Congo Christmas in July

 

July 18, 2010 Prayer by layman for one of the offerings in the Church at Ikengo, Equateur Province

 

 

Maybe it’s the cultural emphasis on child bearing and parenthood. Maybe it’s the opportunity to celebrate Mary’s role in the divine drama in a predominantly Roman Catholic country. Maybe it’s the freedom to celebrate Christmas at all after being forbidden during most of the 32 years of Mobutu’s rule in Congo. Whatever the reason, the Congolese love Christmas. In many parishes of the Disciples Community in Congo, from a wire at the front of the church hang Christmas garlands, lights or bells. It can be seen as another offering, another testimony to the joy of Christ’s coming in the life of the community.

 

Leaving Longa

The twenty five horsepower motor fired right up and the ten or twelve passengers settled into their plastic chairs or into their nests at the bottom of the pirogue. Before sitting we sang, “Biso tokobima na mpusa matembe/ Tokotambolaka nde nkolo Yesu”.

We are on the Ruki River which connects the mighty Congo to the Tshuapa, the tributary which has served as the route of successive waves of rebels seeking to overthrow the feeble governments of the country. The Ruki flows into the Congo at Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province, the least developed of the Congo’s 10 provinces. Equateur’s capital is also the headquarters town of the “Communaute Disciples du Christ au Congo”, number ten among 65 “Communautes” now making up the Church of Christ of Congo.

“We leave now on the next step of our journey/ The journey we walk together with our Lord Jesus” we sing before taking our seats in the pirogue. On our way, we all think of the Regional Minister for the Ingende/Longa Region who died in the Ruki just below Longa. On a night with little to no moon five months before, his over loaded pirogue had capsized and fifteen drowned. After we sang someone prayed for the deceased’s widow and family still living in Ingende where we would spend the next two nights.

A Season of Hope

In commemoration of the third annual Congo Week October 17-23, I am posting the following article with a plea to all to visit www.congoweek.org and www.afjn.org for updates on how to express solidarity with the people of Congo in their struggle for peace with justice.

A Season of Hope

Wrinkled and hard, the woman looked 70; I did not know her age, only that she was a native of Bunia, the beleaguered city in the eastern Congo terrorized by rebels and its own nation’s army in recent years.  I met her in Mbandaka, a thousand miles from her first home After returning to Bunia and finding none of her family had survived and nothing else to hold her there, she had fled a second time to Mbandaka.

I met her the last night of my two months stay this summer in Mbandaka, the provincial capital of Equateur Province and for me she represented the truth I would have to contend with and describe on my return to the States. Countless times prior to the trip I had been asked about the risk of revisiting the place I lived for two years from 1969 to  1971.  My response had become something like a tape replayed again and again:  Mbandaka was far from the troubles in the eastern Congo and relatively unaffected.

Over the last fifty years since independence as a new nation free of Belgian colonial rule, most of the violent conflict has occurred in the mineral producing areas of the country.  In 1969 there were reports of combat in the Eastern Congo with its array of rare minerals as well as gold.  And the rebel armies in Katanga battled the national army over control of the Province’s copper mines.  But Equateur Province lacks mineral reserves and its relative poverty seemed to create a safe haven from the conflicts bedeviling other areas of the country, the East particularly.

The Hutu refugees who had made it all the way from the East to Mbandaka following Tutsi Paul Kagame’s rise to power in the mid’90’s in Rwanda had sought refuge in Equateur Province..  They managed to live off the fertile land of the Province and survive until the march of the Rwandan troops supporting Laurent Desire Kabila’s persistent ambition to rule Congo.  These Tutsi soldiers made it to Mbandaka and executed every Hutu they could find in the area.

Referring to their prey as “cockroaches”, Kabila’s Tutsi backers stayed three days before descending the River on their way to Kinshasa in the final days of the Mobutu dicatatorship.  A prominent church leader told me the soldiers ordered all residents to stay in their homes while they searched for provisions and wreaked revenge.  Hutu men, women and children were found, lined up and shot with a single bullet.  “They weren’t worth wasting ammunition on” my informant reported they had told their captives.

The man’s account confirmed  journalist Howard French’s reports at the time (see his A Continent for the Taking) of Tutsi forces massacring Hutus in the Mbandaka area. And it convinced me to no longer speak of Mbandaka as insulated from the incessant violence of the eastern Congo.  Surrounded by the Church’s abundant hospitality, I learned first hand of other occasions when Congo’s conflicts had shaken this city.of over a million.

On Easter Sunday this year, a rogue rebel group had attacked Mbandaka and worshippers remained in their churches until they could return home under the cover of night.  The rapid routing of the rebels by the U.N.  troops and the death of a U.N. Ghanaian soldier did not win over the public’s favor.  Security troops of any description appeared to be met with distrust if not disdain by local Congolese

Twice in the last five years local troops of the Congolese Army have gone on the rampage when they had not been paid.  My cook and housekeeper “Papa Jean” lost all of his flock of 50 plus chickens in the latest pillaging.  He is not optimistic enough about the current regime to have restocked his coop with even a pair of chickens.  Although Kabila’s son’s administration has made payments to the army a priority, resulting in long delays for salary payment of teachers, medical workers and civil servants, the uncertainty over the elections scheduled for next year prevails.

A jolting revelation during my stay came with Congolese referring to the Mobutu era as the “good ol days” compared to the current Kabila regime.  Many question the legitimacy of the current ruler and even the legitimacy of the President’s claim to be a citizen of Congo.  There is frequent reference to the young President Kabila having served in the security forces of both Rwanda and Uganda.

Will President Kabila allow elections to be held next November as called for by the country’s constitution and as announced  the week of my departure?  While many educated Congolese are introduced as candidates for Deputy to the National Assembly, few of them speak with certainty about the rules and procedures for running this time. 

The question of whether the election will in fact take place is now giving way to whether President Kabila will be forced by the U.N. presence to relinquish control of the process to impartial overseers.  Although the U.N. troops in Congo represent the largest peacekeeping force in the world today, their record of guaranteeing a fair election in the country is not encouraging.  But Congolese are talking politics more openly and there is unrestrained opposition to the current rule, a notable change from 1971 during the height of Mobutu’s power.

The truth represented by the woman from Bunia had become undeniable by the time I met her the last night in Mbandaka.  I had come to the realization that the entire nation has been gripped and held in check by the foreign exploitation of this richest store house of natural resources in Africa and perhaps anywhere else on the earth.  That the Congo holds such incomparable wealth seems to be another fact which some people would like to remain in the darkness.

Perhaps an even more important and relevant truth about the country as one seeks to influence the march of justice in Congo is that the incessant and unrestrained exploitation of Congo by foreigners did not begin with King Leopold’s creation of the Congo Free State in 1885.  We have to go back to the Portuguese slavers trading at the mouth of the Congo River early in the 1500’s as setting the pattern for the horrors visited today on the people of the Congo.

And the more important and relevant truth about the woman from Bunia is that she has taken another name for herself as a displaced person living in Mbandaka today. She has replaced  the name given her by her family and given herself a  name which suggests what has kept her going through all her losses and the brutality she has suffered.  She is now introduced as Marie Catherine Sauve Vie or Marie Catherine “who saves life”. Strange to say, she may be the clearest sign I received during my stay that God has certainly not finished with Congo yet.

Lingala Words Play

The following words give evidence of the playful nature of this language as it is shaped by many cultural influences. Read over the list and you will get a sense of the fun native speakers and foreigners enjoy in their use of the language.

Balabala – road, and you can feel the bumps and holes as you say it

Kpokoso – difficult, and it is, somewhat even for Congolese to pronounce

Poto Poto – Mud, as in wet earth used for making bricks for house construction

PuluPulu – diarrhea (sorry but I couldn’t resist this one)

Makelele – a dispute, hear them going back and forth?

Ingelesa – the Protestant Church, evidence of the largely English speaking nationalities of the early missionaries?

Semisi – shirt, or Smith since the English pronunciation is too difficult

Kokwei ndeke – literally “the bird is falling” but used as “falling in love”

Mondoki – rebel, this one carries a somber message as it means literally the one with a gun and is derived from ndoki or sorcery;

Mozwi – the one who receives literally, but used for a greedy person

PoussePousse – from the French “pousser”, to push, and used for the metal push carts hired for transporting loads in Congo’s cities.

Ngonga – hour, or gong if you prefer

Mpusu or Miao – they both mean cat and couldn’t you guess

Sukulu – school, more evidence of English speaking missionaries’ influence in educating many Congolese in times past.

Noki noki – real fast as opposed to noki which is just fast. Malembe malembe is real, real slow.

Kotambolatambola – the verb katambola means to walk so by repeating tambola the meaning changes to parading around; repetition as in the previous example intensifies the meaning. Could be used for any other verb you choose. Kolukaluka would mean to search everywhere as opposed to koluka which means a simple search.

Lingala’s Benefits and Pleasures

Anyone visiting Mbandaka will learn a few words of Lingala but I leave certain that all efforts to learn and to risk using the language are rewarded. Aside from using a playful, delightful amalgam of vocabulary borrowed from several Bantu, Spanish, English, and French languages, it is also incredibly useful. To take a dramatic example of the benefits of risking use of the most widely spoken language in Congo, consider picture taking in the country.

The $50 price of my Lingala textbook and more was saved in use of the language in my one confrontation with soldiers in Mbandaka. After having been warned that very morning by Rev. Bonanga that picture taking in a port area is considered a security breach, I foolishly clicked away when former Sister Genevieve’s boat docked at the port next to my house. Papa Jean arranged chairs on the lawn for the ensuing palaver over the serious infraction that I had committed. A trip to their headquarters and heavy “fine” was avoided by pleasantries followed by pointed conversation in Lingala. One of the two finally declared an end to it by naming a payment we all readily agreed on.

A Lingala phrase book is indispensable for anyone wanting to take pictures of the people. During the colonial era, photos of Congolese adults were taken by the Belgian administration. This results in a tradition of looking frozen and stiff for a portrait even if the subjects are far too young to have lived under Belgian rule.

Use of the Lingala verb “koseke” in portrait photography brings surprising results every time. The word can mean “smile” or “laugh” and I never failed to bring a toothy smile by using it. A questioning rise of the voice with the last two sylabbles as though asking “do you ever smile?” usually results in laughter among the subjects. “Koseke” worked like magic every time. In using Lingala I experienced over and over the 19^th century English explorer Richard Francis Burton’s wisdom,

“Nothing goes to the heart of a man quicker than speaking to him in his native tongue.”

Burton’s comment comes out of many years of foreign travel and speaking more than 30 languages at one time or another. What a pleasure to leave my comparatively sedentary life and enjoy once again the truth of this wisdom in returning to Congo and speaking a language I had all but forgotten. Some examples of the playful nature of Lingala will follow in another posting.

Leaving Mbandaka

On leaving Mbandaka after the two months’ stay here I want to write about a couple of the more challenging aspects of life here. I hope what I have learned in dealing with them will help make the stay of other travelers more pleasant and fulfilling.

The regular requests for financial help from both strangers and friends will annoy and disturb. Well into my second month, I learned that even a little something given in response will often suffice.

Early on, I turned away requests for help paying school fees thinking that anything less than full tuition support would disappoint. I now realize that any sort of gift can be satisfying. A few oranges, a shirt, a ball or deck of cards recognize and affirm the person making the request. How this works is still a mystery but seems to have something to do with the satisfaction, if not power, gained from relating to another and to a foreigner in particular. What I can unequivocally state is that no gift has been turned away or scorned.

It is also important to remember that such requests also represent an opportunity for the other to reveal and teach us about life in this very different environment and culture. An hour plus conversation with a retired minister covered his objectives to marry again following the death of his wife, to build another house, and to buy new mattresses for his children and himself. With such large goals, I thought there would be no way to avoid disappointing him. I was slightly stunned and quite relieved by his gracious thanks for my gift of a sum equivalent to a few “toleka” rides on a taxi bicycle – or a couple of cups of coffee in the U.S.

But prayer in such situations also helps greatly. When the needs are daunting and surpass anything you are able to do, consolation comes in joining with the other in experiencing the realm where all is possible and answers are beyond our grasp and comprehension. The power of prayer in such encounters and relationships has been among the greatest pleasures of my stay. Both the prayers of others and my own prayers seem to have touched new places within me. So for those few visitors whose pleas for help were met solely by my offerings of prayer, I should single them out with words of thanks for their visits.

I have also learned that the frequent delays and waiting normal to life here can enrich and fulfill. Life is so different here it is hard to imagine being bored or not being able to learn something in any setting. Like the constant activity on the river, life teems and fascinates. But even when there seems little to attract one’s attention, the opportunity to reflect on what one is feeling and thinking has brought rewards. Giving myself, or being given, the chance to check in on myself has made myself, as well as life here, more fascinating. And for someone who always avoids waiting in lines if at all possible, this learning too will I hope transfer to my life in the States.

　

　

THE PYGMY PEOPLE

Thursday, July 29, 2010

After tea was served, the second meeting of the Committee for the Advancement of the Pygmy People was convened on my porch at 7:45 one morning this week. Present along with myself were Rio Bosala, Director of the Disciples CAP at Ikengo, and Sandra Ngoy, daughter of the Regional Minister of the Bolenge Region. Pygmy rerpresentatives were a watchman for the Mbandaka power company, a primary school teacher and John Benani, the co founder and now Director of REPEQ, a non profit supported by UNICEF which promotes Pygmy civil rights.

John Benani has emerged as a national spokesperson for Pygmy civil rights and as UNICEF’s primary contact with this minority population which makes up one fourth the population of Equator Province. Our conversations have educated me on the very slight progress of his people from their traditional status as an inferior, even sub human caste, exploited by their Bantu neighbors.

With my encouragment, the Ikengo CAP director Rio has spoken more openly of his history of support and affinity for Pygmy friends. It is becoming more widely accepted now that this minority must be educated and integrated into the Bantu-dominated society for the Equator Province, with the largest pygmy population in Congo, to develop economically.

That statistics for completion of primary school in Equator Province remain abysmal, some say as low as ten per cent of the children finish sixth grade, is due in part to the incapacity of Pygmy parents to pay their children’s school fees. An unfortunate irony of the Mobutu years of corruption and self indulgence is the fact that the policy of free education of Pygmy children ended with the fall of the dictator’s regime. That gesture of support for the minority did little to relieve the exclusion of Pygmies by the Bantu population.

As an example of the traditional segregation of Bantu and Pygmy, it was only recently that an integrated spring water source was established at a large village 30 kms. from Mbandaka. Where two springs had in the past provided water separately for Bantu and for the Pygmy inhabitants of Bongonde, UNICEF funded the cementing and piping of a new source providing clean water for all in the village. One of the participants in our meeting Tuesday morning teaches in the local primary school. He informed me that 721 men and women enrolled last year in the village’s adult school to gain basic reading, writing and math skills.

My curiosity here about the Pygmy population’s motives in settling in greater numbers in the Bantu villages and even cities of Congo comes in part from the reading of the great book by the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, The Forest People. As the author’s account of being captivated by the life and culture of the pygmies of the Ituri rain forest in eastern Congo, the book deserves its reputation as one of the most widely read books on Africa. Turnbull’s recordings of Pygmy songs on Folkways Records also enthrall, and in the book he notes that the words of their songs are few but often profound. The following words are sung only after the death of a fellow Pygmy clan member:

“There is darkness all around us; but if darkness is and the darkness is of the forest, then the darkness must be good.”

For a Congo traveler these days, Turnbull’s book provides a fine contrast to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as the work of a man who took pains to get to know very well one of the cultures here. Turnbull casts light on the life of the rainforest which for Conrad remained a place of inscrutable mystery and foreboding.

Schooling in Congo

Nearly everyone here is “Mama” or “Papa”. Children at an early age are acknowledged half wryly but affectionately in this way. Rev. Bonanga is not “Monsieur le President” as the head of the Disciples community; he is “Papa President”. And I have never heard Sandra Gourdet, the Global Ministries Africa Executive, referred to as anything but “Mama Sandra”. There is simply no more respectful honorific the culture can bestow than “Mama” and “Papa”.

While everyone is given the title, both parents and non parents, adults work hard and sacrifice heroically in their role as parent. “Papa Pierre”, one of my night time guardians in the compound, hopes to receive an advance today of $45 on his salary. Tomorrow his daughter graduates from her sixth year of primary school and there must be an appropriate celebration of the milestone. A new dress and shoes at a feast shared with family and friends crown the occasion. The expense projected is more than his monthly salary but is not an unusual outlay for a child even when there are eight or nine in the family, as is typical here.

The other night sentry in our Disciples guest compound “Papa Dominique” has with his wife continued to work a field more than 20 kilometers from the family‘s home in Mbandaka to pay his 9 children’s school fees. Papa Dominique’s wife sometimes spends two or three months away from home cultivating and harvesting before marketing the manioc root and leaves, corn, rice and potatoes. Even parents who have jobs in Equateur, the least developed Province with the highest unemployment, must seek additional income for their children’s education.

The school fees, averaging $4 monthly for primary school in Mbandaka, are largely seen as necessary to supplement the teacher’s measly salary which the State is often late in paying. Where parents’ committees in the States are concerned with raising money for the arts programs or athletics, in the Congo they are focused on paying the teachers enough to keep them on the job in the classroom.

The first Disciple missionaries in Congo were moved by the profound emphasis of the culture on the role of parent. Dr. Royal Dye and wife Eva, in the early 1900‘s, acquired a new identity and standing with the birth of their first chilld. In keeping with Congolese custom, they were after Polly’ Dye’s birth primarily referred to as the “Papa” or “Mama” of Polly. Their daugther many years later testified to the help of the Bolenge villagers in raising her in her book In His Glad Service . To ensure the survival of Polly’s parents and their child, when the white family’s food stock dwindled, villagers in Bolenge beat on the lokole drum an S.O.S. which brought ample relief from a Baptist mission station nearly 300 miles away.

Independence Day 2010

Independence day was full of surprises. A people who celebrate with flair disdained the official parade and ceremony in downtown Mbandaka. Very few who were not obligated to do so participated and willing spectators must have been scarce as well. There was simply no enthusiasm for an independence day celebration organized by a government many of its ciitzens consider illegitimate and the tool of foreign interests. It didn’t help that government workers and teachers hadn’t been paid in over a month.

So all day I waited to no avail for some sign of the day’s significance as the 50^th Anniversary of the nation’s birth. But there were more surprises. The man I c onsidered the dullest member of the staff at the “Maison” here emerged as a fascinating informant on the current politics of his nation. “Everyone knows Bemba was the winner of the election in 2006” he declared. “And the whole country backs him” he further insisted. What others had said regarding the lack of enthusiasm for the official celebratiopn of independence he confirmed for me. “Salaries haven’t been paid so what’s there to celebrate?”

Even Radio Okapi, the national radio station, marked the day with solemn commentaries urging sober reflection on what real independence for the Congo would look like. An elder statesman of the Mobutu years stood out in citing achievements since 1960. He contrasted his nation with a divided Belgium, pointing out that an exceedingly diverse assembly of cultures had been united and held together by the chiefs of state, notably his own chief and sponsor, Mobutu. He did not join in what had been a plaintive chorus lamenting the culture of corruption and self dealing that has characterized the national politics since independence.

Later in the day my education on the current scene continued with a surprising revelation regarding my informant earlier in the day. One of the two night watchmen, a trusted source on the phases of the moon and a true naturalist, quickly explained that his colleague had been forcibly recruited into Jean Pierre Bemba’s army during the late 90’s rebellion against the first Kabila regime. While he conceded that Bemba had indeed carried the election of 2006 against a crowded field of candidates, his army was responsible for terrorizing Equateur province in particular during their urprising leading up to the election. “They killed a lot of people in the province” he declared.

That Bemba’s career and the rigged 2006 election was fresh news to me was not so surprising given the dearth of trustworthy Congo reporting in our U.S. media. But that night brought one final surprise. Around nine I scampered outside to confirm that the explosions I heard were indeed a fireworks display. And before the blasts and crackles subsided a half hour later, Rev. Bonanga paid a visit to assure me that the city was not under siege. The children in his home had been given a fright and he wanted to make sure the Church’s guest had not gone into hiding.

　

　

　

Worship on the River 6/27/10

Worship began with one of the choral groups parading from the beach swaying, clapping and singing their way up the ladder of steps to the sanctuary. Ministers and guest preacher (yours truly) followed, the latter noting carefully the gaps in the wooden boards five feet above the sand below. After a night, or in some cases several nights, of fishing the great river surrounding the island fishing village of Kinshasa, the fishermen and families were preparing for their day of rest.

Our half hour wait after crossing the river permitted me to learn some of the history of this Disciples’ parish. The veteran preacher, one of the two serving the parish, had first come in 1970 as a fishernan and a decade later began to preach here. The faithful of Kinshasa had achieved the milestone of purchasing sheet metal roofing for the sanctuary in the seventies, ten years after the Disciples Community became an autonomous church led by Congolese.

That the village was largely a poor community was seen in the appearance of the children and the rudimentary houses on stilts extending a quarter mile along the beach. What was not apparent was the fact the village had been pillaged this year by the small band of rebels who attempted to take the city of Mbandaka on Easter Sunday. Their minister informed me that not a few residents had still not returned after fleeing the men with machine guns who briefly occupied their village in April.

An hour into the worship service, the sanctuary was mostly filled with nearly 300 singing and clapping children, youth and adults. Among the five or six chorale groups of varying size and composition, the group of 25 men, all in white shirts with blue stripes, stood out. “They rocked” and “we rocked” seems inadequate, even mild, as a description of the mood created before the sermon.

Old man Simeon’s blessing of the infant Jesus in the temple was my scripture selection for the Sunday before the 50th Anniversary of Congo’s independence as a new nation. The theme of waiting, one any fisherman can appreciate, was associated with Jesus’ fulfillment of the nation Israel’s hopes. Parents of the community were celebrated and congratulated for their commitment and sacrifice in enabling both boys and girls to cross the river daily for school. I concluded with mention of my father’s upcoming 98^th birthday and a tribute to his perservenace in awaiting the birth of two great grandsons.

“Every child comes into the world with the message that God is not yet discouraged in the creation of human beings”. Rabindrath Tagore’s quote summed up my message which was followed by me singing “Jesus Loves Me” in English while another guest minister sang in Lonkundo.

An offering for the guest minister yielded 58 crumpled and tattered bills totaling more than $5 and a large fish. A final prayer for a safe crossing before the canoe’s outboard motor was started concluded what had been an unforgettable worship experience.