TRAVELS IN AFRICA: Kivu, Congo, 1963, Part Three

Before leaving the eastern Congo to set up an American Cultural Center in Coquilhatville deep in the jungles of the northwest, Fred Hunter wanted very much to take a look at animals north of Bukavu. With the American Consul’s encouragement, he recruited Charley, the Consulate’s commo man. Charley was game, but only if Paul came along.

Wemboyendja, Paul. This was the Paul Charley meant. Wem-boy-end-ja. Not a hard name to pronounce once you struggled with it for a while. Paul was the center’s projectionist and film truck operator. Also a wheeler-dealer and a suave ladies’ man.

My colleagues in Léopoldville considered Paul a real find. They all claimed he had “great contacts,” not the least with Kivu Europeans, some of whom he’d helped escape across Lake Kivu during “les troubles” after independence. Before USIS Bukavu hired him away, Paul had worked for the Kivu Information Ministry. Before that he had served as a Lomani District delegate to the Congo’s first constituent assembly. He had also been sufficiently influential (whatever that meant) to get beaten and tossed into prison when Patrice Lumumba’s men and his Mouvement National Congolais took control in the Kivu six months after independence.

Paul was tallish, stocky, charming. He kept his hair clipped so close to his head that he always looked as if he were wearing a black pillbox hat. He had a roundish face, a ready sense of humor and sparkling eyes. When you looked at him, you understood that he was a rascal. Even so, you felt the good-hearted anticipation that fills the air when a comedian is telling jokes.

One of my first mornings in Bukavu Paul entered my office to announce: “Je dois aller à Usumbura pour dire bonjour au pere de ma femme.” He had to go to Usumbura to “say hello” to his father-in-law. I was skeptical. Paul added that his wife’s mother had just passed on. He needed time to attend her funeral. Hmmm.

This request required elaborate decoding. Fortunately the Consul could provide it. Step One: “Dire bonjour.” “Saying hello” was apparently an African custom. Step Two: His wife’s father. That did not seem difficult to understand – until I discovered that by African kinship reckoning this father was not necessarily the wife’s biological parent; he might be any number of men senior to the biological father in the father’s lineage. The same applied to his wife’s mother. Step Three: Why must he go? He was working at the Center. Couldn’t he “dire bonjour” on personal time?

Of course, Paul was testing me. Was I a stickler for discipline? It had grown sloppy in the months that the Center lacked an American officer. The Consul had placed Paul in charge of the center, but he was frequently gone – as he wanted to go now. He would roam around town in the USIS film truck, doing “contact work.” In the evenings the truck was often seen parked outside nightclubs where a man with a vehicle was always a magnet for women.

Yes, I was being tested. But why play martinet? I let Paul go. If he liked to travel, so much the better. If I had any goal in Bukavu, it was to see some country.

When I told the Consul that I had agreed to Paul’s trip, he grumbled at me. Paul’s wife had left him, he explained. She had returned to Usumbura with their four children. Paul’s trip was no doubt an attempt to straighten out this matter with her father; probably he was in arrears on bridewealth payments. Heaven knows, the Consul said, Paul owed money all over town. His landlord had dropped by the Consulate that very morning to complain that Paul had not paid his rent in five months. Did Americans not pay their employees? Another recent visitor was the father of an African girl (again that kinship ambiguity). He claimed that she was expecting Paul’s child. Hmmm. What was to be done about this fellow with “great contacts”?

I started to keep better track of the after-hours use of the film truck. I accompanied Paul when he showed films in the cités. One night we went to Bagira, high in the hills above Bukavu. The film truck’s appearance sent waves of excitement through the dusty streets. Children ran toward us, screaming “See-nay-ma! See-nay-ma!” and “Ay-tazz-oo-nee-dam-air-eeek!” (The legend “Etats-Unis d’Amerique” was painted on the film truck door.) Wild with anticipation, they danced in a frenzy, flinging their hips and flailing their arms, clouds of dust motes rising about them. Paul leaned out of the window to greet them.

When we reached the place, the cité square, Paul started the phonograph blaring cha-cha-chas from his personal collection. He quickly had young men carrying boxes here and there, helping him to set up. Soon women abandoned their cook fires. They tied babies to the smalls of their backs and approached the screen Paul had directed his acolytes to erect. When all was ready, he began the show – with a “Charlot,” a Charlie Chaplin film. Slapstick in the balmy evening. Our African audience loved it.

The Charlot was not in the center’s film collection – Paul had gotten it somewhere – and when USIS Léo learned that we were showing it, I received an instruction that Charlots were not to be exhibited. USIS film shows were designed to inform, I was told, not to entertain. (The instruction was best ignored.) After the Charlot Paul showed several USIS informational films, inducing the audience to stay by promising to end with a second Charlot. While Paul rewound the films, our audience sang and danced. I did a twist, then in vogue in the States, to show that white men could also dance.

Sometimes after a show Paul and I would eat dinner together at the Bodega. We even had serious conversations. When the subject was religion, Paul said that everyone should have one – and should be free to choose the one he wanted. Pre-independence practices at the Bukavu cathedral offended him, he told me. He resented the fact that the heads of black children were shaved prior to baptism, but those of white children were not.

“Le Bon Dieu will punish these priests on Judgment Day,” he said.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“They willfully refrain from marriage.”

“And that’s bad?” I myself have so far refrained from marriage.

Paul shrugged, but stated his conviction. “Marriage is the proper state of man,” he said. “Each man has a duty to augment the world. Le Bon Dieu will punish these priests for their arrogance.”

Paul and I learned how not to get in each other’s way. And he was canny enough to play for the big score. That was travel. There was per diem in that for him – and an even bigger plus. While I wanted to travel to see new country, Paul wanted to travel to meet new women.

So Paul could hardly contain his glee when he learned of the trip to Goma. With an air of great importance he made reservations for us at the luxurious colonial era hostelry, the Hotel des Grands Lacs, shouting into the phone, speaking on behalf of Monsieur l’Attaché du Consulat Américain.

Besides hoping to see animals and new country, I had another reason for visiting Goma. Shortly before going overseas, I had met Murielle, a Belgian girl raised on a plantation at Saké, only a few miles south of Goma. We had assumed any emotional attachment would be fleeting – after all, I was about to depart – but we had fallen in love. There were, however, issues between us: a difference in religion and questions about how children would be raised. These never got resolved; in fact, because the time was so short once we grew serious, they were never even discussed.

We stopped writing during my year-long tour in Brussels. However, the correspondence had recently resumed – with enough interest on both sides so that I felt I should probably dire bonjour to her parents.

We departed for Goma at noon Friday. It rained off and on all day. We left the paved road 35 kilometers out, drove past clusters of banana-frond huts, away from the lake and back beside it, climbed the escarpment. Almost at the top, we stopped to stretch. When we were ready to start again, the battery was dead. Ugh. We rolled the truck backwards and started in compression in reverse. We drove on, up the escarpment and down it. The motor kept cutting out. As long as we were on an incline, we had no problem restarting in compression. But the motor died as we moved along the water’s edge. We got out. We pushed the truck, but could not move it fast enough to restart it. The rain began again. We corralled a passing African, a banana frond over his head as a rain hat. He helped us push, again in vain. A European came along. Using bush ingenuity, we restarted the truck by putting the battery from his Land Rover onto our mount. Once the motor was running, we reinstalled our battery – all while the engine was turning.

We went on. The rain grew heavier. When we stalled again as light was fading from the sky, Paul went to find help. Charley and I waited, wondering if we’d spend the night in the truck.

What was Donanne doing while Fred was serving in the Kivu? After finishing her sophomore year at Principia College in 1962, Donanne flew to Bogota, Colombia, to join her parents. Her father, Don Ralston, was then a member of the State Department’s inspection corps looking at embassies and consulates in Latin Anerica. During that summer she visited Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico. Needless to say, inspectors and their families are always treated well. The summer after her junior year at Principia Donanne stayed with her grandparents in Redlands, California.

Next post: Fred and his pals manage to reach Parc National Albert where they see elephants, baboons, Cape Buffalo and hippos and manage to get stuck fast in mud just as night is falling. Uh-oh.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: Kivu, Congo, 1963, Part Six

When Fred Hunter arrived in the Congo as a young US Information Service officer, transferring from a training post in Brussels, Belgium, he was sent first to Bukavu, then was told he must go to the northwest to open a cultural center in Coquilhatville. Before leaving the Kivu, he wanted to visit the parents of a young Belgian woman he had dated in Washington, DC.

Late in the afternoon while the others relaxed in Goma, I drove out to Saké, hoping to find the De Muncks’ plantation and, if I was lucky, to meet them. I passed the lava flow of Nyiragongo’s most recent eruption. I drove down the only turn-off I could find. I passed mud-and-wattle huts, asked directions of Congolese, received conflicting advice and persevered. I came upon a locked gate. There I left the film truck. I climbed around the gate and walked to a plantation house constructed of lava blocks and set on a tall headland overlooking Lake Kivu. It and the view were something out of movie versions of paradise. South Pacific’s Emile de Becque had a home like this and sang songs all day. How lucky the De Muncks were to live here! But no one was around. I circled the house, wanting to verify that it was, indeed, the place where Murielle grew up. I left a note.

Returning to the gate, I found a couple staring at the film truck. He wore khaki trousers and a shirt/jacket, belted, with pockets at the breast and below the belt. She looked very much like Murielle. I introduced myself, explaining that I was an American friend of their daughter, now living in Bukavu. I had no sense that either of them had ever heard of me. But why would Murielle have told them anything? What I did sense was that they were both enormously tired.

They invited me into the house. I felt uncomfortable at first, very aware that I was defying one of the litanies of my upbringing (“Never intrude!”) and conscious of the inadequacies of my French. But soon it was clear that the De Muncks saw me as a pair of virgin ears; they could tell me things that other people they talked to had grown tired of hearing. Moreover, as an American officer, I represented that irresistible force, American policy, which they held responsible for much of the calamity that had befallen them. We had tea and a light supper.

Independence and its aftermath had turned their lives upside down, they said. Eighty percent of the workers on their coffee and tea plantations were Tutsis, originally from Rwanda, though they had lived in Congolese territory for generations. Now members of the Congolese government were threatening to force all Tutsis back into Rwanda. When the De Muncks had talked to North Kivu’s provincial president – it clearly irked Madame to address him as “Monsieur le Ministre” – he had told them that if they supported the Tutsi work force, then they were “contre” the local government. “What can one do?” Madame asked.

She complained that local bandits were hired as police. These hoodlums terrorized the countryside, slitting the throats of plantation workers and beating pregnant women. I remembered Murielle telling me about plantation workers who had found the decapitated heads of fellow workers placed along footpaths. “We sent the children outside the country,” Madame said, “so they would be safe.”

“We did not want them to see these things,” Monsieur said.

“The children are safe,” Madame continued, “but we have nothing to send them.”

Monsieur explained that he had plowed all his money back into the plantation. He had put nothing away against a rainy day. “And why should I?” he asked. “In those days a Congolese franc was worth the same as a Belgian franc.” Now the Congolese franc was worthless; things kept breaking down; it was impossible to get spare parts and on a whim the government commandeered trucks.

Of course, they acknowledged, Belgium had lacked courage. To abandon the Congo in the manner it had! The Portuguese in Angola were right to hold on. And the Americans! Wasn’t it clear that they intended to exploit the Congo’s riches?

I listened as they let off steam. “Mais vous ne dites rien!” Madame kept saying. “You aren’t saying anything!” But what was there to say?

At dinner I asked about Madame’s photography; Murielle had told me about it. “There is no time anymore,” she said. She caressed the dog with affection and conversed with the parrot. Monsieur chuckled now and then; I liked him for that. After dinner Madame showed me a collection of her photos printed as postcards. She stood behind me as I sat thumbing through them; reminiscence warmed her voice.

When I said goodbye, they invited me to return. “Come spend a week,” they suggested. “Climb our volcanoes. Or perhaps we could all go to Uganda. We know a place in Elizabeth Park; it’s not usually open to tourists.”

Driving back to Goma, I realized that I had not asked to see photos of Murielle as a child. I wondered if I would see them again. I never did.

The next afternoon Charley drove us home – all too quickly. Paul’s night of passion had left him tired and speechless. His friend had so extracted the juices from him that halfway down the lake he insisted we stop at a plantation house. He ordered an African there to fetch him a glass of water. Charley was equally silent, thinking probably about the heifer he had seen at Vitshumbi and the one awaiting him in Bukavu. I mulled over my visit with the De Muncks. I wondered what would happen to them and to Murielle and if I would have a part in any of it.

We stayed in second gear until well within sight of Bukavu. The streets were deserted. A rumor had spread that the Mwami of Kabare, a local king, might stir up trouble, perhaps even send warriors to invade the town. Where usually the night was full of cha-cha rhythms from Congolese bars, this night there was only silence.

Parts One through Five can be viewed in the Archive located at the top of the Home Page.

Next post: On a flight to a bush town deep in the Congo jungle, Fred meets a modern-day Rip Van Winkle.

Want to meet the Mwami of Kabare? Want to see how he and Paul Wemboyendja interact? Take a look at “Waiting for the Mwami” in Fred’s AFRICA, AFRICA! Fifteen Stories. Check it out at www.Cune.com/Africa.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1959

Before sending Fred off to the remote Equateur, TIA will break chronology and offer bits from sixteen-year-old Donanne’s reports to her grandparents on her adventures in Port Elizabeth and her travels outside it. Donanne’s father Don Ralston was stationed there as the American Consul.

March 1, 1959

Dear Californians,

Am very pleased to have been invited to join the school swimming team so must practice every day for the upcoming gala over at the huge park pool.

I joined the Teenage Cultural Guild which meets every other Saturday and includes play readings, music appreciation and lectures of an educational sort. Quite a few of the area’s schools are represented. In September the Guild had a tea – we wore hats and gloves – where we presented to the Mayor a check for 100 pounds raised from a play we put on.

Our debate was fun: “Going steady is a disadvantage for a girl.” [Full disclosure: I went steady for about five months before leaving for South Africa. My friend kept after me and I finally agreed after he said I could keep the five dates I had already made with other guys, one to a ball at Annapolis, the others to senior proms.] For the debate I spoke in the affirmative. The other side brought up some reasonable arguments but for once I couldn’t agree. They said: ‘twas security, but I said: That comes from home during the teen years. They said: It’s nice to have a confidant. I argued: But a mother is a girl’s best friend AND confidant. And variety in dating makes for more responsible and well-rounded citizens. And so, we won 20-9, but I very sincerely doubt that we swayed anyone.

My school chums are getting excited about [Easter] vacation. One of the boarders invited me up to her sheep farm about 150 miles away during “the hols” [holidays], but as we are going hiking in the mountains at Hogsback, will have to take a raincheck. I’ll also be catching up on college reading and studying my French.

Well, here we are back from Hogsback where we stayed in a super cabin 6,000 feet up with indoor plumbing and a fine view and waterfalls all around. It reminded me a tiny bit of the Sierras. I got rather a lot of flea bites, but that didn’t stop me from exploring the forests with the other American family that joined us. On the way to our vacation spot Daddy made an official visit to Fort Hare, a college for non-whites.

Donanne, ready for travel, outside the Consul's house

June 21, 1959 (winter in South Africa)

Hi! Last night’s dance was super. I wore my red lace dress with red crinoline, red shoes, and red ribbon in my hair around a small bun. Since Friday was the last day of school, many of the university students are back from Grahamstown for a month’s winter holiday and a few were there last night. Consequently I danced nine dances with boys other than my date, which was unusual, but I was very pleased.

I’m sure mommy has told you of our new 19 yr. old church organist. Abie is sweet and very serious. Last Wednesday at church he was playing one of (or rather practising) Bach’s fugues and I told him that I liked Bach, so he said he’d play it during collection on Sunday night and hoped I’d come. It didn’t work out for tonight, so I went this morning instead of going to Sunday School and he played it. Afterwards he told me he had decided not to play it at the morning service, but changed his mind when I walked in. It was a really lovely piece containing lots of runs, etc. and I thought it was very nice of him.

Tuesday, June 30, 1959

We have just returned from a wonderful 5-day jaunt into the nearby countryside and down the coast.

Our first stop was Plettenburg Bay, about 80 miles west from P.E. It is a beautiful spot, and we stayed at the hotel on Beacon Island with a view of the mountains in the pinky-gray sunset, surrounded by blue sea splashing against sharp rocks. As we watched, some men fishing from the rocks caught three rather good-sized fish in 15 minutes.

The next day, on to George and the lovely hotel set in formal gardens just outside of town, with two gorgeous peacocks strutting around. We had heard of the Shoe Box in this town from a friend, so natch, we went. I got the only shoes that fit me – one pair navy with an attractive slit down the side, the other beige – both quite the highest heels (stiletto) and very cute. It’s the first time in my life I’ve been able to get such good-looking shoes. Mommy got two pairs, too. Daddy got the car greased.

The next night was at Oudtshoorn, the town famous for its ostriches and the Cango Caves. These caverns are supposedly among the largest and most spectacular in the world. They were huge all right! We had a cute guide who spoke in both Afrikaans and English. There were some mighty big rooms (caverns) and tons of ups and downs. At the end of the main explored part is “the chimney” lying down, but you have to climb a steep ladder to get to the entrance hole, then it’s about 30 feet on your stomach (obviously no turning around) until you get into the Ice Palace, then on into the Devil’s Cavern, THEN turn around and slither out!! We three didn’t go. I would have, except I was (like a goon) wearing a dress. I did climb to the top of the ladder and look in, though, and man, what a place! The guide said that sometimes he and a couple of other boys take flashlites and a bit of food and go exploring from 7:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. since vast portions have still not been explored.

The next day was the ostrich farm. It was fascinating. Did you know that they live about 60 years, that they lay between 13-15 eggs each time, that the papa does the babysitting, that they take 42 days to hatch at a temperature of 98 degrees, that the shell is 1/8 inch thick and a 200 lb. man can stand on it without even scratching it, that the birds weigh between 200 and 300 lbs., that when an ostrich is mad you don’t have a fair chance because with one blow of his sharp toenail he can slit you from your guzzle to your zatch, that they have eyes that can see the full 360 degrees without budging, that the eyelashes are lovely, and that they are truly adorable creatures, and are not about to harm you unless of course you anger them? I sat on one but didn’t ride as there’s a special knack to falling off – or else! It was really loads of fun. Wish you could have been along!

Next post: Fred gets a taste of the Equateur, the region to which he’s being sent to open an American Cultural Center in Coquilhatville.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Equateur Province, 1963

Fred Hunter went alone to establish an American Cultural Center in the northwest Congo’s Equateur Province. Here’s how it was:

Some say that entering the Equateur is like traveling back to the beginnings of time.

Driving into it you see little: only the track before you, the rutted, orange-colored road rising and falling, descending to a watercourse bridged by logs and rising again to the top of the next low ridge. Beside you flashes the jungle. It grows thick and dark and does not entice you. Above is the sky, brilliantly blue. It winds like a river through the leafy overhang of trees. And you go up and down, up and down on the orange laterite road.

When you fly into the Equateur, the land spreads below you with unrelieved flatness. It extends beyond the range of your eyes, beyond the haze lying across it in the dry season, beyond the reaches of binoculars during the rains when the air itself is as clear as a lens. It stretches to the Atlantic; it reaches to the backbone of Africa: the Rift Valley Escarpment and the Mountains of the Moon. Below lies the jungle, a green sponge of vegetation surging outward. It lies dense and endless over a space whose walls are the sky. Looking down you may spot a mud pond fringed by trampled grasses where elephants dance and bathe in the evenings. Or a river. Or an occasional plantation or mission, perhaps a cluster of huts. Generally, though, you see only the greenness of vegetation.

Plantations untangle and order this verdure; they do not interrupt it. From the air you suddenly notice that the patternless intertwine of plant life has given away to textured design, to rubber trees or oil palms set out and tended in neat rows. A referee has stopped the struggle among the trees for space. Along one edge of the textured design plantation buildings hug the river’s edge; corrugated roofs glint in the sun. The pattern of trees continues; then abruptly it ends. The chaos of jungle resumes.

Missions disappear even more quickly. A Protestant station is nothing more than a clearing and some buildings: a church, a school, a hospital, a home for the evangelist, and one for the doctor. A Catholic station usually has a cathedral in the Italian style and priests in white soutanes moving slowly across its lawns. But before you can think it incongruously ordered, the raw tangle of jungle has returned.

Villages line the roadways, eight or ten huts to a side. They stand at the regular intervals where colonial administrators of yesteryear resettled their residents to provide a maintenance force. They cluster close to plantations, too, and to missions and trading towns. And they cling to the shorelines of rivers and swamps where the fishing is good.

Only rivers interrupt the jungle. From the air they have the appearance – and much of the mystery – of snakes. A jungle river is a silt-covered living force; it twists through primeval growth and sleeps in the sun.

In the Equateur the greatest of these river-serpents is the Congo. It is a broad flat boa with an island-dotted hide, curling out of Africa’s heart. It travels north from the Katanga highlands, turns west sliding over the rapids at Kisangani and at Mbandaka is moving south. Running broad and flecked with islands, its waters seep back into swamps. It swallows the Ruki; it absorbs the Ubangi and Kasai, sweeps past Kinshasa, plunges through a gorge and surges into the Atlantic. It meets the ocean with such force that it discolors the water for miles out into the sea.

For the Equateur the river is the central fact of life.

Sailing into the region you realize this. Going by sternwheeler the passage from Kinshasa takes four-and-a-half days. During that time you are part of the river. Watching the shoreline you feel that nature has held itself unchanged for centuries. You pass fishing villages, some of them abandoned. Beached pirogues mark the inhabited ones. Men weaving nets wave to the boat. You slip by short rises of ground where the trees thrust upward, yearning toward the sky. Profusions of lianas hang from their branches. You see the shoreless expanses of swamp: grass simply growing into the river. Soon the variations lose significance. You realize that only the constants have meaning: the sky, the water, the land.

Your white sternwheeler is pushing several motored barges. You climb forward to observe them. Having built squatters villages on them out of mats, the steerage passengers are loving the breeze and the leisure, the change from daily routine. Gaiety enlivens their movements. Cha-cha music fills the air. Nursing and bathing their infants, the women laugh and yak; their inflections are like a song. Men crowd the rails to bargain for food from fishermen who have pulled out to the paddlewheeler and lashed their pirogues alongside.

The hours pass. You return to the deck outside your cabin to read. The sun is hot. It glares off the river and has already reddened your skin. You are reading Joseph Conrad: “Heart of Darkness.” The story is slow, the sentences as tangled as the jungle’s vegetation. You put the book down. You watch the sky, the water, the land. You understand what is really here: space without time. And silence. Silence. A great silence hangs over the river.

At night you hear it. You stand on the deck in darkness. The stars seem within reach. The air has at last turned cool. The water whispers below, sliding away from the boat. Do you see the shoreline or only imagine it? You cannot tell. Then you hear the silence. It is vast and heavy; it presses down on the Equateur.

The next day you try to read again. But again the sun is hot. You do not wait so long to close your book. You watch the sky, the water, the land, and now and then you doze. You begin to understand Africa’s sense of time.

Time is like the river: vast and silent and ever onwardly flowing. You ride its currents. Time, like the river, is there: before you came, after you go. It, like the river, is bigger than you. And with or without you it flows.

What was Donanne doing at this time? In the autumn of 1963 she began her senior year at Principia College, taking a four-month Prin Abroad study trip to Europe, visiting Greece, Italy, France and Britain.

Next post: Fred gets to know some of the “Coquins” of Coquilhatville and learns about the post-independence problems they face.

• A version of this post appears in Fred’s collection of Africa writings AFRICA,AFRICA! Check it out at www.cunepress.com.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Early Days in Coq, 1963

Fred Hunter arrived in Coquilhatville to set-up an American Cultural Center. While awaiting shipments of equipment, he wrote letters. Here are edited versions of several.

Second day in Coq:
Yesterday after arriving I took a look at the center. It boasts the dirtiest toilet bowl you ever saw. The floors were paint-spotted, the rooms stuffy from being locked up. Old Edouard, the sentinel has done some useful gardening. His wife was cooking bare-breasted outside behind the center; his toddlers, wearing only genital wrappers, were scrambling over things. I carried over a carton of books from the post office. Edouard and two kids came to watch me. Just watched me.

Met a Congolese journalist yesterday while at the center. He puts out a two-page mimeoed sheet every day, one of three such local newspapers, the only ones in Coq. Full of joy at being Rene Thy Essolomwa, he had on a knitted visored cap of about fifty colors and took delight in being told I liked it.

He’d just been down in Léo shopping for financial backing for his own political party – from West Germans, Americans and Portuguese. Of course, no dice. He showed me a noncommittal telegram from a Portuguese vice-consul. His babbling makes you wonder what he could possibly bring this country in the way of leadership or administrative talent. He sees an opportunity and is trying to grab it. But do any of these guys know what it means to run a country? I bought a subscription and sent him away with some brochures.

Seventh day in Coq:
I’ve been here not quite a week, done almost nothing but make contacts at the UN and with the American missionaries. Everything on foot. I have this Puritan feeling that I ought to be doing something for the pay I’m earning. I just don’t feel comfortable sitting around waiting for equipment to arrive – even if that’s what the job demands.

Using the mission’s phone I was able to contact Mutien-Marie Bokele, Chef de Protocole, and arrange to meet Léon Engulu, the President (governor) of the province. Called yesterday and twice this morning. Bokele suggested I sort of come out and sit around until Engulu could see me. That didn’t appeal much; I felt near-diplomatic representatives should hold out for definitely scheduled interviews. But I went.

I put on a suit to see Engulu, the first time I’ve had a coat on since I arrived here. Fortunately for me, Ron Sallade was running an errand in town and drove me to the mansion. The Présidence (former mansion of the Belgian governor) looks as if it had been plucked out of Pasadena and set down beside the Congo River. I’d have hated to appear sweaty after a long walk.

When I arrived, I was sneaked in to say hello before waiting people. The interview proved to be an easy, congenial saying hello. Engulu is young, 29/30, with no more than a primary school education. He seemed poised and capable and sat in the middle of a long conference table in a long conference room, looking out at the mansion’s lawns and flowers. He wore a business suit and had a pad of paper before him. After one says: “For the Congo,” he can add that Engulu seems a great deal more than averagely intelligent. It’s difficult to tell much about a man in a five minute discussion, but he seemed likable and I hope that we see each other from time to time.

In some ways I felt rather sorry for Engulu. Here was this – what? – kid almost by US standards sitting in a long, empty room somewhat at the mercy of an endless line of visitors. I wouldn’t want to be running this province – even with Belgian administrators I could count on to do the job. How can Engulu move it forward? I don’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t either. It’s going to be a long haul for the Congo.

Bokele got a driver to bring me back here to the hotel. I’m finding my legs a bit tired of all this walking. I’ll be glad to have some other kind of transportation.

Tenth day in Coq:
A journalist I met here was arrested last week, later released, but the case has yet to be settled. I gave this fellow some info on US journalism and an item appeared in his stenciled paper the next day, quoting President Kennedy on the values of the free press.

(Note: Essolomwa was obviously thumbing his nose at Engulu who acted as his own Information chief. Like a lot of editors, he chased readers by provoking controversy. Rather quickly, he accused me and the Cultural Center of being a CIA operation. I was wary after that and understood the urge to arrest him.)

Next post: Fred learns more about Coq when the ex-colons’ stores are “pillaged.”

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: Settling into Coq, 1963, Part Two

Fred Hunter’s first months in Coquilhatville were dicey. Gradually things got better. Then they got worse – for some.

Something happened just before Christmas that tested the ex-colon merchants. The Léopoldville government devalued the Congolese franc. Suddenly soldiers and police appeared outside all the stores in town. Then they entered the stores and searched them to detect any hidden goods the merchants were holding off the market, ostensibly either to sell later at higher prices or to sell on the black market. The mastermind of the searches was the local interior minister Gaston LeBaud, pronounced LeBeau, “qui est le contraire de son nom,” as Mme André with her ironic sense of humor observed. I was not involved in this business. In fact, it was never entirely clear to me what was going on. Some of the Belgians referred to it as “le pillage.” It seemed entirely possible that police were simply plundering some of the merchants’ stores and demanding fines without any sort of judicial procedure. The stores were closed for a week.

André came to see me late one afternoon. We sat in the office of the center with late afternoon sunlight slanting into the room. I had never seen him drink heavily, but now I could smell liquor on his breath. I was still living at the Ancion Hotel overlooking the river and he knew I’d had trouble finding a place to live. He suggested that I rent the André home.

“Your home?”

“It would be perfect for you. It’s in the center of town. On the main square.”

“But it’s your home.”

“I will continue to work there. The office and the work area and all my stores are right there.”

“But where will your family live? You’ve got four children.”

Obviously the liquor had fortified him to make this offer. He explained that he had charge of a house out by the river, a bit north of town, that actually had more room than their present house. He was taking care of it for a friend who had left the country. In fact, he said, months ago he had talked with Hank Clifford (as I shall call him) about the center’s renting the André house for its office. “It would have been much better than Herman’s house.” I nodded in agreement. But Hank had wanted a decision before the Andrés had hardly been able to discuss the matter and so he had gone with Herman.

I didn’t know what to say. I very much wanted to leave the hotel, to stop living out of a suitcase. And I understood, of course, that the American Embassy would pay hard currency for the rental and that that would be of real benefit to the Andrés. But I would be forcing the children out of the only home they knew in the Congo.

“We have decided to leave the Congo,” André said. I could hardly believe his words. Madame and the children had only been back a year. Everyone had thought things were getting better, that Coq had hit bottom and was coming back. “This is not a place to raise children,” André said. “This is not a place to do business. My children watch police come onto our property, demand to search our stores.” He stared at the floor, hardly able to speak so deep was his anger at the African pillagers and at his own impotence to counter. “They held a gun to my head,” he said. “They demanded that I write a check for CF 200,000. Made out not to the government, but to a member of the so-called ‘comité de vigilance.’ It went right into his pocket. It was robbery.”

I nodded, stunned by the courage and the despair that lay behind the decision to start over. With a wife and four children.

“This is not a place to bring up children,” he said again. “In un petit an we’ll be gone.”

I said I would be grateful to live in the house. It held pleasant memories for me. I would be glad to have him working every day in the office attached to the house. Maybe I should take a look at it.

When I went to the house, tiny Martine, maybe six years old, showed me her bedroom with innocence and delight. She had no idea that she would be leaving it. Once again I said that I would be grateful to live there. I’d have to make arrangements with the embassy.

As it turned out, André had suddenly to fly to Belgium. His father was dying. He was gone three weeks.

I moved into the house shortly after he returned. And so the year 1963 ended for me.

What was Donanne doing at this time? She returned to the United States from the Prin Abroad trip to Europe and spent Christmas with family in Redlands, California.

Next post: Fred meets a true “coquin” and gets a different perspective on how to deal with the Congolese.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Christmas in Coquilhatville 1963

On Christmas Eve day I borrowed a truck from the DCCM Mission, hired four Africans, drove to the Otraco warehouses on the docks and picked up the American Cultural Center’s office supplies. For two months they had been chugging up the Congo River from Léopoldville and I had been waiting for them. Now we got them into the center.

All day I worked hard with Tata Edouard, the sentinel or watchman who lived behind the center. He was a series of interlocking circles: his nearly bald head, his eyes behind the round glasses, the cheeks that smiled shyly when we greeted one another, the two globes of his buttocks, his stomach hanging over the waistband of his trousers. Tata was a term of respect for a man of years. But I had no real sense of Tata Edouard’s age. He was certainly 40, perhaps 60. His hair was gray. His unhurried pace seemed to connote a serenity that comes with age.

Whatever his age, Tata Edouard still possessed sexual vigor. He and his wife had filled the two-room stucco house in which they lived at the rear of the property with small children. These children ran about the yard, wearing mostly nothing except thongs tied with charms.

At first Edouard’s unhurried pace had disconcerted me. The first time I brought mail from the post office, he and two naked children hurried to the door of my office. Without self-consciousness, they silently watched me open the mail. Just stood there. I was very disconcerted. But I exerted on myself iron control. “You will not break,” I kept assuring myself. “You will not shout. You will not tell this old man to LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!!!” And I didn’t.

On this Christmas Eve day the Tata and I had muscled desks, chairs and books into the building. I had a sense of having worked well and a desire to share that sense with someone.

But there was no one. Ron Sallade, the town’s other single young American, had gone to Bosobele Station. The Andrés sought the solace of the bush, Madame explaining that they had to get away from the hubbub of Coq. Hubbub, I thought. This slow place? But nothing of mine had been “pillaged.”

Now Tata Edouard stuck his head into the office. He entered slowly with a stalk of yellow bananas and laid it on my desk. “Bon Noel, patron,” he said.

“Tiens, Edouard!” I replied, rising. “C’est vraiment Noel!” Good heavens! I thought. A present. “Je vous remercie beaucoup!” I had not thought of presents. I realized I must give Edouard something. But what?

Then I remembered the four precious bars of chocolate. As I was leaving the Ancion Hotel that morning a Belgian fellow-lodger confided excitedly, “There’s chocolate at Sedec. It’s available only once or twice a year. So hurry.”

I hurried. I had not missed chocolate, but if it came into town only once or twice a year…

At Sedec I found a jostling crowd of colons’ wives, fighting for space at the cashier’s counter. They flirted shamelessly with the Congolese cashier and elbowed me roughly when I joined their queue.  This atmosphere gave the quest for chocolate an aura of great importance. By the time I left the store, clutching my ration, four small bars, I sensed that chocolate had an abstract value of its own. For all I knew, currencies were quoted in it. Eventually at the center I placed them in the pencil tray of the new desk.

Edouard watched me expectantly, ready to receive. In French I said, “C’est Noel! And I have something for you, Edouard.  And for your children!” He brightened. I took the chocolate bars from the desk. “Voila! Bon Noel!”

Edouard stared at the chocolate bars, so small beside the bulk and number of bananas, so few for all those children. I suddenly realized that, of course, money would have been more welcome.

Finally he smiled, thoroughly perplexed. He put the gift into his trouser pocket. “Merci, patron,” he said. He shuffled slowly from the office.

Money, I thought. Money, you jerk! You’d have liked the chocolate and he’d have liked the money.

Troubling news came at the end of January. I wrote these notes to myself:

At the end of last week press and radio reported the murder of three Catholic (Flemish) priests in Kwilu province, east of Leopoldville. After burying the priests a “dizaine” of nuns made their way to safety in Kikwit, provincial capital. Two groups of American missionaries were helicopter-rescued by the UN from the same part of the province – after their mission stations had been burned. Ron Sallade told me yesterday that the death toll in Kwilu is said to have reached eight or nine, all Catholic missionaries, a possible exception being one Protestant. He says a number of Protestant missionary stations have been evacuated.

Trouble seems to have a political base. A Gizenga lieutenant named Mulele, I believe, has been terrorizing the area as a means of bringing some kind of leverage against provincial regimes. It’s difficult to understand this taking an anti-missionary outlet, but perhaps the Catholics are still associated (in the Gizengist mind) with the Belgian colonial rule and the Americans with the present regime of GOC.

Reports also come that Europeans have been killed in the last day or two at Lisala, just a day and a half or two days’ boat-travel up the river from us. Some dissident group has taken control of the airport radio tower, Lisala’s only outside communication link, and no news is coming from the town.

Killings in Lisala strike much closer to our own feelings of security than do those in Kwilu. I presume that problems in Lisala have a tribal base since the Budja and Ngombe tribes have carried on a long rivalry within Moyen Congo province since its creation.

Ron and I drove out to the airport (just for a drive) and he told me about the Lisala business. He felt Europeans here have to rely on the good will of their African contacts since the police are incapable of offering protection. We both wondered what will happen when the UN troops pull out of this place as they’re scheduled to do in March.

Next post: More bad news about unrest in the country.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, More Bad News, 1964

For Fred Hunter 1964 began with more bad news.

On January 30, I made more notes of what I heard:

“From all reports the situation continues to worsen in Kwilu. Bands of young men are said to be wandering around the countryside spreading an as yet unchecked reign of political terror. Death toll is said to stand at 150 persons. According to Roger Raeys, at least one American missionary, a woman, has been killed, shot in the “face” with an arrow. Her roommate, another missionary woman, was wounded in the arm. He reported this as having happened at 2:00 a.m.

“Another report of a US missionary woman maimed, her hands cut off.

“Many of the dead in Kwilu are said to have been government workers. Political opposition is attempting to incapacitate provincial government by exterminating those who make it function.

“LISALA
“For several days rumors have circulated around Coq that there have been troubles of an unknown nature in Lisala. Today at breakfast I got two conflicting versions. Raeys, passing on a report of a fellow (Griffon) who returned from Lisala yesterday, says that an ANC soldier ran off with a woman from a village near Lisala. When another ANC soldier came to the village to investigate(?), his throat was slashed, presumably as a reprisal against the soldier who stole off with the woman. ANC took revenge on the village in force, according to Raeys, and the death toll is said to be 19.

“M. Gerard, co-owner of the hotel, gives another version. According to him, two important Lisala politicians of conflicting tribal origins undertook some sort of political discussions. Army attempted to intervene, was thwarted and as a result shot up the place. “Pas grave, alors,” I said. “Pas dans ce pays,” answered Gerard with a laugh. (“Not serious then.” “Not in this country.”)

“WEMA
“Last night at a get-together to celebrate Betty Erlewine’s birthday chez Denton there was talk of tribal warfare near the Wema mission station, east of Boende. Eunice Goodall was reported to have said over the radio that she was ready to be evacuated if the Embassy thought they should leave. Problems seem to be tribal. A woman from one tribe slapped a sick woman from another tribe. The sick woman later died, calling into effect reprisals against the tribe of the other woman.

“BIKORO
“Rumors floating, too, that there have been killings at Bikoro (a couple of hours drive south of Coq). These started circulating yesterday. Mme Andre mentioned them to Ron Sallade, M. Pennequin to Betty Denton. This morning neither Raeys nor Gerard had heard anything of them.

“RUANDA
“In Ruanda mass killings of Watutsis by the Bahutus, a tribe long subjugated to Watutsi rule. Bahutus overthrew this rule only within the last couple of years and fierce tribal warfare has raged on and off ever since. Bahutus way outnumber the Watutsi. (Wonder if “free elections” imposed by outside powers changed this balance of power situation in Ruanda.) In any case Tutsi refugees have flooded into North Kivu and Uganda. In January (or around Christmas time) Tutsis made reprisal raids into Ruanda against Bahutus. Now Bahutus are on the rampage against the Tutsis. There are estimated, I believe, to be 350,000 Watutsi. It is said that 8,000 have been killed in the past month, possibly 14,000.

“CONCLUSIONS
“These outbreaks of violence seem indicative of widespread unrest throughout the country, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Betty Erlewine suggested that this unrest grows as the time for the promised elections approaches, but neither Gary Farmer nor I feel certain that the elections will come to pass. If they do, it’s been rumored that there will be troubles around Coq.

“My personal feeling is that these troubles, if they come at all, can probably be controlled. The govt seems strongly in the saddle, backed by a political organization that has no effective opposition. Tribal problems in the immediate area of Coq seem minimal.

“As for personal safety, the rumors about Bikoro are somewhat unsettling. Bikoro is linked to Coq by the only decent road leading out of Coq. News (and trouble) can spread from Bikoro to Coq in the matter of hours it takes to drive or walk the road. But most troubles seem to have local causes and local results.

“Still, would the ANC [Armee Nationale Congolaise] or police provide effective protection for Coq’s inhabitants? Real danger for Europeans lies in the troubles taking an anti-European turn, which is always a possibility. In addition, the problem of danger is increased by the ineffectiveness of our communication facilities – and evacuation facilities. The possibilities of incidents are not effected by this, but our ability to cope with them is. So is escape.

Next Post: Fred meets a true “coquin” and gets a different perspective on how to deal with Congolese.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Adjusting to Coq, 1964, Part One

As Fred Hunter labored to open an American Cultural Center in Coquilhatville, government-directed searches and fining of merchants shattered the town’s tranquility. The aftermath reverberated for weeks.

As building projects at the center engaged particularly the electrician André and the contractor Boudart, I gradually gained access to their social circle. Mme André often presided over dinners of expatriates. These usually included Boudart and the Polish UN doctor Janusz Michejda and his wife Barbara. Madame even hosted a dinner when her husband was called away to Belgium to visit his dying father.

From a letter in mid-February:

Thursday evening a moambe chez Boudart. Other guests included the Andrés (he’s back now from 3 weeks in Belgium), the Michejdas and a M. Guillaume, the regional secretary of an organization of Congo and Belgian business firms. The moambe (chicken, rice, manioc greens, palm nut sauce, all garnished with HOT pili-pili sauce) was very good and on leaving Boudart asked me to finish it off with him yesterday at lunch. Which I did.

Thursday evening after dinner we sat around a kidney-shaped coffee table and talked late into the night as the table became more and more weighted with coffee cups, water, liquor and fruit juice glasses, an orange juice maker and ash trays burdened with cigarette butts. Boudart and Michejda are great talkers. All one has to do is sit back and ask the proper questions. Off they go. Boudart put on some 45s of music popular last year in Belgium and Mme André would lean back and occasionally sing.

M. André is having a particularly bad time of it just now, what with his father’s death, being fined at gunpoint and deciding to leave Coq. The contrast between him and Boudart couldn’t be more pronounced. André’s nervous, restless, yet unable to focus his energies. He’s idealistic to a fault, and the realities of Congolese life now (the disintegration, the lack of law and order, the exploitation) are making it more and more impossible for him to stay here. Something is eating away inside the man, and it’s difficult for his friends and acquaintances to watch. After he and his wife left the other night (around 10:30 which was quite early for a bunch that chatted non-stop till 12:30) Michejda and Guillaume commented on André. Michejda mentioned his forthrightness, his honesty, his inability to act in any manner except the direct one.

Boudart and I talked about André after lunch yesterday. Boudart feels that this is no longer a country where one can act directly. He’s basically too kind (in a rather tough, cruel way) to scorn André for his failure to adapt to the now-reality of Congo living, but feels that direct action is something one can indulge only from a position of power which Belgian colons no longer possess.

I find myself trying to understand all this from a privileged position. I suspect André has not told even these, his closest friends remaining in Coq, that he has made up his mind to pull out. They think he’s suffering only from the strain on his bruised idealism whereas I know that he’s facing the worries of how to extricate himself and his investment, where and how to start over again, wondering probably if he can start again. The people who came down here and carved something out of nothing worked HARD. Is he going to do it again? Most people here seem to feel that his investment in the place chains him to Coq. But I know he’s decided it doesn’t. I think André has a bourgeois mind, not that there’s anything wrong with that in itself, but it’s not the sort of thing that goes here anymore.

Boudart’s a contrast. In reference to a Clark Gable Western shown at the UN Club, he said that was the sort of life he had always wanted to live. To be where a man was truly free, surviving as a result of his mind and his muscle. Ah, the times of the bandits and the sheriffs! I asked him which he would have chosen to be. He said it was a relevant question, but he never answered it. I suspect Boudart would have been a bandit.

It takes a bit of explaining Boudart’s racial theories to demonstrate how he approaches trying to get along now. He explained them at lunch yesterday in terms of geometry. Axiom 1: There is a difference between the Congolese and the European. Therefore, Axiom 2: One must be stronger than the other. And, therefore, Axiom 3: One must be more intelligent than the other. Boudart considers himself more intelligent because he’s been to school, has learned how to think and knows some basic psychology.

Before independence he was stronger because the country was being ruled by whites by white law (if not necessarily for whites). Now he considers himself less strong than the Congolese who is running his own government with enough disregard of white law to render the law of no protection to a white man. Thus, feels Boudart, the question is: Can I be stronger in my weakness through the use of my intelligence than the Congolese is strong through the use of his strength? This is how Boudart approaches getting along now in the Congo. When the Belgians had both strength and intelligence over the Congolese, it was possible to be direct, idealistic, moral. Now that’s indulgence. So says Boudart.

Next post: Boudart’s account of how he handled Congolese officials when they tried to search his store of goods.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, In Limbo in Léo, 1964, Part One

Fred Hunter was evacuated from his post as a USIS officer at the American Cultural Center in the northwest Congo at the orders of the senior officer Tom Madison. Fred felt the evacuation was precipitate and jeopardized the investment he and the US had made in the town. He agitated to return. His account:

On Tuesday morning I concentrate on getting the Wednesday evening plane out to Europe – although I still feel we should return to Coq. I accompany Charlotte Loris, the USIS admin officer, to the APO to pick up mail. I have the feeling that Charlotte – who has always seemed so loyal – is casting off her moorings to me. Suddenly I realize that criticism of Tom’s decision to evacuate can attach itself to me. (“Well, Hunter was there; surely they must have talked this over.” Or: “Why didn’t he stay then if he thought the evacuation was premature?”)

I also begin to understand that in a bureaucracy success and survival are achieved partially on the basis of disassociating yourself from the mistakes of others. This produces a sick feeling in my stomach when I think that all my work in Coq, my struggles and loneliness and hard times, will come to nought in the stigma of this criticism. I discuss the matter briefly with Charlotte. We talk turkey.

“Why did you bring all your equipment out?” she asks.

“Not my idea,” I tell her.

“If you’d left your equipment, you could have said you were merely coming down here for the weekend.”

“Tom has an idée fixe about getting the equipment out.”

Charlotte shakes her head. She advises me to make it clear to Mowinckel that I had no part in the decision to leave.

My opportunity comes when John calls me into his office. I sit down and he says: “I’m wondering what you want to do when you come back from leave, Fred.”

“It doesn’t matter particularly,” I tell him. “I’d rather have a project than be assigned to odd jobs.”

“I thought we’d put you to working in Press.”

“That’s fine.” It sounds like odd jobs. Phil Mayhew, my evacuated counterpart from Stan, has been writing picture captions for about a month. Nervously I start: “Say, John, I–” I’m looking down at my hands. “I want you to realize that I wasn’t consulted in the decision that brought us out of Coq.”

“Oh, I understand that.”

“You know I think we ought to return.”

“Well, I couldn’t go to the Ambassador with that the day after you evacuated. He’d have gone through the roof.”

“I’d like to go back. I’m afraid we may lose everything we’ve put in there. We can’t expect our audiences to accept our information if they don’t respect us.”

“What’s this with Madison? He won’t go back without his wife?”

“Something like that.”

“You go on to Europe. You’ve been looking forward to this vacation.”

A solitary lunch. The idea that the Coq experience should end in failure and vague disgrace depresses me. I’m nervous as I eat.

Back at the office I approach Mowinckel. “Look, John, why don’t you let me postpone my vacation?”

“What about your plans?”

“I haven’t any specific plans until mid-October when I meet my parents in Rome. What if I went back up until, say, October 10?”

“Let me check this out with the Country Team.” He calls Colonel Raudstein, the US military attaché. Mowinkel quotes him as saying: “Hunter can do a better job than that horse’s ass you’ve got in charge up there.” Mowinckel will discuss the matter with the Ambassador and let me know the outcome.

Before dinner a message to call Hank Clifford, the Branch Post Corrdinator. I phone him from Thérèse’s pied-à-terre. The Ambassador, he tells me, has approved my return to Coq. I’m to hitch a ride the next morning on Bugsmasher, the six-seat military attaché plane. It’s flying to the Equateur to get a situation report on Boende. I’m delighted. Relieved to feel the worry drop away, pleased to have another chance to prove myself in Coq. And yet at times in Léo I’ve noticed a tiny, almost secret feeling of relief that I no longer have to face the uncertainties of Coq. Now I have to face them again and without even a radio. (Bucks-conscious Madison made sure we brought that out.) Still I haven’t wanted to feel that I run the first time in my life that I’m confronted with danger. Do I think I’m living in a movie? Let’s hope not.

Next post: Fred’s allowed to return to Coq. But is this wisdom? Or folly?