A calendar, my father, three uncles and my brother

On the first of March 1896, a historical battle took place in the North of Ethiopia, a locality known as Aduwa.

The battle pitted against one another the then kingdom of Italy; a late comer to the scramble for Africa, eager to make a name for itself in what was the game of the day, and the Ethiopian Empire, the oldest African Christian state entity and the seat of a dynasty that claimed descent from the love child of Solomon of Israel and Makeda, Queen of Sheba.

Picture this for a moment; in the last un-colonized African chunk of land, in an empire famed for its gold, silver and history, a barren flat land surrounded by jagged hills. Advancing in the valley , 18,000 Italians, arrogant and drunk on the belief that Africa is a place destined to be subjugated, seeing Ethiopia the missing piece to join the concert of colonizing, civilizing nations.
On the hills, an 80,000 strong force of Abyssinians, battalions commandeered by Emperor Menelik, Empress Taytu and the best commanders the nobility had to offer, fighting for their freedom, their survival and the continuity of life as they knew it. Although the Italians had the technological advantage, a combination of sketchy military intelligence, poor leadership and gross inequality between the forces sizes (the Ethiopians outnumbered the Italians 7 to one) led to a defeat so shameful, so scalding, forty years later, Musollini still tried to avenge it, a defeat that shaped the lens through which Ethiopia would be viewed by the rest of the world from that day on.

Ethiopia became a Reality. To Europe, Ethiopia became unattainable, mysterious, fierce and free, a respected, recognised entity, an empire of Africans in Africa, a place where a stand had been made against European colonisation. To Africa it became a shinning beacon, a reminder of what we had been at some point and what we must strive to become.

Ethiopia became a brand name for virginal, fierce, beautiful, HUMAN Africa, a special place.

Growing up, I built an image of Ethiopia in my mind, a collage obtained from three special places: a calendar, a conversation with my Dad and the lasting impressions three of my uncles and my brother have left on me.

When I was about eight years old, my mother, a travel agent then, brought home an Ethiopian Airlines calendar. Watercolour prints of scenes from rural Ethiopia picturing the inevitable goat-herder standing on one leg, the diaphanous veiled doe eyed Russian icon-like beauties of women, the aloof chiselled staggeringly handsome faces of their men, medieval Gondar, the architectural feat of Lalibella and the Gellada baboons, part-baboon, part-dogs-part-lion from the red Simien Mountains. I remember taking the calendar down and trying to reproduce these images of intense, impeccable beauty, I remember, as a boy, literally being transported into another world. I can remember, then, that I promised myself that I would visit Ethiopia "Quand je serais grand"-When I grow up.

At about the same time, “We are the world” was becoming the anthem it is today. The opening lines and the chorus are probably the first English words that I ever attempted to string together and understand. When I asked my father what “We are the world-Nous sommes le monde” meant (a very confusing literal translation), he patiently told me about the song’s meaning and purpose, about the Ethiopian famine and about solidarity as a responsibility, a debt of the haves towards the have-nots.

Famine-“Amapfa” in Kirundi, my mother tongue, can be translated loosely and litteraly as “the bringer of death”, and for people of my father’s generation it still represents a reality they faced as children when a bad-crop year, cattle disease, the colonial taxes or instability lead to shortages acute enough to see some days go past without food. “La disette”- lean times, a spectre he had known, still feared in a way so strong that it drove him every morning to work harder to build a world of plenty for us, his family. Dad's way of describing ugliness was " Asa n'urwamaze inka- The face of the cattle plague", so ingrained was the memory of hideous hunger and its effects in his psyche and the collective consciousness of his generation.
I understood Ethiopia that day, through my father’s almost contagious disgust and horror of famine, as a place of tragedy so intense the world had to mobilise to attempt and stop it. To stop that horrible thing that robs your body and your mind of all abilities, the slow death, hunger. I think I felt, empathised, for the tragedy of Ethiopia a long time before I had similar feelings for my own country.

A third strong influence of my mental construct of Ethiopia came from close in the family. Three of my uncles are Rastafarians and I suspect my brother to be a closet Rastafarian. I love them, I adore them, I worship their socks. My uncles G(who sports knee length dreadlocks), M and B, are respectively a writer, a journalist and a human rights activist/ political analyst. They are men of immense presence and calm, lean, noble who speak with kind, serious voices that can hardly be told apart on the phone. They have stratospheric IQs and matching inquisitiveness and openness to the world and knowledge. They also have a great reverence for the frail little man who once was the Emperor of Ethiopia.

My brother, the consummate Bohemian bourgeois is an aficionado of all things Reggae and Roots, the Rasta philosophy, the respect for life and the idealistic nature of Rastafarianism. They together represent an Africa I have come to love; educated, conscious of its roles and responsibilities, full of ideals and action. And they have a role model, one of many, one they recognise to have been full of flaws, but full of grace too. One whose idea of Africa was an orderly, united, powerful and respected continent. The Emperor Ras Tafari Makonnen Haile Selassie the 1st.

Their reverence rubbed onto me, an irrational respect and adulation for the last of the great kings.

These were the thoughts coursing through my mind as the Emirates flight made its final descent on Bole, Addis Ababba’s international airport over a patchwork of different hues of green, dark brown and hay, a land with every inch tilled and prepared. And right infront and below me lay a great city with a towering dark block of mountains at one end of it, Addis Ababba, the New Flower....(to be continued.)

Of Stars and Mud

So what is Happiness?

Is it a geographical location, is it the pleasure that good company gives, is it the warm feeling of love? Is it a prayer, a state of mind, an aspiration, the destination or the journey? I don’t know and I don’t really want to know. But I like the idea of seeking it, though, constantly, and finding bits of it, in the small things and the grand ones.

Two months ago, watching Avatar 3D (tears in my eyes, what with Leona Lewis serenading that she can SEE ME ...tear), in everyday banter with colleagues, floating on my back in the warm cocooning ocean, walking back from the office through the bustling market smelling fried chicken and roasting maize, reading a good book, going through pictures, marvelling at the marvellous marvel that my family is, God, I could go on forever about these moments when I get flashes of perfection.

Most of all, I find meaning and purpose when I am able to effect a positive change no matter how small in someone’s life be it through a compliment, taking time to listen to someone, helping solve a problem or celebrating together a victory.I value death and hardship if they are the only way to bring about the betterment of others.  I value people who spend their life trying to make the world a better place, the Obamas, the Mother Theresas, the Mandelas, my parents, my heroes. I want to emulate them.

I have been immensely fortunate to meet people who were willing to foster me, share knowledge and skill freely, patiently and in a very enjoyable manner, people who were never too scared to tell me I was wrong and messing up, people who have propped me up, pushed and pulled me.  Halfway between what I value and what I have received, I find what I am able to give. I naturally find meaning in being there fo another or at least attempting to nudge someone towards the point where they discover that they can do anything, that they have the power.I'm no piece of cake myself, God knows I am not, which is the more reason to try harder. On one such episode when I tried this is what happened.

I had a discussion with a 22 year old student about life journeys, education and following one’s passion. The discussion left me drained and despairing, because my interlocutor was either abysmally shallow (If such a thing is ever possible) or in the middle of a terrifying existential angst which she expressed through scathing cynicism in her outlook on life. Far from me to patronize but I felt I could at least try and show her the other side of the coin, that life is not that bad.

At 22, she is one of those girls who seem and probably have it all. Money, looks, a beautiful disaffected haughty attitude (Scarlet Johanson meets Paris Hilton, only black and Prettier) and maybe, just maybe she has personality (the jury’s still out on that one). She told me the only reason why she was in school was because she wanted Power; "I want power, In want to control people and things and make them do only what I want. Being powerful means people will be scared of me when they see me." They’d worship her, and they’d love her, she said.

The plan, as it stood, was to get a degree, get a job in the National Bank through Daddy and in no time achieve all those things. Wow. I have really low expectations, I thought.

“What if you don’t get the job?” I asked.

“Oh, trust me, I will” she said, looking at me like I was the only idiot left on the planet- post eradication of the said idiot tribe- for not understanding the infallibility of her plan. Now, in my humble experience, poop happens. Elephant sized poop. September 11ths, Tsunamis, cracked skulls in the shower, car crashes and Malaria. All constant reminders that life and, by extension the course of human history, is very much like that of a constantly meandering river.  Flowing, changing course, but full of surprising twists and turns, blind spots, rapids, sharp rocks, crocodiles and dams.

We survive because we can get around obstacles and not obstinately through them. We adapt or we die. Call it arrogance but I felt the responsibility to inform her of life’s little glitches (the pachyderm poop she seemed to have NO IDEA about) befell me. First, I went easy. I tried explaining that our ability to cope with a change of plans defines much of our success.

I asked her if she really meant what she said about power and if she believed that doing a degree would land her the job of Queen of the world.

Affirmative.

That’s when I started doubting her IQ level and, more so, mine for not getting it earlier.

"Do you even like the course you are doing?”

Negative

“How about happiness?"

She was quiet for a moment, taken aback, almost like I had disturbed her, dragged her out of her comfort zone which I obviously had. Then said in an acidic voice, looking as cuddly as a puff-adder, carefully spacing every word:

“Happiness has NOTHING to do with this. If I’m rich and powerful, then I’ll BE Happy.”

I had tickled a nerve evidently. She paused for a few seconds and continued clearly infuriated now, half talking to hersel:

“I am here because my parents said I should be here, because they want me to be here. This has nothing to do with Happiness I mean...(pointing at me)YOU....Old people (GASP and Clenched teeth and fists...I’m only 27 and ½ years old!) you old people think it’s so easy to just do things and be happy, I just want a degree and then money, it’s the only thing that matters to me at the moment, that matters in the world actually. You know it’s so difficult out there. Life is so hard. Coming every morning all the way through the traffic here..You have no idea”.

Parents, traffic, money, power...She was ranting. This was like chasing a hare that keeps changing direction with the obvious aim to lose its chaser. She kept going from angry, to clueless, to powerless, to lost. I decided to change tack and ask one more question;

“What’s your passion” I asked.

“I like deejaying, I want to deejay even when I have a job, in the evenings I want to deejay.” she said with a smile suddenly animated.

I told her the most successful producers in the music industry have degrees under their belt, that what made them successful was linking up knowledge they acquired in school with their passion and obvious skill. That because they loved what they did, they did it well and consequently achieved the fame and clout she was so actively seeking. I wished her luck.

I left then, quite tired by my impromptu lecture and deeply doubtful of whether it had been worth anything. I couldn’t place her problem. She had no dream or aspiration I could relate to, save for the music. She couldn’t stand her life, her parents, her country and obviously herself, if she thought people had to be coerced in order to like her. She was unhappy. Deeply unhappy, an unhappiness that stained her beauty and youth, an unhappiness of the kind that spreads like a bad smell, a fruit gone sour. Our discussion had been a completely disjointed episode which I hoped would never have a follow-up, an exchange where nothing but bad energy had gone across, hers and mine, her, cynical and me, being me in a very unhelpful way. I was tainted when I left, both by her cynicism and my inability to make her day and possibly her life better, my powerlessness in the face of the impenetrable fortress, her tower of bitterness.

How arrogant of me.

But then again, it was her problem. And I quite consciously took it on and made it my own to solve. Saviour complex, maybe.

I’m a hedonist. Unabashedly, eclectically and flamboyantly hedonistic. Make it the best wine, the coldest beer, the best fillet and company and music to match. I realise that I’ve only got one ticket to this great amazing show called life, and it is up to me to get my money’s worth, enjoy the show, learn something, do something, be someone good, be happy. The happy moments are framed in the ugly thorny bushes of the bad ones, but that contrast gives me joy and an understanding that things are actually better than they were and that things always work out, somehow. There is always a silver lining, a rolex in  the pit latrine, a mercedes at the end of the tunnel.

The lotus in Buddhism is a symbol the light and enlightenment because responds to the light of day and blooms a pristine flower but also because it grows in the darkest, murkiest waters.

I remember the tale of the two prisoners who looked through bars and one saw mud and another stars. Now, unless the one who saw stars felt he should point out the stars to his cell-mate, then the story makes very little sense to me. And not showing the stars also has another implication. Lest, I show my sister or brother the stars, their pessimism, like a cancer, might spread to me and I’ll despair as well and forget about the stars, stop seeking them, stop seeing them. I felt bad that she couldn't see the lotus bloom, only the muck.

And mud in the world, there is. The workplace has its little political snags (prevalent personality type: Passive Aggressive Anal Backstabbing two face Psychos) that are mighty unpleasant. There is suffereing in the world on a unfathomable scale. Being in Africa, one is never too far from that reality and it's a terrible thing to ignore it and excuse the french, Bitch about the small stuff, forgetting how fortunate we are. 
Uganda’s equivalent to Stonehenge went up in flames last night. Some pictures of the tragedy and the ensuing unrest and chaos are here. But this is what has been lost to us and the children of our children. Depressing and getting worse.

But on a much smaller scale, on a more personnal note, there are good news too, a friend just had a baby, I received, yesterday, three international phone calls from friends who were asking how I was and wanted to tell me how much they missed me (two of them I know for a fact can barely afford an international call), I found a place to stay (fresh salad, chilled white and grilled seafood with friends every weekend reverie) and I am healthy. I believe the Baganda will rebuild the mausoleum only bigger and better. and that makes me feel good. I’m living the moment, one second at a time.

And I’m happy.

Sister, you are beautiful and life is beautiful. Open your eyes and see the lotus and the stars. Smile a bit more, dance, learn, love, cry but stop grinding resentment and bile because in the words of Jack Nicholson: “Maybe this is as good as it gets.” The world can also be dank, and cruel and unforgiving. But I know I feel better watching the stars than staring down at the mud.

The Heart of Darkness-Part 2

So we had landed in Butembo.

Standing directly to the left of the landing strip was a small one room building with and attached long shed and benches. Patrice, the flight attendant, handed me my bags and said I should come and meet Madame sa Femme, The Missus he said, who had come up from town to the airstrip to see him.I never got round to doing that.  My colleague said; “Hey look who’s there”, pointing.

Next to a big, white, loggoed land cruiser complete with bully bars, stood the formidable figure of Andre, the regional head of the organisation that had recruited us for the job. Andre was Flemish, tall, in his fifties with a personality that would get him voted for preferred best friend anywhere in the world. He’d lived in the Great Lakes region for over twenty years and naturally drifted towards development from his farming background and the fact that he had lived mostly in rural communities, farming. A man madly in love with his children, his work and his outrageously pretty and curvy Ugandan girlfriend.

His job was to oversee the administration of Belgian development funds and their distribution to about 22 community organisations involved in everything from experimental farming to education. The process basically involved vetting the internal procedures of the organisations, their potential and accomplished outputs as well as the quality of their leadership. Andre had been given the mammoth task to tell one fake NGO from the next genuine one and his day involved making decisions to prioritize between roofing a primary school and distributing dairy goats. All of this in a notoriously unstable town and region that had changed hands three times between government and two different rebel groups since the beginning of the century. Andre, I was able to witness over the time I was there, went about his job with the confidence and indefatigable energy characteristic of  those who REALLY love their job and understand how important it is.

Andre walked over, beaming, and gave us each one of those hugs that seemed closer to the Heimlich manoeuvre than a greeting. He spoke Swahili, Flemish-Congolese French and English interjected with the EH! MMMHH...and AAAHs... that punctuate true African conversation. “Very very Happy to see you, Bienvenue a Butembo” he said. And you could see he meant every word. After a rough journey( emotionally in this case), it feels wonderful to realise that you were expected, that there is good drink and food prepared in your anticipation. It makes you feel special. And that’s how I felt right there, looking at Butembo.

Hold on, someone’s trying to steal my bag...I knew this would happen. After all this is Congo. HELP

God. It's the driver trying to take my bags.

Why am I like this? When did I become one of those terrified white women you see clutching their bags for dear life, sending out the universal message for "I'm rich and I've got money in this bag, please come and snatch it" .

At that moment, at the thought of the insult my body language shouted, when I wheeled around to defend myself against the imagined thieving hordes, only to find a helpful, hospitable driver, I felt deep shame. Deep shame at my small little world that had managed to convince itself that it was worse out there than within. I apologized profusely and he laughed it off.

His name was Paulin and he still wanted my bag so he could put it in the 4x4.

I promised myself to enjoy Butembo, against my screaming terrorized little self, despite all I’d heard, all the statistics and all common sense. I was here and I might as well get some fun out of it.

We piled into the car and started down the hill and soon we were driving down the main road. The town looked derelict from the unpaved main road, but not a single shop was closed. In fact they were overflowing onto the pavement with their wares; electronics, home wares, tires and car parts and the ubiquitous flaming colors of the Kitenge cloth.

The unpainted, tired looking buildings with verandas extending lining the main street were occupied to full capacity by businesses and customers. There was not a single shop space left. This was the kind of human traffic you expect in Nairobi or Kampala. Andre filled us in on the status of Butembo, pretty much the economic lung of the whole Ituri region, a town whose original industrious inhabitants had been energetic pre-colonial traders, a tradition that had carried into these modern times.

Butembo is a major thoroughfare for stones, gold and the much prized Colombo Tantalite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan), a major funding source of the conflict.

 I actually met a Ugandan who was a intermediary between the mines and the buyers. The boom in Coltan caused massive deforestation and bush meat hunting for the sustenance of the miners. You can find very informative pictures on the fate of our very few remaining cousins, the gorillas, here.

Butembo is also the main regional entry point for imports, and extremely agriculturally fertile .

This was not inner Sahel. It was a town bustling with activity from within and out.

Paulin drove to the end of the main road then took a left uphill. After a few more turns, we turned into a lane that made me understand the need for the big 4x4.

See, I have always felt deeply uncomfortable the big NGO 4x4s with their logos.

They’re an affront in my experience, representing the inequality of conditions between the West and the diseased-disaster stricken hunger-mad inevitably-black receiving end of the charity. They rub in the ever-so proven true myth of the powerlessly needy African vs. the Ever-Providing white man. It does not help that  a portion of the development workers have quite a mercenarial outlook on their work, with little belief in what they do, condescension to their colleagues and staff and are quite happy to live lives they could never afford in Europe. What with the help and the sun. Sadly, this has made a lot of development work a “joke” on the continent and the symbol of that joke “par excellence” could well be the white loggoed land cruiser. And speaking of mercenaries, some african development workers are even worse. In this line of work, I wish more were like Andre, with heart. But that is my own personal rant.

Negotiating our way up the hill lane was hard, considering most of it had been washed away by the rains. Thank God for the big car.
We got into a gate and Andre said this is where we would be staying, a guesthouse run by a friend of his. As we got into the guesthouse, Andre’s friend emerged from the kitchen.

Mama Sandra or Mama, as I immediately started addressing her as, was one of those matriarchs who take over your life if you are within a 15 metre radius of them. She was of medium height, round everywhere, fast moving, and eyes that looked like they could tell if you were lying. Everyone working at the guesthouse called her Patronne. After the customary hellos, she briefed us on the etiquette of the house:

• No sex in the premises( or possibly and preferably ever in our lives, she implied.)

• No late night drinking outside (HA, fat chance considering the paranoia I still had to work on throwing off), if you want drink, we have drink here.

• Everyone must, she said emphasizing must, order their dinner in the morning before nine so the needful can be bought from the market. You don’t order, you don’t eat.

Next, we went to the rooms and dropped our bags. The rooms were basic, bed, small desk, chair, cupboard with extra blankets, red bucket in the shower and toilet. I sat on the bed taking in the place.

Getting into a hotel room where I will spend more than two days is always an exciting experience for me. I’m looking for the pros and cons, the chocolate on the pillow, the cockroaches in the bathroom and any signs that the previous occupant committed murder or suicide in there. For all I know, it could be a portal to another dimension and I could...

The telephone rang and it was Andre saying that considering no order had been placed that morning, there was no food for us. So Andre was taking us out for dinner.

The restaurant we went to was a bar of the type one may encounter across the region, with big outdoors covered area, fully stocked bar and meat being grilled. The floor was crushed rock with chairs and tables arranged in little clusters. The sides of the perimeter fence were full of adverts for phone companies or beer brands. It was a little after five and the place was filling up. Congolese music was playing fom the speakers. We ordered brochettes and chips, meat on sticks, a dish that has the potential to make vegans reconsider their life choice. The chips were of the thin and crackly variety, real “frites”,the mayonnaise home-made and  with it came cold, magnificent, generously sized primus beer to wash the lot down.

 What more could I ask for?

The conversation flew between life in Congo, the makeup of the group we were training for the week, the training style they were used to and the expected outcome of the session. Back at the hotel, we had one more drink together. As I was chatting with Paulin, he suggested I try the other beer around Turbo King, “la biere pour les vrais hommes”, a beer for real men. This is the kind of challenge you have to take up in order to establish your credentials early in any new place. So I did. Halfway through it I felt like I had been hit by a train. It is poisonous. With a 6.5% of alcohol it makes Primus look like the drink of sissies, foreign scum and the like. So of course I had one.

Waking up that morning I swore, as I do often, that I would never, ever, ever again in my entire lifetime touch Turbo King again. To date I have not. I was feeling absolutely wretched.

After a good reparative breakfast of egg and bread with confiture de fraises- strawberry Jam and butter (not blue-band margarine, which should never be mentioned in the same sentence as food) and slices of cheese, we set off at a quarter to eight. On the veranda of the guesthouse, three men were seated, drinking...Turbo King.

I almost threw up.

The group consisted of forty participants who belonged to a variety of organisations and community groups based in and around Butembo. Education, agriculture and entrepreneurship were the three main categories they belonged to. The workshop consisted in a situation analysis, problem identification and solving exercises and the elaboration of shared Best Operating Practices in coordination and networking. It was to last from Monday to Friday. Most afternoons were devoted to visiting the projects.

The first project I visited was a student’s entrepreneurship club. About ten young men and three coy young women had formed a club and they pooled money together every month and twice a year decided on a joint investment, the profits of which were saved. They had bought three bicycles already ferrying wares from one end of town to another. The aim of the session was to establish with them a system of problem identification and prioritization. Occasionally they would drop in facts about the instability but the gist of the conversation pointed out to the fact that they believed in the success of their efforts and that Congo will get better. They regaled me with stories of sleeping in the bush, running in the middle of the night fleeing town. They also kept saying that it was definitely in the past and how better off they were and that “la vie continue”-Life must and will go on. They were contagiously, ardently optimistic and I couldn’t help but start seeing why. They had simple enough aspirations, become prosperous, build a house in the upcoming area of town( a place full of unbelievably garish small castles), have a family and give their kids the best they could. They knew they were better off than most and they were seizing the opportunity to make it worth it. Heroes. I am still in touch with two of them. They’re married now and they started their own businesses with mutual financial backup. Heroes.

Later in the week, the entire group of participants went to visit a project that was hailed to be the best of the network. It was an agricultural project, a model farm, in the outskirts of the town. We had piled into three minibuses that were skidding their way onto one of the worst roads I’ve ever seen. The houses grew fewer and we were soon into a valley that should have its picture in Wikipedia next to the words luxuriant, lush and dense. Imagine towering trees with moss and ferns on them, thick undergrowth and colossal palms by the hundreds which one of the participants pointed out to me as the source of the much prized Palm wine. Must try that, I told myself. This is the one beverage that features in most African textbooks as the drink of choice of West African pre-colonial times, if there was a party; there was palm wine to be had.

Although we cannot have been more than ten kilometres out of town, it took a good hour to reach our destination; a converted leper colony, a leprosarium. A fact I was only made aware of upon arrival.

My ever-so scientific and atheist father had always dismissed as first ignorant, then Christian, the notion of Leprosy as an extremely dangerous and contagious. He told me the Jewish people, to whom we owe the Bible, equated it to a proportional punishment of Sin committed. That understanding, according to Dad, was very successfully passed on in Africa and where a leper might have been seen before as someone who had been bewitched and as such a PASSIVE being, leprosy came to be equated to something a self inflicted injury, they became ACTIVE.

I don’t think lepers ever enjoyed first class treatment before colonization, but things did not get better when God suddenly made it their fault that they were sick. No matter what my father said, the sight of a leper, gets me recoiling. There is something in the way they are twisted, in the way they are tortured which makes me run away lest their aura of suffering engulfs me. I am powerless in their presence I just want to cowardly go away. They are what I could become. Irreparably damaged, disfigured, unloved, untouchablet and feared. Stigma it’s called.

The rationale behind leprosariums was to isolate, to quarantine the diseased. One could be in a leprosarium for decades before death ensued. I can only assume that in the beautiful way humans adapt, life must have gone on in this place and it seemed to have indeed. They must have made friends, laughed, cried, quarrelled and mourned for each other.

And I could swear, tricks of imagination or not, as we entered the gate, there was a feeling that one was entering in a special place, a place with a history of pain but also a place where people lived.

The gate was halfway up a hill split in half by a small  straight road that climbed up to a row of cottages. There, to meet us, was Jonas, the farm manager in a thick blue jacket, brown pants and gumboots. He was part of the group of participants and as such, was ecstatic to be hosting us at his model farm. As we walked in, I looked around and couldn’t believe the beauty of the place. The place smelt of freshly tilled wet soil, cow dung and eucalyptus, a very pleasant combination. I heard a cow moo. Along the road lay in neat patterns the most glorious vegetable garden I had ever seen. Dozens of species of tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, zucchini, tubers, maize, and beans in various stages of growth surrounded us. And all of it organic. The project was a seed dissemination project where seeds from the world over were tested for viability then distributed to the local population. Farmers brought their goats to be mounted by the improved breed goat stallions (whatever the goat equivalent is, the top dog, The HE-GOAT I think it is) and bulls. There was a fish pond full of tilapia and further down the valley, hives. There were chicken and ducks and rabbits and pigs. The Garden of Eden in its full glory.

The cottages were little brick two room jobs with a small window and a small fire place, the old lepers’ quarters. There were about twenty of them and across on the hill opposite, twenty more. I said a silent prayer, saying sorry. Sorry to the people who had passed through. Sorry for the suffering they endured, the loneliness and sorry for still being afraid.

The tour continued until we got around the hill into the valley close to a clear little stream with thick grass around it. Jonas had some drinks and nibbles for us.

I was standing in the wet grass, my pants soaking up the water, my Next shoes muddy and unrecognizable, a finger in a pot of thick white honey that had just been passed, trying to take it all in. This was one of those times when I had an inkling of what heaven must be. A beautiful place where people earnestly celebrate each other, are laughing, bantering and passing burning cobs of roasted maize.

I remember a famous aerial picture of a lone tree in Tsavo National park, in Kenya. It’s the sole piece of shade for a mile or so around, and all manner of animals trek to it to rest, seek shade, leaving tracks as testimony. A very impressive picture.

The farm was playing the same role, providing sustenance, shelter, the opportunity to gather and nurturing a future in an otherwise bleak and unstable environment. I was honoured, humbled and happy to be part of it. After a drink and more maize, Jonas stood and launched into the inevitable speech to thank all and talk about the network and what its significance to him, the farm and the population had been. I knew he meant every word.

Does Aid money work? It bloody well does. Not always but here it did.

That evening, I took back fresh lettuce to the guesthouse and gave it to Mama Sandra. She made us a salad with tomatoes, hard boiled egges, onions and garlic and what has got to be the best vinaigrette in the world (after my Mum's that is). The salad came with Rice, plantain and Sombe-pounded cassava leaves in palm oil-, with fish fillets. I stuffed my face.

I heard someone call for Turbo King, I looked outside and the three Turbo King men were still there, same table. Real men.

There is a hotel in Butembo called "L'Auberge de Butembo". A very odd, impressive place.In total contrast with the dereliction of some buildings and the newer buildings, L'Auberge is old, well maintained, set in expansive grounds, with magnificent old trees and a manicured lawn. It's main building is big, white with a high red clay tiles roof and black beams and black wooden framed windows. It is surrounded by smaller versions of itself. The main building seves as bar-restaurant and reception area.

The beauty of the place had guaranteed that it was never out of business as whoever owned the town wanted to stay there. A high profile murder had taken place there. Most deals, good or bad for Butembo, happenned at l'Auberge. It had a secret, dignified air about it with the waiters standing at the corners of the outdoors area in their crisp white shirts, bow ties and black pants, second guessing the next drink . The evening mist was creeping in and big cars were driving in and out, meetings were happening.

Three days later we were standing on the air strip of Butembo, with Andre and Paulin saying goodbye, we embraced and promised to make this happen again sometime. We embraced, Andre dislodged a few of my ribs in the process and Paulin said "Bon voyage, mon frere".

I realised I would miss Butembo for its spirit of resilience. I truly felt I could do anything because I was surrounded by people who believed that if it doesn’t work once, you get it together and try again. I shook hands with my partner as we always do after a job well done. "I think we did well there" he said, "really well." We taxied and took off.

I had my head pressed to the window the whole way back, this time not trying to spot incoming missiles, but marvelling at the sights and missing the things I had felt and the people I had met. Same place, different perspective.

Four years later, I was at the beach with my brother, his wife and their four Children. Bujumbura's has the Mitumba mounts of Congoas a backdrop, a vista worth beholding.

 My niece was playing in the sand with her brothers. A Chinese man strolled past and and went into the water. My niece, 6 years old then, told her brothers: “See that man there; he is Congolese. He is swimming back home to Congo." She pointed: "Over there, to the mountains” My brother, his wife and I were dumb-struck.That was not funny at all. The child had obviously construed in her mind, from our daily conversations, that everything Congolese was different, so different it couldn’t even be black and most of all, shame on us, that it did NOT belong. As we scrambled, outdoing each other to deconstruct, draw the poison out, I realised I had been part of the problem in Congo.

By settling for comfy prejudice, by being the arrogant-ignorant arse bourgeois kid versus the struggling broken-French speaking Congolese, I had perpetuated what had become an easy truth to accept; Congo is dark, Congo is savage, and Congolese are poor and Congo is rich but worthy only of use and exploitation. I was Tintin in the Congo. I believed Congo was the Heart of Darkness.

 And carelessly, casually, I had passed on the lies to the next generation. Until I saw it for my own eyes, I would never have believed the beauty and potential of the place and the people. I also saw enough of its ugliness and poverty to balance out the Garden of Eden.

Now I know I can never do justice to the 3rd largest country of Africa (after Sudan and Algeria) with just one visit, to a remote eastern town. But I would like to believe that for every quagmire, every rape, every murder, every shot fired, there is a family getting the kids ready for school, a business opening, a meal put on the table and people falling in love. Congo is just another place. It’s like everywhere else. Really it is.


Congo has suffered at the hands its own people as much as it has suffered at the hand of the world. It is like a battered wife that the neighbourhood expects to die any day the abuse any day but she seems to press on and get better or just enough until the next battering occurs. Like a battered wife, everyone talks about it, few take action and most think it is weak feeble and somewhat deserving of its fate. But press on it does.

Congo is a marvel, the kind of place you cannot BUT fall in love with. Mind you, it can be a very bad relationship, the kind that makes you hate the other so hard because you love them. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for the Heart of Darkness, for Congo.

And it was just as well.

The heart of Darkness

“We got the gig for the Congo”, my colleague announced jubilantly. “The one with the Belgium cooperation crowd. I told them language would be no problem with your French.”

I tried my best to look excited and gave a very unconvincing grin, closer to a death rictus than an actual smile.My world was crashing down.

Oh God, No...Not Congo.

I was 22 years old, fresh out of university, a whole life of prospects and prosperity laid out for me and nothing, nothing in my whole upbringing and education had prepared me for Congo.

Not the fact that I grew up in Bujumbura, a city graced by the magnificent vista of the Mitumba mountain range of Congo across Lake Tanganyika. Not the fact that one of my closest friends from childhood to this day is Congolese. Not the fact that Bujumbura’s culture, musical taste, gastronomy and lifestyle is influenced in every way by our gigantic neighbour and the generations of Burundians of Congolese descent. Nothing in the whole world had prepared me for Congo.

Congo, a country known until the late 90s as Zaire, is a monster. A freak. A thing of monstrous potential, size and wealth, a home to a growing 68 million people belonging to a myriad of cultures some still sheltered from the world as it is known to us. It is covered with impenetrable forests, lush savannahs, volcanoes, large cities and landscapes ranging from the post-apocalyptic city-scape to green rural Switzerland. Its wealth has been its doom. The country has been routinely looted by individuals and states alike, and to the stranger, standing outside, looking in through the frame of the world media, it is a vortex of suffering, rape, disease, corruption, a complete and utter hell-hole. The heart of darkness.

Congo has been occupied over the last hundred years by the respective armies of Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda and had seven warring armies involved in its conflict at one point. The second Congo war alone claimed 5.4 million people, a meagre toll compared to the horrors the Belgians visited upon the country through their exploitative rule, pillaging the country for rubber, ivory and diamonds; 8 million according to the most conservative estimates, 10 million some say. Villages that failed to meet the rubberquotas paid the in the form of severed hands. 

Here is the wikipedia account of how the gory business took place:

Villages who failed to meet the rubber collection quotas were required to pay the remaining amount in cut hands, where each hand would prove a kill. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighboring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill
One junior white officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The white officer in command "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades ... and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross."[7] After seeing a native killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote: "The soldier said 'Don't take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don't bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service.'"[8] In Forbath's words.
The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.
In theory, each right hand proved a killing. In practice, soldiers sometimes "cheated" by simply cutting off the hand and leaving the victim to live or die. More than a few survivors later said that they had lived through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hands were severed, and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help. In some instances a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers, which led to widespread mutilations and dismemberment.

For more on the belgian Congo, try here.

Cold war obsessions(read the CIA) and greed for the riches of Congo allied and topped the one man who was the promise of Congo; Patrice Lumumba. The measure of the man is condensed in the last letter he wrote to his wife Pauline:

My dear wife,

I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them. All through my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and I have devoted all our lives. But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and the Western allies, who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organization in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.

They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others. They have helped to distort the truth and bring our independence into dishonour. How could I speak otherwise? Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not myself who counts. It is the Congo, it is our poor people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage from whose confines the outside world looks on us, sometimes with kindly sympathy, but at other times with joy and pleasure.

But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and I feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise as one man to say No to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the clear light of the sun.

We are not alone. Africa, Asia and the free liberated people from all corners of the world will always be found at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there are no longer any colonialists and their mercenaries in our country. As to my children whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for them, as it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstructing our independence and our sovereignty: for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men. Neither brutality, nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

Do not weep for me, my dear wife. I know that my country, which is suffering so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty.

Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!

Patrice

The letter is drawn from "Nkrumah's Challenge of the Congo" Ch. 11 "The Murder of Lumumba" p.128-129.

Patrice, for all you were, RIP.

The country, no doubt aided by Lumuba's murderers, then went on to produce the quintessential African dictator. A man who allied a Machiavellian intelligence, unrestrained greed, charismatic showmanship and ruthless paranoia. Mobutu Sésé Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (14 October 1930– 7 September 1997).

 Good riddance.

Such were the terrifying statistics churning in my head and making me queasy as I made way to the airport, wondering if this wasn’t the worst choice of my life.

Terrific I tell myself, as we walk onto the Entebbe airport tarmac, why are we walking so far onto the tarmac. What kind of plane is it that it doesn’t even get proper parking? And why did they say I didn’t need to check my luggage in. Why am I pulling my bag along under the....GASP. GASP of horror. It is a wheelbarrow, three wheels and all other attributes save for a cabin and two wings. There is a man feet up dozing under the wing. As we edge closer he wakes up, cranes his neck around, rubs his face, straightens up and grins: “Hi, welcome. Butembo?”That is the destination. My heart sinks as I see the tell tale signs that he is the pilot, gallons and stuff. He’s friendly, so much so that he tells me to get in and help him load the luggage. Now I know why our bags are battered, bruised and abused after each trip. I took out on the luggage all my frustration of going from esteemed customer to second porter from the left.

It’s a small wheelbarrow and there are four more passengers on the plane apart from my colleague and I. Three Congolese men and a flight attendant, Patrice, Congolese. A very friendly man, who is from Butembo and promises to fill me in on the etiquette. We take off in the wheel barrow which amazingly enough once in the air is a smooth little thing. The luggage at the back is strapped and Patrice has the last seat, two seats diagonally from me. He beckons me over and proffers a primus. I nod happily and he opens it with his teeth. He tells me about Congo in a salesman’s way, like he is excited about the place and he manages to thaw a bit the icy grips of my fear. He’s good, fast and friendly with the other passengers, passing the drinks and walking stooped to chat them up once in a while.

He reminds me of the greater majority of Congolese that I knew from Bujumbura. Teachers, tailors, cooks, furniture upholsterers, all unrivalled masters at their craft. Good hard working people with huge families, that spoke perfectly fluent, heavily accented French, Swahili and Lingala . They had huge families, dressed like kings and queens with all the flamboyancy that only the Congolese, the Italians and the phillipinos can pull off. The Sapeurs, are a magnificent subculture of their community is something I grew up hearing about and marvelling about.

It’s bravado, outrageousness and the unbridled feeding of the need to look fabulous when all else around you is bleak. Check it out here.

The flight is via Bunia and Beni and it is in Bunia, our first entry point, that our passports have to be stamped. After a very uneventful landing, we proceed to the long derelict building where the immigration officials reigns as master and current handlers of my fate.
I have heard HORROR stories about entering Congo and being asked for a “carte de Bapteme”-the baptism card, the inability to produce it invariably involving a short prison stay and the loss of every valuable item on your person. When I presented my passport, the big immigration officer lifted his eyes and asked in the most serious of tones: “Monsieur, ne seriez- vous pas un espion rwandais?”-Sir, could you be a Rwandese spy?...My blood clotted. Rwanda was perceived in the whole of the Congo as an invading force and threat, still is to date and my face is one of those those readily identifiable Burundian or Rwandese mugs.

Clot, clot, clot. He looked at me and started chuckling. Turned out he stayed in Bujumbura a few years before when things were sour Congo side and he loved it, asked me about Buja and when I passed the test as a true son of the city, he asked for the fee(20USD) and stamped my passport. I had been making plans to sign over my inheritance if he would only let me go. It has a name what I am, a coward but as the French saying goes “J’assume”, I take full responsibility.

Bunia was home then to a huge UN base, complete with mammoth choppers, white and Blue coloured tarpaulins, prefab buildings and land rovers. A few years later, horrid stories of defilement and food for sex would emerge from there. Sick and somewhat inevitable in a place where the balance of power was so upset that dignity means nothing more than a concept and a remote one at that, certainly not one to compete with food or safety.

Next was Beni, where two of the passengers got off after wishing us bon voyage. We flew over a large expanse of dark grey storm clouds (what the hell do I know about stormy clouds...although they looked really scary) and what must be thousands of square kilometres of dark green forest with the occasional red laterite road.

We landed in Butembo after a heavy rain on a laterite strip on a hill overlooking Butembo. I stepped out and saw the home of 600 thousands over a few hills.

A mist was settling in some parts of the town, the ground was muddy and the grass sodden. There was a smell of wood smoke , eucalyptus in the crisp cool air. I closed my jacket and thought to myself...this is it, I am here, in Butembo, WOW. I was here without the knowledge of anyone in the family as they would have lost it if they suspected and I figured a fait-accompli was better than consultations prior to the trip. I was scared and excited to be in Congo.

(to be continued)

Travel quotes addendum

As promised, this is the next instalment. Funny but on the website they count them down backwards, like the second bit of every journey, homebound...Enjoy


http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/08/01/the-next-50-most-inspiring-travel-quotes-of-all-time/

50. Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.” – George Carlin

49. “Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.” – Nikos Kazantzakis

48. “Our Nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.” – Blaise Pascal

47. “It is a strange thing to come home. While yet on the journey, you cannot at all realize how strange it will be.” – Selma Lagerlöf

46. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman

45. “Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover / Breath’s aware that will not keep. / Up, lad: when the journey’s over there’ll be time enough to sleep.” – A. E. Housman

44. “As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.” – Margaret Mead

43. “Too often. . .I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.” – Louis L’Amour

42. “Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” – Fitzhugh Mullan

41. “One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.” – Alfred North Whitehead

40. “The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.” – William Least Heat Moon

39. “Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.” – The Dhammapada
38. “Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.” – George Eliot
37. “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.” – Samuel Johnson, on the Giant’s Causeway

36. “An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys.” Iain Sinclair

35. “Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’” – Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

34. “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” – Alan Keightley

33. “Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness.” – Ray Bradbury

32. “Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” – Kurt Vonnegut

31. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” – Hilaire Belloc

30. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

29. “I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.” – William Hazlitt

27. “A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse… and thinks of home.” – Carl Burns.

28. “I love to travel, but hate to arrive.” – Albert Einstein

26. “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled.” – Mohammed

25. “One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.” – Charles Dickens

24. “When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.” – Edward Dahlberg

23. “Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert

22. “Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did now know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.” – Italo Calvino

21. “He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all.” – Sinclair Lewis, on sightseeing.

20. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.” – Bumper sticker

19. “Travel at its truest is thus an ironic experience, and the best travelers… seem to be those able to hold two or three inconsistent ideas in their minds at the same time, or able to regard themselves as at once serious persons and clowns.” – Paul Fussell

18. “Most of my treasured memories of travel are recollections of sitting.” – Robert Thomas Allen

17. “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey

16. “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.” – John Muir

15. “When you’re traveling, ask the traveler for advice / not someone whose lameness keeps him in one place.” – Rumi

14. “There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.” – Orson Welles

13. “To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.” – Sam Keen

12. “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G. K. Chesterton

11. “When you are everywhere, you are nowhere / When you are somewhere, you are everywhere.” – Rumi

10. “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller

9. “The autumn leaves are falling like rain / Although my neighbors are all barbarians / And you, you are a thousand miles away / There are always two cups at my table.” – T’ang dynasty poem

8. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville

7. “People don’t take trips – trips take people.” – John Steinbeck

6. “We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

5. “It’s a battered old suitcase and a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal.” – Tom Waits

4. “The map is not the territory.” – Alfred Korzybski

3. “It is solved by walking.” – Algerian proverb

2. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry
1. “What am I doing here?” – Arthur Rimbaud, writing home from Ethiopia