreak, which is mostly in Lusaka.

Cases are declining and schools are opening next week.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon helping clean the beans as the press worked, picking out small stones and hard clods of dirt.

Jembo soil gets very hard when dry so it doesn't all break up and sift out!

The press operators took a couple short afternoon breaks and as the sun was close to setting we called it quits after 11 of 13 buckets of beans were pressed.

The press charges is $1 per bucket and we had close to 8 gallons of cooking oil plus the presscake for chicken feed.

As we loaded the pickup another person pressed a small bag of in-shell sunflowers. 

This oil was light grey and flowed rapidly from the press.

We were glad we didn't waste the effort of bringing the other 5 bags of beans that we wouldn't have had time to press.

I saw many people selling the honey colored unrefined soy oil in an open-air market for about $1.30 per liter, less than half the price of refined oil.

I like the flavor and it may be healthier since no solvents are used, but the press speed, oil price and distance made the trip look uneconomical as a way to process Jembo's soybeans, compared to just selling them at close to USA farm price.