Léré

Léré sits in Moundang country, on the plain between Lake Tréné and Lake Léré where the Mayo Kébbi runs west towards the Bénoué. Long before colonial rule the Moundang here were organised under a ruler, and Léré was his seat — a chieftaincy strong enough to be recorded by the first Europeans to reach the area, with its own court, drums and ceremonies. The peoples of these lakes and floodplains lived beyond the Muslim sultanates of the north, whose slave raids reached this far and left a long distrust of them.

French forces reached the Mayo Kébbi at the beginning of the twentieth century and attached the area to Chad within French Equatorial Africa, keeping the traditional ruler in place under colonial supervision, as they did elsewhere in the south. Catholic and Protestant missions arrived with schools and clinics, and Christianity spread widely alongside older practices. From the 1920s the administration pushed cotton growing on southern farmers, and Mayo-Kebbi became part of the cotton belt that paid for the colony.

After independence in 1960 the region supplied a disproportionate share of Chad's educated officials, and Mayo-Kebbi developed its own tradition of opposition politics. The town has remained small, its economy tied to farming, fishing and trade with Cameroon a few kilometres away, and its ruler still recognised. The lakes and the river drew scientific attention in the twentieth century, both for the manatees that survive in them and for the Gauthiot Falls downstream, which mark the boundary between two of Africa's great drainage systems.

This is Moundang country, and Léré is its centre. The traditional ruler, whose office the Moundang have kept through colonial rule and independence, still holds a court with its own titles, regalia and ceremonies, and his presence makes the town a place of ritual importance out of proportion to its size. Neighbouring peoples — Massa, Toupouri, Moussey and others — share the wider region, and their languages are heard in the market alongside French.

Most people are Christian, Catholic and Protestant both, or follow traditional religions, often at the same time; a Muslim minority lives mainly in the trading quarters. Churches are full on Sunday and choirs are a serious matter. Funerals, weddings and harvests are marked with drums, dance and, in the villages, masked or costumed performance that outsiders are not always invited to see.

Manners are those of the wider south: long greetings that ask after family and fields, the right hand for eating and giving, and hospitality offered even by households with very little. Calabashes of bili-bili, the home-brewed millet beer, are passed round as a normal gesture of welcome. Wrestling and dance competitions fill the dry season, and cattle remain a measure of wealth for the herding families who move through the area.

Léré recorded 89,237 residents at the 2009 census, most of them living from the land rather than in anything resembling an urban economy. Millet, sorghum, groundnuts, sesame and cassava are grown for the household, cotton for cash, and cattle, goats and sheep are kept by most families. Fishing on the two lakes and the Mayo Kébbi supplies fresh fish to the town and smoked and dried fish to markets further away.

The town has a market, schools, a hospital and administrative offices, and the border with Cameroon a short distance west shapes daily trade: fuel, goods and livestock move both ways, formally and informally. Salaried work is scarce, so young people leave for Pala, Moundou or N'Djamena, and money sent back matters to many households.

Life follows the seasons. The rains from May bring planting and then months when tracks are bad and villages are isolated; the dry season brings harvest, ceremonies, weddings and easier travel. Electricity and piped water are limited, and cooking is on wood or charcoal. Pressure on grazing and on water, competition between farmers and herders, and the state of the roads are the practical concerns people raise most often.

Everyday food here is boule, a stiff porridge of millet, sorghum or cassava, eaten by hand with a sauce. The sauces use what grows locally: okra, known as gombo, sorrel and other leaves, groundnut paste, sesame, and fresh or dried fish. Shea butter, pressed from the nuts of wild trees, is a common cooking fat, and dried fish from the lakes seasons much of what is cooked.

Fish is what the area is known for. Perch and catfish from Lake Léré and the Mayo Kébbi are grilled fresh over charcoal or smoked for storage and sale, and both appear in the market beside grain, groundnuts and sesame. Meat is mostly goat or chicken and mostly for occasions, although roadside grills sell brochettes in the evening.

Mangoes, guavas and citrus grow around the town and are sold in season, and roasted groundnuts and sesame bars are the usual snacks. To drink, there is bili-bili, the cloudy home-brewed millet beer sold from compounds and drunk from calabashes, bottled Gala lager brewed in Chad, sweet tea, and karkanji, the chilled hibiscus juice drunk across Chad.