(piet-korse-basankusu-testimonies-part

That year I felt horrible and not at all at ease doing a teaching job, let alone teaching
religion. After that one year I was glad to be able to succeed Toon Jacobse as procurator in
Basnkusu, although normally this wasn’t an attractive job to anybody. For me it was a
relief to leave that teaching job behind me.
Being a procurator was not an exciting job, but at least I was fulfilling a useful task and was
even at the centre of the diocesan logistical organisation. I had the opportunity of exercising
the job in my own way, according to my own ideas. Moreover I had often to play the host of
the house, a task that suited me well. All in all, a period with much movement, but also a
period during which I no longer gave much thought to the question that still had not been
answered but was nevertheless present all that time: what am I doing?
This question became even more relevant when Mobútu nationalised all schools and
commercial and agricultural enterprises. We entered a very unpleasant time for the mission
schools and the finances of the diocese. Piet van Run had been chosen as the local Mill Hill
Superior. But he was only too happy to leave Basnkusu and his responsibilities to me by
retreating to his Yalisele, some 500 km down the road. Afterwards I realised that he was
much more afraid of what could happen than I was myself. There was a grave danger
especially when the local Portuguese traders were being pursued by government officials
and they approached me to hide their money so that they would not run the risk of losing
everything the moment they would be forced to leave the country.
On top of it all, the bishop decided to leave the diocese on the spur of the moment for
reasons that are still not clear to me. The tension during this period rose to a climax
especially for people like Jan Hendriks as vicar-general and Toussaint Goessens as the
diocesan education coordinator.
In this turbulent and uncertain period many responsibilities came my way. In retrospect a
friend and colleague considered this period decisive in my decision to leave not only the
Congo but also the priesthood. I myself consider those developments in a different light.
Then as a pleasant surprise an enormous gust of fresh air entered the diocese in the person
of Bishop Matóndo, the first Congolese bishop in the diocese of Basnkusu. Suddenly all
kinds of activities were initiated. Matóndo meant for Basnkusu what Bekkers meant for
Noord-Brabant and John XXIII to Rome and the church.
A fresh breeze swept through pastoral Basnkusu in an innovative and refreshing way. I
recorded music during choir rehearsals in the cathedral and I took photos in the morning
mist of a breviary-reciting Matóndo. Before I realised the new bishop had taken note of
these activities and promoted me as coordinator of the diocesan audio-visual activities.
(Matóndo loved official titles). I was supposed to occupy myself with that job after my
impending leave.
That kind of activity would have been an ideal starting point for further developments in this
broad field. I should have realised that I could exploit that opportunity, first within the
diocese and after that maybe elsewhere in Congo or even in the whole of Africa. But alas,
my pastoral ambitions had shrunk to a bare minimum and my desire to offer concrete help
had by now taken profound roots whilst celibate life appeared to me as too heavy a burden.
And so it happened that after leaving Congo for a four-month leave, I found myself in
Nijmegen for a sabbatical year in order to sort things out. This sorting-out did not really
happen, though I took the landmark decision to subscribe to a three-year course as a future
nursing practitioner.
As a
matter of fact I had not decided anything when I went on leave in the course of 1975, after
the consecration of bishop Matóndo which took place in April of that year. I felt like a bundle
of contradictions, which I hid mostly within myself. I don’t remember speaking to anyone
about my nagging doubts, about my despair and my growing conviction that continuing in
the priesthood was no longer an option.
I think I raised the problem for the first time in Roosendaal in the summer or autumn of
1975 during a talk with Dirk van Lammeren or his predecessor. Dirk must have sensed my
doubts. He advised me to take a sabbatical leave before jumping to premature conclusions.
Such a sabbatical was not a well-known concept at the time, but there was a structure that
meant approximately the same, namely following a one-year course in missiology at
Nijmegen University.
There I met familiar people, religious men and women with similar mentalities and similar
doubts though these were not openly and easily discussed. There I met various Mill Hill
priests too. I spent most of my evenings with Piet van Breemen or with the group which was
hosted by the brothers on the Graafseweg. Piet and I talked about many things, sometimes
personal problems, but I did not explicitly express the doubts that gripped me nor did he.
Probably each of us thought that his doubts were unique; to express them openly was not
done. One tried to sort things out by oneself and let therefore pass a unique opportunity to
exchange thoughts with others who were facing the same internal struggle. This was not
such a wise attitude at all.
Period 1975–1976:
The time-out advised by Roosendaal was too much focused on mission work as it had been
organised in the past decades. There was little or no doubt about its usefulness. They tried
to make it more up-to-date by looking for different approaches, looking for innovation,
aiming at making it “diesseits-gericht” so as to infuse more enthusiasm into us and have us
return to the job. Far too little attention was paid to the great personal problems that I and
probably many others were struggling with. Yet it was arranged that I had some sessions
with Dr.Terruwe, the then famous female psychiatrist in Nijmegen. She too had no idea at all
what was troubling me. Most likely a fervent and deeply religious person herself, she tried to
fathom how personal my relationship with God was, in the firm belief that a priest could
hardly be a person who had doubts about his faith. She did not guide me at all how to pilot
my boat in a sensible direction. She let me wander about in the midst of nowhere, perhaps
sending me even into the wrong direction.
The new College at Roosendaal.
From Roosendaal my superior did not take any initiative to ask me how things were
developing. I was hopelessly struggling just by myself. I understood less and less of the
speculations about Missiology by Camps or van Engelen or one of the other so-called
professors.
I kept searching for a practical approach to the down-to-earth problems of the people of the
mission area where I had been working for the past eleven years. And the issue of people
living right on the equator in the middle of an inhospitable climate, struggling to satisfy
some of their basic needs, was in my eyes not resolved by exploring new pastoral
approaches “à la Missions Étrangères" and neither by discussions whether God was male or
perhaps female. Nor were they resolved by the then emerging theological movement of
embedding Christianity in the African culture, respecting the already existing indigenous
religions. In my situation I was looking for further practical and justified training which would
enable me to offer the people there some concrete and material aid.
A definitive break with my past, I did not yet dare to consider. That of course I should have
decided there at Nijmegen, because the opportunity existed alright. With a little lobbying by
Father Camps, a university professor, I could have obtained a ticket for enrolment in the
medical faculty. Perhaps I doubted whether I could bring such a long study to a fruitful end
or I was too modest (a virtue impressed upon us in the course of our education) to even
consider this option or perhaps I did not dare to undertake such a lengthy study that would
only bear fruit after my 45th birthday.
Now, much later, I am still not completely sure what occupied my mind but I do remember
that I didn’t talk with anybody about it and tried frantically to sort it out all by myself.
A viable alternative - I concluded - was a nursing course. That would require less time and
given the appalling situation in the Congolese medical field that could be a reasonable and
practical solution. Perhaps I was slightly obsessed or too much impressed by the situation of
Jan and Wies Vanderslagmolen and other volunteers who were becoming increasingly a
significant part of the Basnkusu staff. As practical nursing practitioners they succeeded in
alleviating much suffering.
When I finally decided to seriously investigate my options in this field and thus brought the
matter into the open, I realise now, surprisingly few people dared to evaluate this decision
critically, not even a mentor or superior in Roosendaal or in Mill Hill, England.
Actually I remember but one genuine reaction: a friend of the family in Herpen, when he
heard of my plans, immediately reacted from the bottom of his heart by saying: "You're
crazy!” That was a slap in my face. There and then I should have asked for some explanation
of his assertion, but instead I avoided any further discussion. Somehow obstinately I
continued making my plans. I had put my train on the rails and I thought it could not be
stopped. That consideration moreover gave me an apparent peace of mind, because I had
finally reached a decision which I had taken all by myself and which I deemed to be correct.
Period after Basnkusu:
I enrolled in a three-year course at the Nursing Training Centre in Rotterdam. The first
theoretical period was not too bad. However, finding myself all of a sudden amidst
teenagers of 17 and 18 years of age, mostly girls, I often asked myself the question: 'Where
the hell have I arrived?' Worse still was that feeling when I had to accompany some of the
dullest graduated nurses in the Havenziekenhuis in order to learn how to put a thermometer
and how to empty a pot. But I fooled myself thinking that I had to put up with these minor
chores as part of a - so I hoped - sensible training.
To stop now was, so I thought, even more difficult. I absolutely did not know which way to
turn. Nonsense of course. I should simply have taken the train to Roosendaal, drop down on
a chair in the room of the Regional Superior with only one statement: ‘I made a mistake and
do not know how to continue.’ That would have been the wisest move. After two of those
terrible nightshifts at the Havenziekenhuis, that decision must have been within close range.
Perhaps I gave myself some delay because a switch to another hospital was imminent and I
secretly hoped that there things would turn out to be a different kettle of fish.
On 4 April of the year 1977, I was transferred to the ward BO of the hospital Daniël den
Hoed, where on the very first day I met a kind, handsome female nurse, who listened to the
name Ton Looij. I instantly fell in love with her.
This event was so to say the most convenient event at the most inconvenient moment in my
life. What normally could have happened some twenty years earlier, happened in my case at
the age of thirty-eight. This relationship took so much of my energy and thoughts that all
other problems appeared less important. Anyone who has fallen in love can affirm this
assertion.
Apart from these feelings there was of course the down-to-earth reality that cropped up at
certain times. Whether I was aware of the possible problems ahead I do not know. But I
fostered the conviction that a new way of life would safeguard the main part of my idealism
namely helping people in poor situations. Doing this and being able to do so with someone
at my side was even more attractive. I did not consider the possibility that some
complications would arise. And so we planned three steps: first to finish my nursing course,
then get married and thirdly go out to do medical work preferably in Congo or in another
African country.
A trip to Basnkusu at the invitation of Bishop Matóndo, the man who had no difficulty at all
with the fact that I was a married priest, soon made it clear to us that living in such a climate
and in such a strange culture proved too much of a culture shock to Ton at her age. That it
would not click between Ton and Congo I had not expected at all. Even more so, I never
considered that possibility. It never crossed my mind that such a situation could arise at all.
But that situation became rather obvious within a short time. The journey itself evolved
quite smoothly. In Kinshásá we were helped by Father Spaas in a very pleasant way. If he had
difficulty with the situation, he hid it perfectly. In Basnkusu we were warmly welcomed by
the bishop and by my former colleagues. We made a trip to the Ngmb region in Djmb
and Kdl and spent the rest of the time in Basnkusu. After three weeks it was obvious
that Africa was not the setting in which Ton would be happy to work.
Back in Holland it dawned on me that, for the time being at least, I had to look for a job in
Holland. That upset all the plans I had made so far. What to do now? It never crossed my
mind to break up the relationship that made me so happy. That was out of the question. I
now arrived at a moment in my life that I obviously was forced to adjust my ideals. The
difficult period of the nursing training I had put up with these last three years, appeared now
rather useless. To do such a job in Holland looked unfeasible. Apart from this I realised soon
enough the major consequences of my decision to leave the priesthood. I wonder whether
this realisation ever crosses the mind of superiors in religious congregations.
For this is sure: in no other situation a change of occupation has such an enormous and
lifelong consequence as when a priest decides to leave the priesthood or to start officially a
relationship with a woman. At least at that time leaving the priesthood was considered a
desertion. The accompanying pain and uncertainties were regarded as the punishment of
one’s treason. I lost not only my occupation but also my income, my home, very often my
good relationship with my own relatives, my status, reputation and not the least my selfconfidence.
Theologically there is of course no argument that marriage implies automatically losing one’s
occupation as a priest. The pope’s welcoming married Anglican priests is clearly a rather
bitter pill to swallow for those Catholic priests who were forced to resign on account of their
marriage. I do not even speak of maintaining in ministry priests who sexually abused
children entrusted to their care.
But only few of us had the guts and the opportunity to continue the work they had been
doing until then. They were the lucky ones who could afford to get married, without the
official approval of Rome, because they were tolerated and even sustained by the people
they were working for. In Holland Huub Oosterhuis is a living example.
A priest leaving the ministry faces very complex and multiple struggles:
* The struggle within himself (hesitation, shame, despair, doubts).
* Confrontation with relatives, acquaintances, friends, local people in the village.
* Explaining to people as to why he took the decision to quit.
* The sudden need to raise income, thus the need to follow supplementary training.
* The search for a house.
* Feeling shame about his former job in the sense that he avoids talking about it because he realises
that this puts a stigma on himself and that it often elicits extreme curiosity, gossip and amusement.
Normally speaking, nobody cares if someone decides to change jobs from being a carpenter
to becoming a mason, from banker to teacher, from teacher to social worker. However, make
public that you were once a priest, sure enough the following reactions are predictable:
* One becomes a curiosity.
* One becomes a laughing-stock.
* People are eager to know how all this happened.
* People make fun of your past life.
* People start avoiding you.
So my situation became rather complex. I felt hopeless. I had broken with the priesthood
and as consequence I was thrown back on my own in every sense of the word. I had started
a close relationship with someone without any financial certainty whatsoever. I had followed
a training of three years for nothing. I discovered a vacancy for a job in the diocese of
Utrecht. In the project “Peace and Development” they were looking for someone with
experience in the Third World. I was invited twice for a personal meeting with the selection
committee. During the second meeting they confided that I was their preferential candidate.
However, a few days later, instead of an appointment I received a letter informing me that
Cardinal Simonis did not agree, because I did not have the ‘required clerical status’. The
situation was even more painful since I had asked Rome officially for a dispensation, but I
had not yet received a reply to my request. The fact that not long afterwards the job was
confided to a priest who secretly lived in concubinage assured me that hypocrisy is often the
best way to survive, even within the church.
I started looking for temporary jobs in the region. I served on nightshifts in nursing homes. I
accepted any job available. After all, somehow I needed an income to stay alive. The vow of
poverty came into effect once I left the priesthood. And although far less biting in
comparison with many other people on our planet, poverty would always play a role during
the rest of my life. With some luck I was finally engaged in an institution that takes care of
drug addicts and alcoholics. At last I found an occupation where I could develop my qualities
and which at least was connected to my desire to spend time and energy to alleviate some
of the sufferings in this world. My former experiences and studies had not been totally in
vain.
My longing, however, to serve somewhere or somehow in Africa has never ceased.
Miel van der Hart
Rotterdam, October 2010.
23. Fr Piet Korse: ‘Le chien aboie et la caravane passe’ (the dog barks but the caravan passes by).
I am born at Zwaag, Holland, on the ides of March
1938 in a family that was to grow into a crowd of
12 children. I am number two and the eldest son.
After finishing the minor seminary at Hoorn and
Haelen, I do my philosophy at Roosendaal and
theology in Mill Hill, London.
My ordination to the priesthood is on 7 July 1963.
A few weeks later I receive my appointment to
Basnkusu diocese in Congo. In October that same
year I take a passenger boat (Charlesville) in
Antwerp harbour together with my classmate Miel
van der Hart and Fr Gerard Overbeek. Gerard has spent already some years in Basnkusu
diocese. Since Gerard has a beard, Miel and myself let our beards grow too.
Congo:
Via the Canari Islands and Lobito in Angola we arrive at Matádi on 10 November. The next
day is an official holiday: the day of the armistice at the end of World War I. We spend the
day looking around the town. Only on 12 November we can leave the boat with our luggage.
We take the train to Léopoldville and the Scheut Procure Sainte Anne. A few days later Miel
and myself are put on a DC-3 that takes us to Basnkusu. We arrive at Basnkusu after the
burial of Father Thijs Wartenbergh. He died in a motorbike accident. It is halfway November
1963.
My first appointment does not come off immediately. My own and Miel’s beards appear to be
a problem to the older missionaries. Miel and myself, we have to shave off our beards before
we receive an appointment. We both find it an odious and asinine request but we comply. I
say to myself: anyway, in a week’s time my beard will be back again, no problem! And so it
happens. I am appointed to Waka, a village among the Mng people. The parish priest
comes to collect me. His name is Fr Dolf Roël (born 1913 and ordained in ‘38). His assistant
is one of the first Congolese priests in the diocese namely Abbé Joseph Ekôndó. The trip of
80 km takes long due to the numerous potholes in the dirt-track. Since the chassis of the old,
battered car is very low, Dolf has to drive cautiously. The petrol tank in the car has been
replaced by the half of a big drum. The tube conducting the petrol from the drum to the
engine touches the ground now and again. Petrol leakages are frequent. The following days I
try to help Dolf solve this leakage problem without much success.
The untarred roads in the whole of the diocese are in fact tracks with plenty of potholes, small
lakes and craters in the rainy season, giving off clouds of dust in the dry season when the air
is shimmering like mirages in an omnipotent heat.
Since my French is not up to scratch and the local language, the Lmng, is altogether
abracadabra, I have great difficulties communicating with Abbé Ekôndó. I receive a grammar
written in Flemish on how to learn Lmng. It has been written by the scholarly Fr Gustaaf
Hulstaert. I read in the foreword that for speaking the language properly, the observation of
tonalities is of the utmost importance. I approach Dolf with the question whether he can
explain to me what tonalities are all about. Dolf declares: ‘We, Europeans, we don’t hear
those things.’ Since the tones are so important and Dolf has no clue about them, why did they
ask him to teach me the language in the first place? Abbé Ekôndó like any other Congolese
does not understand our European difficulty of recognising the tonal system. I hear that, once
I have learned the language in Waka, I will move on to Mmpn parish.
After three months I am permitted to preach in church. I write out the text in the local
language and learn it more or less by heart. Since I have no clue about tonalities, it must be
awful to listen to, though I am not aware of the fact. I am also encouraged to start teaching
catechetics in the first two years of the primary school. The headmaster is Pascal Lofinda, a
wise and calm man. As the payments of the teachers come via the diocese but do not arrive
regularly, because the weekly plane fails sometimes to turn up, some teachers under the
leadership of the old Davidi Bonkau start fomenting trouble saying that we, the missionaries
or the diocese, have put their money in the bank in order to draw interest. Abbé Ekôndó is
responsible for the schools and he is the first one to receive the flak of the irate teachers.
After staying in the same place for more than half a year, I conceive the idea of visiting the
man who accompanied me and Miel on our boat trip to Congo namely Fr Gerard Overbeek.
He is stationed in Kdrin a region where the Lingmb tongue is spoken. To reach his
parish I have to cross the Ló or Maríngá River. I organise two bikes. My fellow traveller is a
sturdy Ngmb boy from the village of Málanga. He is in grade six of the primary school.
One morning after the six o’clock Mass we set off. We pedal some 30 km to the CCP
plantation of Ndk, where my bike gets a puncture. The catechist is so kind as to repair the
inner tube. He has organised a dugout with two oarsmen who take us and our bikes down the
small Soolo River. It is not long before we arrive at the big Ló River. They take us across.
When we arrive at the other side, we ask two middle-aged men to take us across the swamps
so as to reach the dirt-track leading us to the mission of Kdr. The first thing they ask:
‘Give us cigarettes.’ Since I am a smoker myself, I can comply with their request. After some
haggling over the price of taking us across the swamps, we set off. The boy carries his own
bike. One of the men takes mine. The other man holds my bag. The terrain is rough indeed.
We descend into a swamp right up to our middle in the turbid water. Gradually the soil climbs
and so we leave the water in order to descend again into the next swamp. I don’t count the
number of swamps we cross. Each time I think it is the last swamp we have to fathom. But it
takes us about two hours of wading through the muddy water. Luckily enough we do not
meet any small or big snakes. But my feet often get entangled in vines and branches lying on
the bottom of the murky water. In the end the men aver which direction to follow in order to
arrive at the dirt-track. I agree with the men to be there again and take us back the way we
came in three days’ time. When we finally do arrive at the track, we sit down on a tree trunk
and share with each other the little food we brought along. Not a soul to be seen or heard. A
plane flies high in the sky. I feel it as a sign that we are still on planet earth. We mount our
bikes again and ride to the mission. That is a distance of about 15 km. It is siesta time and we
have to wait before the two Mill Hillers wake up. One of them is indeed Gerard Overbeek. I
spend there a couple of days. During that time the heavenly sluices are opened and torrential
rains come down nonstop. I imagine the water in the swamps rising higher and higher.
Luck is on our side. The mission boat called ‘Saint Paul’ has gone to Djmb and will pass
Liaka beach on its way to Basnkusu. We jump at that chance. They take us aboard. We
arrive safely. Bishop van Kester residing at Basnkusu is very surprised to see me and
becomes annoyed when he hears my story. He tells me off. ‘You have to stay where you are
posted unless you receive my prior permission.’ The man appears to me to be from another
planet wanting to make me his prisoner. The following day the ten-Bunderen-Sisters are to
visit Waka. They give me and my companion a ride. This is the end of my first trip outside
the parish of Waka. I am the first and the last missionary to pass through that forest and make
the trip from Waka to Kdr by bike and on foot!
Ordination of Abbé Tókínd’ino:
Towards July 1964 priests and catechists prepare to travel to Yalisere to attend the priestly
ordination of Camille Tókínd’ino. That ordination takes place on 5 July 1964. Since there is
no space reserved for me in any of the cars going towards that happening, I write a letter to
Bishop van Kester for permission to attend the celebration and ask him to reserve me a place
in one of the vehicles going there. The answer comes back rapidly. It is negative. So I never
get an occasion to meet Fathers Bart Santbergen and Jan Groenewegen nor Brother Piet Vos
in their area.
Rebellion:
Soon after Camille’s ordination rumours and news on the Voice of America notify us about
rebel movements advancing from the east of the country towards the Equator Province where
we are. We get maps out of the cupboard in order to locate the towns and villages that have
fallen into the hands of the rebels. Amazingly the Voice of America has very precise
information. The news is read out ‘in special English’. The Americans are apparently not
aware of the fact that their English is special to start off with. We realise well that the radio
news is not necessarily up-to-date.
At the beginning of September I spend a pastoral weekend in Wála Monje at some twenty
kilometres from the parish headquarters. I go there by car. This means hearing confessions on
Saturday afternoon, spending the night there, and again hearing confessions and presiding at
Mass on Sunday morning.
The following day, 6 September, when I celebrate Mass in the small village chapel, a car
stops on the road. A man whom I do not know jumps out of the car and requests me to go
immediately back to the mission and tell the parish priest and the sisters to move to
Basnkusu, since rebels are threatening the region. I finish Mass, take Holy Communion to
the sick and return to Waka mission. Later on I come to know the man, who told me to return
to the mission. He is called Bomboko Jean-Pierre, originally from the region of Bonjónjó, also
called Losánjá j’ôkonda.
At Waka mission we ring the church bells and call the Christians together and distribute all
the hosts that are in the tabernacle. Many Christians present themselves for confession. As I
have little time to spare, I ask the cook to pack my bag and put in some underwear. Dolf Roël
takes the box with new tools which he recently acquired and puts it in the car. The TenBunderen- Sisters under the leadership of Sister Edouarda board their car and off we go. We
arrive at Basnkusu without any trouble.
Towards nightfall a long column of cars coming from the Bongandó drives into Mpoma. The
bishop and all of us heave a big sigh of relief when we see that nearly all the Mill Hillers
have arrived safely. The following day nervous soldiers come to the procure compound,
loading and unloading their rifles so as to overawe us. They come to requisition cars as, they
said, is their right to do in case of war, because they need to defend the country! They gladly
profit from the occasion of force majeure. Since our Waka pick-up is an old vehicle, it is one
of the first to be sacrificed. With machine-guns pointing at me the soldiers shout at me to
hand over the car’s keys. I have no choice and give them the keys without ceremony. When
they drive off, I remember that we forgot to unload Dolf’s big box of brand-new tools. That is
the last thing we see of the tools as well as of the vehicle! That same day a plane is on its way
from the capital to fetch us. Not all of us, however, can board that DC-3. A shortlist is made.
Since I show signs of nervousness, I am on the list together with Dolf Roël, Joop Deen,
Gerard van Leeuwen, Herman Saraber, Wim Tuerlings, Piet van Run, Jan Zegwaart, Jan
Molenaar and Frits Alberda Jelgersma. At the airstrip the soldiers are charging and recharging
their guns all the time. They are on edge and so are we. At long last they allow the plane to
take its passengers. We board the plane and take off. At the take-off we applaud in the plane.
We all are extremely happy to be in the air. I put my teeth into the delicious chicken we are
served on that flight. It may be an ordinary chicken, but it is the juiciest chicken I ever tasted!
The same plane had landed a few days earlier, bringing Fr Frans Kwik, who came back after
enjoying the school vacation since Frans is on the teaching staff at Bokákata. When he comes
off the plane, he brings with him an electric razor, something the soldiers have never seen.
When these military men open his bags to ascertain that he hasn’t brought in any guns, they
make a thorough inspection of the said razor. They hold it to their ears, shake it and listen to
it again. They suppose it to be a radio emitter.
One or two days after our own departure, another plane drops all of a sudden out of the sky at
the Basnkusu airstrip to fetch the rest of the stranded and anxious missionaries. The pilot
intimates he will only leave with a full load, since he cannot guarantee that there will be
another flight, since the rebels are on the way. The bishop asks Frans Kwik to board the
plane also. As it is siesta time, Father Gijt Lebbink is taking a snooze at the presbytery. They
wake him up saying that the plane is waiting for him. He jumps out of his bed, gets hold of
the bag which he prepared the previous day and hurries to the airstrip some 400 metres away.
When he is high up in the sky, he discovers that he has left his denture in the glass of water
on the side table. Frans and Gijt leave Basnkusu together with Brothers Tarcis, Hubert, Paul,
Paulinus, Jan de Groot and Fathers Jan Spaas, Ben Jorna, Cas Sommeling and Marinus van
Emmerik. Some Moorslede Sisters leave as well, though people do not want Sister Bonifacia,
the hospital nurse, to leave. The sisters need to pay a hefty sum of money to the soldiers so
that the latter release everybody.
We do not stay long in the capital Léopoldville. As soon as there is space on a plane, we
return to Europe. When I arrive at home, my mother asks me what kind of clothing I had
managed to bring along. I said: ‘I don’t know because the cook packed my belongings. My
mother went upstairs to have a look in my suitcase. She soon comes down and asks why I had
brought those dust cloths? I did not realise I had brought any. Later I find out that she had
mistaken my underpants for dust cloths!
France:
Once back in Holland it dawns on me that we will have time to spare. This is a providential
occasion to go to France and learn some decent French. I write a letter to a Dutch priest, Jan
Buis, who had been in France for many years and who works in the Gers as the parish priest
of Pannassac and of four other parishes in the neighbourhood. I know him because we are
from the same village.
Jan is so kind as to respond quickly. He invites me to stay with him. I put on my black
cassock and red sash and hitchhike first to Paris. I stay a few days in the Rue du Bac with the
‘Pères des Missions Etrangères’ and then continue hitchhiking to Bordeau. There I spend the
night in the seminary. The following day I push on to Auch, where the bishop of the Gers
resides. In the seminary I meet a certain Jan Jansen who takes me the following day to
Pannassac. The parish priest, Jan Buis, has in the meantime left for Canada, since his brother
Joop died in a tractor-related accident. I find the keys of the house with the neighbours.
After having spent some eight months in France, I long to return to Congo. Together with
Miel v.d. Hart I first follow a renewal course in Chartres near the famous cathedral. Then the
two of us follow a French course at the ‘Institut Catholique’ in Paris.
Quite a few missionaries from Congo have in the meantime received other appointments. Jan
Molenaar, Peter Nabben, Harry Peeters and Alfons ter Beke are appointed to the Cameroons.
Miel van der Hart is sent to teach in Tilburg seminary and I am to obtain a liturgy degree at
the Institut Catholique in Paris. Bishop van Kester protests to Mill Hill that they have
removed too many people from his diocesan list. His protest has results: Miel and myself are
put back on the Basnkusu list. My former parish priest, Dolf Roël, does not return to Africa.
He leaves for Montevideo and the Falkland Islands.
Congo again:
I am back at Basnkusu on 29 October 1965. Since Gerrit van der Arend, who stayed on
during the rebel threats, goes on holiday, I am asked to take over his job of visiting the
outstations i.e. the villages in the forest of the large Basnkusu parish. Father Niek van
Leeuwen is there too. We often travel together and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. Moreover,
Niek initiates me into the right pronunciation of the local language. For years on end I
continue to spend at least one hour daily to learn more about the language. Since my task as a
missionary is communicating with people, I find it essential to develop my local language
skills. I never regret the time spent on that purpose.
I become the chaplain to the Basnkusu hospital as well. My setback is that I do not know
Lingmb, whilst Gerrit van der Arend does since he has been working among the Ngmb
people. So Sister Josephine asks the bishop to have Gerrit back at the hospital once he returns
from his holiday. And so it happens in 1966.
Waka parish:
I then join Waka parish for the second time. Now Father Frits Albada Jelgersma (born in 1912
and ordained in 1938) is the parish priest. He welcomes me back in Waka.
One day, on 2 February 1968, as I am playing football, I break my ankle. The reason is
probably that I tied my bootlaces too high up on my foot. After I hear my foot crack, I get a
shock and have an instant diarrhoea. My foot swells up like a balloon. Sister Edouarda is so
kind as to transport me to Basnkusu. I have to wait a few days for a plane to arrive. I am put
on a plane to Coquilhatville in order to see the doctor in the hospital. In Basnkusu hospital
they do have an X-ray machine, but they have run out of ‘plates’ as they call the film sheets.
In the plane I ask the pilot to warn the authorities in Coquilhatville that an ambulance is
needed. He says he will notify them. When we touch down, there is no ambulance in sight. I
hop on one leg towards the terminal, but very soon I have to give up, since the distance is
about 250 yards. I sit down on the tarmac waiting for someone to take charge of the situation.
In the end someone turns up with a wheelbarrow. I am dumped on the sidewalk until nearly
everybody is gone. The man who is about to close the gate asks me what I am doing there. I
explain to the man that I have come to see a doctor at the hospital. The man takes me into his
van, drops his personnel on the way at their different destinations and leaves me at the
hospital. The next day the doctor plasters my leg. One week later a plane is on its way from
Léopoldville to Basnkusu. I take leave of the hospital and am dropped at the airport. We
wait for many hours till we hear that there is no plane that day. The president of the Republic
is so kind as to have chartered the plane in question to ferry beer to his hometown in
Gbadolíte.
As Bartholomé Mptsí, the vice-chairman of the oil palm company in Lisáfá and his wife are
waiting for the same plane and now decide to return by road, I ask them whether they can
give me a lift. They agree to take me! We set out on the trip of some 500 km in a Volkswagen
beetle. I sit at the back with my plastered leg stretched across the seats. As we are in the dry
season and some small bridges are non-existent, we manage to pass via the riverbeds. We
cross the great Tshuapa River by ferry at Ingende as it is still day. After nightfall we continue
our journey and make headway in the dark. We stop, however, in a camp of workers who are
reinforcing the long dike and filling up the potholes near the Ikelemba River. Because
darkness has set in, we are not able to take the ferry at Bolómba. We have to pass the night
there and then. As it happens to be a very swampy area, thousands of mosquitoes feast on us.
Only my plastered leg is too tough for them. The workers are so kind as to offer me a
mattress. I use my only shoe as an improvised pillow. My sleeping hours are very limited.
The next morning we set off as soon as dawn breaks. We cross the Ikelemba and greet our
Mill Hillers at Bolómba parish. They serve us a kind of breakfast. We beat the road again. At
Abunákomba I find my classmate Miel van der Hart at home. So I decide to stay there for a
number of days. Mr Mptsí and his wife continue for the last 110 km to Basnkusu. I enjoy
Miel’s hospitality. He is engaged in setting up football teams in the mission and in the
neighbouring villages. Being a good goalie himself he likes participating in the game. The
kids give him a football nickname: ‘Excellent’. He is so kind as to leave me at Basnkusu
later. There I wait for another occasion to make my way to Waka parish.
When six weeks have passed, I go to the Basnkusu hospital to have the plaster removed.
They try to do so, but the only pair of pliers they have snaps into two pieces as they put its
teeth into the plaster. They send someone to find a carpenter and ask him to lend them his
pair of pliers. After an hour or so the nurse comes running in with the requested surgical
instrument. My leg happens to be alright again.
The Waka village people reprimand me for having looked for healing so far away as their
own traditional bone setters and healers are around the corner. But I do not yet have any
experience with local medicine.
Another remarkable day is Monday, 30 October 1967. I am in Waka parish together with a
new parish priest, Fr Marinus Boonman. For some time it has been very obvious that the
church tower is in a bad state. The rainwater that flows from the tower comes splashing down
at its foot. The constant moist and humidity together with the considerable weight of the
tower itself have pulverised the lower layers of the locally made bricks. Marinus Boonmans
has made a plan to remove brick by brick and fill each cavity with concrete. I tell Marinus:
‘As soon as you take out one brick, the whole tower will fall down on your head.’ But
Marinus is convinced of his building insights and orders a load of cement.
On that Monday morning it is my turn to take the early Mass. Marinus goes to say Mass at
the sisters. Before Mass I enter the church and walk over to the tower to ring the bells. As I
am ringing the bells, some bricks come tumbling down next to me. I say to myself:
‘Immediately after Mass, I’d better take my camera and make a snapshot of the tower.’ There
are few people in church. The catechist sits in one of the front pews. Just when I am saying:
‘Lift up your hearts’, the tower comes crashing down. It falls more or less vertically down, so
that bricks tumble both inside and outside the church. A great wave of dust rolls towards the
altar where I am standing. The catechist and some other people exit by the side door as if the
devil is on their heels. Since I have half expected it to happen, I remain standing behind the
altar and just look at the huge heap of bricks when the dust has settled. I then continue the
Mass. The catechist is the only person who dares to re-enter the church. Looking back on the
event, I should never have started Mass that morning at all and should have made sure that
nobody came near the church.
What I do not know is the fact that during Mass, two children from Málanga village, twins at
that, come early to school. As they want to sell the oranges they brought with them, they sit
down at the foot of the church tower. Next to them they put their little basket containing the
oranges. As they sit down looking at the rare passers-by, a few tiles come crashing down next
to them. They get a fright and move away from the tower. Moments later the huge tower is no
more than a huge pile of rubble.
The village people advise us to stay clear from the church for a while leaving the structure to
settle itself. That’s what we do. The bishop and Brother Tarcis come to see the disaster.
Brother Piet (Tarcis) Tweehuysen comes to live with us to see to the reconstruction of the
church tower. He first makes a cart in order to remove the rubble which he puts on the road
leading to the mission. After he has been working on the enormous pile for about two months,
the basket with oranges of the twins re-appears. We can thank God that nobody died when the
tower came down. In that case the disaster would have turned into a catastrophe.
Brother Tarcis builds another neat but far smaller tower with the bricks saved from the
rubble. As people cannot figure out well the name of Tarcis, they usually called him ‘trentesix’ (36) just as they called Lisette dix-sept (17). Who can blame them?
When working in the parish, I do a lot of systematic house-visitation. But in the end I nearly
give up, because in every home people ask me for all kinds of material favours: can’t you
help me with this, assist with that? When I leave Waka parish for Basnkusu, I thank them
during my last Sunday mass for their hospitality, but I appeal to them not to bother the next
priest with their continuous begging. For years my remark struck home!
See the small bell tower at the left of the church entrance.
Basnkusu parish:
In 1968 Gerrit van de Arend is asked to open a Catechetical Centre in Mampoko. As he leaves
Basnkusu parish, I am appointed back to where I was two years before. As the parish
extends some 130 km into the bush I stay and spend weeks on end in the villages. I can reach
the area by car, though I use a bike occasionally for an inaccessible area. For a whole week I
have an extra shirt and pyjamas with me alongside my Mass kit. People are very hospitable
and take good care of me. During my stay in the villages I learn to eat and appreciate the
local food like sweet and sour cassava, banana mash, sweet potatoes, yams, monkey meat,
elephant, wild pig, guinea pig, bats, antelope, buffalo, bonobo, tough hawks, corned viper,
tortoise, larvae and later in Uganda also locusts and flying ants. People catch various kinds of
fish of all sizes from tiny sprats to giants of fifty or more kilos. Don’t take me out to a zoo,
since I will explain to you the taste of every animal you see!
Apart from my pastoral occupations I dedicate time to
see to it that the schools are run properly and that the
children receive proper teaching, have sufficient school
material and that the teachers are paid in time. I initiate
the construction of more classes and chapels. I love to
lend a helping hand and to assist the carpenters. I
usually draw the designs of the trusses on the veranda of
the house, cut the rafters accordingly so that we only
need to assemble the wood in the village.
Whenever I use the parish car, I have with me basic medicines like drugs against intestinal
worms, malaria, micro-filariosis and of course aspirins. I myself take a cure against worms
every three or four months. I suffer from micro-filariosis most of the time like ninety-five per
cent of the population. The nocturnal itching is terrible. But in the swampy area of the
Equator Province malaria is my worst enemy, especially in Basnkusu, Waka and Baríngá
parishes. High fevers lasting up to four days drain my body ever so often. Whenever I suffer
from those fevers, I change my soaked beddings and pyjamas three times a night. Sweating
and shivering alternate at regular intervals. I swallow paludrine, nivaquine and camoquine.
The good sisters in Basnkusu help me for a couple of years with capsules of pure quinine
which has the disadvantage of blocking one’s ears. An overdose of nivaquine once made me
contemplate stars all day long. It’s damned if you swallow the stuff, and damned if you don’t.
Malaria is bound to attack when one is tired. An unknown factor makes me feel tired most of
the time. No doctor in Congo or for that matter in Holland can figure out what’s troubling me.
At night I have heart problems. ‘You will have to live with it’, is the usual but rather
unprofessional advice I receive for years. Whenever I celebrate the Eucharist and say the
words of the consecration: ‘This is my body given up for you’, I look not only at the host but
also at my own hands and bare arms, being very much aware that I talk not just of the body of
Christ, but also of my own body which I dedicate as an oblation to the Lord. I do not see
another way out of my daily fatigue.
Very many afternoons when the sun loses its vigour, I take my moped and set off to the
Baénga, a cluster of villages along the Lulónga River. I go there for a swim in the tepid water
where few people dare to take a dive convinced as they are that the local fishermen have the
power to direct their crocodiles towards any unwary swimmer. This snapshot shows ‘my’
swimming pool.
Each time I finish my swim, my friend Pierre
Bngl offers me a chair and entertains me
with stories about his sprawling and
polygamous family and why they catch hardly
any fish. One day he twines a 10-metre long
contraption of local reeds and erects it in the
river at a distance of about eight metres from
the shore. Both ends of the contraption have a
long vine leading to the sandy shore. A few
times a week the whole clan gathers on the
beach. Everybody lies flat on the sand hiding
from the gaze of the hungry fish, while the old man throws spoonfuls of red palm oil into the
water that flows between the contraption and the shore. Lots of fish move near, eager to feast
on the greasy palm oil. Then the old Bngl gives a sign. Two youngsters pull the vines and
the mat of reeds towards the shore. The fish feel trapped and try to jump the fence. The whole
clan dives into the water, scooping the fleeing fish with locally made baskets. The
participating children enjoy the happening thoroughly. Some days the harvest is abundant,
sometimes the result isn’t worth the bother.
Another old man has devised his own method of catching his daily ration of fish. First thing
in the morning he goes to the river. On the shoreline he attaches a piece of net to a pole. He
himself moves to the prow of his run-down dugout and relieves himself whilst holding the net
in one hand. As the contents of his bowels touch the water and fish called bekwe dash and
flash through the water eager to lap up their easy breakfast, our fisherman pulls round his
fishing gear with his free hand and thus obtains his own breakfast. He has understood that
one needs to give first before obtaining something. His ancestors taught him too: ‘lo
ondaka wányá: misery has made me clever.’
To come back to my old friend Bngl, one day the chief of the village goes fishing on the
Lopolí River. He rows his dugout behind the two dugouts of his companions. But when, at a
certain moment, these look behind them, they see the chief’s dugout floating down the river
but their friend is no longer there. They look around in the water for their friend but cannot
trace him. They invite people living along the river to assist them in their search. It’s all in
vain. The chief’s companions decide to return to their village and consult a visionary. This
person accuses my friend Bngl of having sent his crocodile to eliminate the chief. The
seer tells them that they should organise a convoy of dugouts, row to the scene of the disaster
with drummers and sing traditional songs. Only then they will find the chief. They follow the
advice and organise the trip of two days. And indeed, on the second day they do find the
chief’s body stuck in the reeds at the tip of an island. Though in the meantime some days
have passed, the body shows no signs of decay. This is interpreted by the fishermen as a sign
that the crocodile which caught the chief and hid him in its underground galleries, killed the
chief that very day and released his body due to the singing convoy. Whilst weeping and
wailing they return to the village for the burial. They accuse Mr Bngl in court of having
committed the murder. The authorities send soldiers to arrest him. They arrive at his home,
shackle him and throw him like a sack of potatoes on the back of a lorry. They put him in
prison. A few days later I come back from a pastoral round in the parish. I find my friend near
the prison compound where he is slashing elephant grass. I hear the story and don’t dicker
and go and see the legal authorities. I inform them that I will stand as a witness the day the
court judges my friend. Next day he is a free man. The reason of his release is that, though all
people are convinced of the righteousness of the visionary’s opinion, a Congolese state
official is not allowed to believe in that kind of traditional justice. The standing of my friend
in his community has incurred a serious dent. However, I continue to have a swim in front of
his home and to visit him on a daily basis. People never reproach me about my friendship but
some eyebrows must have been raised, to say the least! I am perceptive enough to observe the
competitiveness between the chief’s family and the one of my friend Bngl and the
consecutive build-up of tension between them. The accusation brought against my friend is a
move for supremacy of the one family over the other.
Micro-credit:
In 1970 I start preparatory work for the beginning of a micro-credit cooperative movement.
The village people are extremely poor and have no means to bring a fundamental change to
their economic situation. In my opinion, small credits would give people a chance to bring
about change. I contact the old and trustworthy parish catechist Isidore Isakwa, together with
Pierre Lokwa, Joseph Nki and a few teachers like Gerard Lomema and Jean-Paul Lofoso.
Bompongo and Thomas Lokíndola join later. We invite Davidi Bangau and Jean-Martin
Boséfé to be our bookkeepers and I send them to Cameroon for a course in cooperative bookkeeping. Bompongo Léon is sent to Bukávu where a Canadian called Paul Beaulieu has
initiated the movement in the east of the country. Mr Beaulieu invites me to stay with him a
few months, which I do. I go round the Kívu Province and check the book-keeping of the few
credit cooperatives which Beaulieu had started. We agree to use the same book-keeping
system. Initially I adopted the one which Father van den Dries used in East Africa. Slowly but
surely we expand the movement to the following places: Basnkusu at the Etsiko, Basa II,
Bokéka, Bokákata, Djmb, Bolómba, Abunákombo, Yalisere and Baríngá. These various
credit societies are united in COOCEC, with its own bookkeeping and its own buildings in
Basnkusu. The Dutch Lenten Action assists us to put up the infrastructure.
Together with Mr Masámba who started the movement in Kinshásá, and with Bukávu, we
found a national movement called UCCEC. I happen to be the Vice-President to our President
Mímpiya Akan. We have meetings in Ivory Coast and in Lévis (Canada). Moreover, we meet
every three months in Kinshásá. These visits are sponsored by the Caisses Populaires de
Desjardins in Quebec, Canada. These invite me for a couple of months to study the
Cooperative movement in Lévis, in Quebec Province.
In Basnkusu diocese I travel much to visit the various locations where they started the credit
societies in order to hold meetings with the leaders and to inspect the book-keeping. Later the
COOCEC engages two young men who go round to assist the local societies.
At that time I am still the pastor to the
outstations of the large Basnkusu parish.
When Bishop Matóndo wants the young Fr
Jim Fanning to look after the youth, he
asks me to leave my habitation at the
parish and to look for a room at the Mpoma
procure. Since I have no job at Mpoma
itself, I feel myself an outsider who is just
tolerated. I stay there five or six years.
Though we are quite a ‘community’, we
never hold a single house meeting to
discuss local or internal changes or regulations. When the old abandoned palm plantation
around the house is threatened by an invasion of squatters, I take the initiative to renew the
plantation with the help of benefactors. We plant some 3.300 palm trees covering 33 hectares.
These palms produce palm nuts famous for providing oil for kitchen use and for the
production of soap. Apparently I still have some energy to spare.
Mobútu:
Mobútu has taken power in the country and is a gifted speaker who gathers people in the
Kinshásá stadium and keeps them spell-bound for a few hours whilst he exposes his
programmes which initially sound very attractive. Everywhere he and his party introduce
animation singing and dancing troupes who have to praise Mobútu’s achievements. He
announces a programme of authenticity, of self-reliance, of being proud of who they are.
People have to be Africans in dress as well as in the use of only their African names. The
dancing troupes specialise in obscene body movements. But as they are soon starving due to
corruption in the political party MPR (Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution) many of the
dancers stop coming. The Congolese are champions in inventiveness and change the meaning
of the MPR saying it means ‘Mort Pour Rien’ (dead for nothing).
The corrupt president soon becomes paranoid about eventual opposition. He therefore
organises a very extensive secret service which has to watch especially foreigners since they
may have links with Human Rights Organisations. One day Father Heuthorst comes to
Basnkusu to give a retreat to the Belgian Sisters. He has his conferences on tape to which he
listens before giving his meditations. He does so while walking around in the Mpoma
compound. Very soon men of the secret service come to visit and search him and the room in
which he stays, because they suspect him to have illegal radio contact with the enemy.
Whenever I preach, I am well aware of the presence of members of the secret service and am
circumspect and avoid criticising openly the political or the disastrous economic situation of
the country. Even when local people come to see me and want to criticise the political
situation, they first look around to make sure nobody is listening in.
Mobútu has his own sort of democracy. At one election, party members make a voting box
with different drawers, one drawer per candidate. The voters are not aware of the fact that
inside the voting box there is only one shelf namely the one at the bottom so that all the votes
drop into the Mobútu’s ‘drawer’. On another occasion, a drunkard in Waka village presents
himself and has enough courage to cast his vote into the box of the opposition. The
policemen who guard the facility, go for the poor man and hit him on the head. At still
another election, the radio, the Voice of America, announces Mobútu’s great victory of 97%
when we are still transporting untallied votes from one parish to another. Evidently, Africa
needs another sort or another way of expressing popular support.
For some years Mobútu promises a great future for everybody. Things will improve rapidly,
for instance in 1980 everybody will have a bicycle. He calls that bright future ‘Objective
‘80’. When 1980 comes around, the economic recession is very much visible. Nobody can
afford to buy a new bike. Bikes are not to be seen on the roads nor in the shops, since these
are only selling ‘air’ and no spare parts are to be found. The only remnants of former days are
old carcasses of bikes without tires or chains which are used to transport cassava or firewood
by being pushed afoot. People call these pre-historic bikes sarcastically Objective ‘80!
However, Mobútu makes an important point with his drive for authenticity. Our missionary
church in Congo stayed Western notwithstanding the fact that it had been active and very
much present in the country for more than a century. Whilst theologians in South America
focus their liberation theology on the economic sector advocating the liberation of the poor,
Francophone African theologians start writing about the necessity of a cultural liberation
struggle. They advocate the rights of Africans to interpret the Bible in an African way, to
organise the African church according to African principles and therefore to have an African
canon law and a vibrant African liturgy where the ancestors have a right of place. The Vatican
is not pleased; the old cardinals don’t see the point of revering ancestors in the liturgy.
Moreover, by permitting African liturgies they tend to lose their stranglehold on any liturgical
developments. However, after much pressure, a Congolese way of celebrating the Eucharist is
permitted for the time being. But the struggle to obtain this permission has been very hard.
The local bishops are so discouraged that no attempt is made to acculturate the other
sacraments. For the next forty years there is a standoff between Rome and the enculturation
movement! Theologians talking or writing about acculturation are professionally shoved
aside and forbidden to teach in seminaries or Catholic universities. They are informed that, if
they do not stop teaching their ‘weird’ ideas, they lose every chance of being promoted to a
higher ecclesiastical function. The Vatican applies in Africa the same measures it applies in
South America on the liberation theologians.
Gradually the general situation in the country deteriorates. The country and its economy
come to a standstill after Mobútu expropriates all European businesses and plantations. An
inflation of two to three thousand per cent a year becomes the norm. The IMF tries to rescue
the situation by forcing the government to declare all cash money invalid. It is a catastrophe
for our micro-credit system. It’s a disaster for the people in the villages who never saved a
penny in a distant and inaccessible bank. Mobútu loses control over the country. He turns into
a kleptomaniac and the country’s officials follow suit. Moreover, when the juridical system of
the State breaks down due to blatant corruption, I as a foreigner can no longer remain
responsible for the micro-credit system. I have the impression that thieving book-keepers are
just laughing at me, because those handling money grasp their chance, dip their hands in the
till and get away scot-free. On top of that my health has been declining for a number of years
and I can no longer stand up to the tension. I hand in my resignation and I ask Bishop
Matóndo for another job.
Because the bishop has noted my interest in the local culture, he asks me to spend time
researching the basic values in the Mng culture. Very soon I develop the idea of setting up
a proper Cultural Research Centre. In 1982 I start off at Bokákata, where Fr Jaap Kroon is the
parish priest and takes good care of numerous kwashiorkor (undernourished) children. When
Jaap falls ill and takes a long leave in Europe, Fr Pierre Spanjers kindly permits me to do
research at Waka. Due to external circumstances I finally settle down at Baríngá. Jean-Pierre
Mondjulú and Jean-Thomas Mngú become my finest helpers. We investigate rituals,
gestures, symbols, beliefs in fetishes, witchcraft and healing. Moreover we compile a
collection of three thousand local proverbs. We publish a booklet on the healing process of
possessed women called Jebola, a book on healers and witchcraft, and a local catechism.
Moreover, we compile a book on pregnancy, which will be published only fifteen years later.
The ancestors:
Slowly but surely a whole new world opens itself to me: the world of the ancestors, the world
of witchcraft and healing, a world full of rituals and ritual gestures. The living ancestors
appear to play a crucial and vital role in every aspect of society.
‘The dead never disappeared.
They are in the brightening shadow.
They are in the darkening shade.
They are not down in the soil.
They are in the rustling leaves.
They are in the moaning trees.
They are in the flowing rivers.
They are in the stagnant waters.
They are especially in the whirlpools.
They stay with the people, in their homes.
The dead are not dead at all.’ (Quoted from and by David Van Reybrouck).
In the morning I work together with my local helpers in an office provided for by the parish.
In the afternoons I go on foot or by bike to one of the nearby villages and sit down whenever
invited to do so. Often too I take a swim in the river at Baríngá beach. In this way I keep
contact with the people and inform them of what I am doing and why I am interested in
their customs. In those villages there are quite a number of blind people who bear the visual
devastation caused by the filarial worm (river blindness). I get into the habit of paying them
a regular visit. Since they have nothing else to do than to chat, they welcome any visitor at
any time. They always extend me a very warm welcome indeed.
At Baríngá I live in the happy company of Kees de Lange and Brother Gerrit Gerritsen. In
the evening the three of us usually play canasta. We never make it very late. The next day at
half past five we are up again for the six-o’clock Mass when priests and laymen take turns to
meditate aloud on the gospel text. At Baríngá I have the privilege of seeing the zealous and
indefatigable Brother Gerrit at work, sweating profusely whilst repairing the farm fences and
filling up the enormous potholes in the 13 km dirt-track which links us to Bauta village
situated on the road between Befale and Basnkusu. Gerrit takes good care of some one
hundred cows and the same number of sheep. His nickname is Ikusu, the strong man. This is
the farm which Frs Joop Deen and Piet de Moel built up. From time to time Gerrit makes a
good number of salt licks into which he puts the necessary minerals. When the cows see
Gerrit carrying a lick into the meadow, they make a beeline to the box where they can taste
the salt and minerals. The meadows need constant cleaning. If the meadows are not attended
to, the forest takes over most of the farm in the form of seedlings and creeping weeds. Kees
de Lange uses second-hand clothes to entice youngsters to uproot the bad weeds.
Gerda, Piet, Hans and Hennie.
In 1986 Fr Hennie Slot, Gerda van Kerkhof and her
friend Hans Eykhout come to Baríngá for a Lingála
course. For three months I dedicate all my time to them
as I consider it of vital importance for a missionary to
learn the local language well. They join the three of us
in the evening and we play games of ‘Oh, hell’. We
have a great time together.
Enculturation:
The bishop resents the fact that I publish my findings on infant rituals with a long appendix
on how the local symbolism used in those rituals can easily be used in the administration of
the sacraments especially in baptism. He tells me clearly that I have to keep my hands and
mind off sacraments and everything that is being done in church. He sends me an ultimatum
letter with a copy to all the parishes warning me that, if I would ever dare to write about
liturgical matters again, he would close down the Cultural Research Centres of Baríngá and
Yalisele where Jan Hartering is working. Personally Bishop Matóndo is in favour of
Africanisation, but, as he admits himself, he fears the indignation of the nuncio and a possible
transfer of himself. As a pastorally-minded person I find it hard to swallow that he closes the
discussion on the eventual use of African symbols, gestures and oral tradition as a means of
perceiving and showing God’s living Spirit among the people. Moreover, Vatican II, in my
opinion, had asked all the church members to reflect and work together for the coming of the
Kingdom: the Church is no longer the exclusive domain of popes and bishops.
A very kind and hospitable old lady and an expert in teaching ancestral customs
and rituals.
Though I do anthropological research, I remain a pastorallyminded person seeing openings and possibilities for an
African interpretation of the Gospel and the replacement of
European symbols used in the Sacraments by African ritual
gestures and symbolism. As we, Europeans, have owned the
gospel message in our way, who is to forbid the Africans to do
likewise? As their healing rituals possess an amazing amount
of gestures and symbols expressing people’s desire for
healing, why shouldn’t we in the sacraments borrow these
gems to contact the divine as we struggle to overcome our
spiritual brokenness?
Later in 1997 I am happy to present our Baríngá findings on baby rituals at a Colloquium in
northern Ghana. The event organised at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies is
documented by Prof. Anthony Gittins in ‘Life and Death Matters’. There I meet the
Tanzanian priest and author Laurenti Magésa. In his subsequent books as in ‘Anatomy of
inculturation’ I see the traces of inspiration he found at Tamale and the numerous examples of
a possible and desirable enculturation.
As Kees de Lange, the Baríngá parish priest, usually leaves the mission compound on
Sunday morning for a Eucharistic celebration in one of the villages, I preside at the Zairian
Rite in the parish church. I often use an enticing local fable in our collection to match the
gospel reading of the day. I arrange to have someone tell the story not from paper but by rote
just like they tell their stories around the nocturnal fire interspersing it with short songs.
People love listening to both.
Gradually it becomes clearer to me that the missionary’s main task is to discern God’s
presence among the people to whom he or she is sent. I explain it several times in church that
God’s spirit inspired their ancestors to invent their traditional stories just as he had inspired
the Jewish ancestors to compose the Bible and the Muslim prophet to compose the Quran.
The followers of these two groups can present nicely bound and gilded books, whilst the
African stories are being told maybe by a toothless old man. But the wisdom and the beauty
of the story don’t depend on the physical appearance of the storyteller. I am no longer
tempted to twist the Gospel stories so as to condemn the African lifestyle. That lifestyle
Africans have been adhering to for hundreds and maybe for thousands of years. Due to its age
alone it earns our respect and admiration. I start reading the Jesus-stories with other eyes.
Jesus appears to me as an open-minded person who is ready to read and find God in nature, in
communal events, in the loving gestures of simple people and in the mercy and
commiseration happening between people. In fact Jesus confesses that he finds at times even
more faith in non-Jewish people than he sees in Israel. I find more faith in the simple village
people than in the episcopal ultimatum.
It dawns on me more and more that ‘we should expect and take seriously that God’s presence,
God’s spirit, has been and is at work in all people, in all places, at all times, in a multitude of
differing cultures, thought patterns and worldviews.’ ‘This is a challenge to any exclusive
claims to God’s revelation.’ I can no longer subscribe to ‘if you want to be saved, you have to
accept our culture, our thought patterns, our dogmas and our rituals, otherwise there is no
hope for you’ (M. Morwood). I see clearly an open invitation to look for signs of God’s
presence in the Mng people around me and regard their insights and understandings of
themselves and of their society as sacred. I see in this broader understanding of revelation an
invitation to move beyond the boundaries of our Christian churches and their religious
systems. The God of Abraham, of Moses and of Jesus is bigger and greater than our
Thomistic theology tries to impress upon us. As the years pass by, I become more and more
convinced that we as Jesus people are invited to do as Jesus did. Classmate Tjeu Haumann
uses the phrase a few times in his writings: ‘Sit down with people under the tree and let God
happen.’
On the International Day of Communication I invite the schools in the parish to use the
talking drum, the lokolé, at the schools to indicate the beginning and the end of the lessons
instead of beating on discarded wheel rims. I say: ‘Your ancestors in the grave may think that
their descendants are working daily as village smiths.’ I invite the schools to teach the
children how to use the lokolé and inscribe it as one of the subjects in their school curriculum.
They find it the best sermon they have ever heard. Why do they appreciate my remarks? I
think they appreciate the fact that I value one of their cultural inventions and that I encourage
them to treasure it. In another sermon I compare inventions of different peoples and ask them
to tell me which invention is the best one. I tell them ‘that we, the Dutch, invented the Fokker
aeroplane that lands once a week in the diocese. Not a mean invention at all, because with
that aeroplane we do not need to confront all those dirty potholes! The Japanese invented the
Toyota Land Cruiser, a marvellous and powerful car that finds its way both in sandy as well
as in soggy tracks. But the Congolese invented the delicious chicken-dish prepared in palm
oil ‘slimy as the guinea fowl’s shit’ as their expression has it.’ For those present in church, in
their struggle for survival, the palm oil dish carries the day by far. It’s the greatest invention
ever. There is an uproar in church. They slap their thighs, laugh wholeheartedly and wipe the
first trails of saliva from their mouths. I am delighted to see how they treasure their own
kitchen and are proud of their culture..
One day, the youth leader of the parish, Mr. Delikú, expresses his desire to marry in church.
In Bantu Africa very few church marriages are concluded since men fear to commit
themselves for life to their spouses, because it has happened more than once that after a
church marriage the spouse becomes very stubborn and goes her own way altogether, saying
to her husband: ‘since we contracted church marriage, you cannot send me away anymore. So
from now onwards I do what I like to do’, upsetting their peaceful family life. But our friend
Delikú and his wife want to marry in church and ask our team to grace the occasion with an
African liturgy. So together with him, his spouse and relatives we put together a marriage
ceremony where the covenant between the two families is concluded and strengthened. The
two families participate actively in the exchange of the vows between the husband and wife
as they do at the occasion of a traditional marriage and also by blessing the couple with a
traditional blessing. After the celebration some young people inform me that one day they too
would like to marry in that way. Our team regards the experiment as a positive pastoral
breakthrough after decades, say a century-long stalemate. I make a report of our achievement
since we all find it worthwhile to let people know what is possible if we listen carefully to
cultural sensitivities.
Another occasion presents itself when a friend, a blind man, becomes very ill and asks to be
anointed. The sacrament of the sick is also rarely administered in Basnkusu diocese, since
people fear that they will die once they have received that sacrament. The blind man invites
me because he knows that I pray over people and that they are comforted on account of the
prayers. When I arrive at his home, I greet him and go to the neighbours and all the people
hanging around and invite them all to help me pray over the sick man. They readily come.
During the ceremony, after the actual anointing, I invite each of them to pronounce a blessing
and express words of comfort over the sick man. They readily do so, since at every dawn
parents are accustomed to bless their children. I am not the only person in the house to be
moved to tears to hear so many encouraging words spoken by both men and women. The sick
man is ever so grateful for what happened to him.
Other people tell me that should they fall ill, they too would like to be anointed and to be
blessed by the whole community. Another pastoral breakthrough! However, when, in my
enthusiasm, I make a small report of what happened, the bishop feels challenged by my
initiative and angrily condemns me and threatens again to close our Research Centre!
Because, as I mentioned earlier, Vatican II encourages us to have participatory liturgies, I am
convinced that I am on the right track. However, I am not aware that, in our Catholic Church,
Vatican II is no longer applied: salvation no longer reaches us via the community but
exclusively via the ordained minister. The powerful clericalism continues to rear its ugly
head.
As I look around me at Baríngá I become more and more convinced that, if Jesus would
come back to life, he would find himself more at home in an African village than in the
Vatican. For instance, the people use beautifully phrased blessings with lots of alliterations
and onomatopoeias, with which they bless their children before every sunrise. But as a priest
I am not allowed to use those wonderful phrases at the end of Mass, since they are not
approved of by the official church! I am forbidden to use a local fable as a reading at Mass
instead of an unintelligible reading taken from St Paul. I feel that I am somewhere in the
wrong place or that the church is abusing me and my energy and is throwing overboard my
insights and energy for the wrong reasons.
Jubilee:
When in July 1988 I celebrate my 25 years of being a missionary and invite the lame, the
blind and the lepers to the celebration, my dad dies in Holland of a heart attack on the day of
the anniversary. We receive the news three days later, one the eve of the actual feast at
Baríngá. My sister Riet and her husband Leo with their daughter Jolanda and her husband
Otto have come for the feast. We are devastated by dad’s sudden death. However, we do not
want to cancel the celebration but the joy of the occasion is gone. I cry my eyes out, not only
that day but for weeks and months on end. Something had snapped inside me. His death is
like the last straw that breaks the camel’s and my own back.
Soon Bishop Matóndo invites our team to organise a two-day symposium (on 28-29
September ’88) in Bonkita about Traditional Faith and Healing, for all who are pastorally
active or interested in the diocese. We prepare the various presentations very seriously. When
we arrive at the scene in Bonkita, I receive a note from the bishop informing me that the topic
of the symposium has changed. I call my team together. We are unpleasantly surprised and
feel that we are being tricked into something. But what is it? After much reflection we decide
to stick to the texts of our presentations. We change only the headings and the questions for
the panel and the group discussions. Soon we hear that the bishop called for the symposium
only to make his strong point that enculturation is none of our business. Bishop Matóndo
himself is present most of the time and defends his stance that bishops only are allowed to
think about changes in the liturgy. I still defend Vatican II’s conviction that the whole people
of God is called to care for and to uplift the Body of Christ. But I know that I am fighting a
losing battle. And I am not in a mood and do not have the energy to fight anybody at all. I
only want to present my discoveries, my points of view, my insights and my hunches and
leave others to pick and choose as they want. I wrongly presumed that we enjoy that
breathing space in the diocese. In Bonkita I discover that my mission to Basnkusu diocese is
coming to an end. One of the participants even reproaches our team of tackling a great variety
of subjects at the same time only in order to show that others in the diocese are inactive.. Just
imagine!
I take leave of Baríngá parish on 18 March 1989.
As my health keeps deteriorating I ask Mill Hill authorities for the permission to take up a
sabbatical and to follow the same course which Pierre Spanjers had already chosen for
himself namely the ISL course in Chicago. However, even before leaving Congo, I collapse
in Waka parish and eventually land up at Mamá Yémo hospital in Kinshásá, where they
finally discover that I suffer from a high degree of diabetes. That is at the end of March 1989.
Chicago:
The sabbatical takes me to Chicago in August 1989 where I look in the first place for my own
physical and spiritual well-being at the Institute of Spiritual Leadership (ISL). I then find out
that the many years during which I suffered from undiagnosed diabetes, have destroyed my
physical and mental balance. I have difficulty in following and finishing the strenuous ninemonth programme. When the course is finished, I feel even weaker, dizzier and more tired
than when I started. Yet, I gather the courage to continue at Loyola University to take a
Master’s in spirituality. Then good friends help me to contact a healing centre in Canada
called Southdown. I apply there and am accepted. I spend there six months. I take lots of
medicine and anti-depressants, do exercises which make me still dizzier and I receive
precious advice that leads me nowhere. A member of the Mill Hill General Council comes to
inform me that I have spent enough time on myself and that it is high time to take on another
appointment. I answer that, if I am now forced to take on a job, I will decide to quit the Mill
Hill Society. I still feel physically as miserable as when I left Zaire. Disillusioned I return to
Holland. One day my sister Lucy accompanies me to the cardiologist who finally decides to
refer me to Maastricht hospital for a heart ablation so that my heart valves would correspond
properly again and restore the right blood-flow through the body. They still add a pacemaker.
After the operations I tell my cardiologist in Hoorn that I came out of hell and found myself
entering heaven. I never swallow a single prozac tablet anymore.
Slowly I draw the painful conclusion that I will have to put an end to my Congo dreams,
though I find it very hard indeed to abandon my research work which initiated me into
another spiritual journey. But I have little choice. My health situation after the heart surgery,
the reception of a pacemaker in 1993 and the continuous diabetes make it necessary to be in
the neighbourhood of a decent hospital and to be near an airport that can assure my
repatriation in case of an emergency. Basnkusu hospital does not deserve its name and the
Congolese airlines have the notorious nickname of ‘Air Peut-être’, an airline one cannot rely
on. Moreover, I find Bishop Matóndo’s psychotic fear of the nuncio and Rome too hard to
bear. On top of that I cannot reconcile myself to the fact that, during my two-year stay and
physical and spiritual struggle in the U.S and in Canada, my boss and employer, Bishop
Matóndo, never showed any sign of sympathy or empathy in the form of a wee letter of
encouragement. In my eyes he is not the man on whom to rely in case of physical trouble.
East Africa:
However, once you have been bitten by the African bug, you never quit. As James Michener
would say: Africa ‘burns like a slow, never-dying ember close to one’s soul, always there,
always smoldering.’ At the end of 1993 I hitchhike through Uganda and Kenya in the
company of Jo Lammerse, looking for a place where I can do some pastoral work at my own
easy pace. Even if I can be useful for one year, that would be a good farewell to Africa. I find
a job at Jinja, Uganda. The people there are Bantu like the Congolese.
At the end of March 1994, I start work in the Philosophy Centre of Jinja as librarian and
begin digitalising the library on the MS Excel programme. During my stay the number of
library books increases considerably thanks to gifts and the help of a variety of persons and
organisations which I contacted. I stay on that job for a period of two years. It’s at that time
that I have great difficulties in staying at the Mill Hill House in Jinja. I am on the point of
throwing in the towel when Fr Pierre Spanjers comes to my rescue and invites me to stay at
the Mill Hill Formation House and to lend a helping hand in accompanying some of the
youngsters in formation.
At that time, the diocese of Jinja, founded especially for the Básogá people, holds its firstever synod during which parish representatives claim their right to have the Gospel preached
in their own language, in Lúsogá, instead of in the tongue of their big neighbours, the
Bágandá. The participants of the synod ask for more research on their culture. When I hear
and read the synod’s resolutions, I propose to Bishop Willigers to found a Cultural Research
Centre putting to good use my Congolese experience. After internal deliberations which last
nearly a full year, I am given the go-ahead. We form a diocesan committee and invite
personnel.
We start collecting a lot of cultural data of the Soga
people. We publish first the tribal myth of Kintú, one
of the ancestors of the Básogá. The next move is
making a grammar of the Lúsogá as the local tongue
isn’t a written language yet except for Mark’s
Gospel. My grammar indicates the tones in all the
verb conjugations. As we have electricity most of the
time, we can invest in a number of computers. In
that way the work becomes far easier than it was at
Baríngá when we had the use of only one typewriter and a duplicator. The ‘Drei Königs
Aktion’ of Austria and a Dutch foundation assist us marvellously in renovating a dilapidated
house and turning it into a nice office block, and in supporting the running of the office and
its personnel. We study the tribe’s ancestry, fables, proverbs, symbols and gestures. A teacher
makes one thousand drawings of local ritual gestures. We publish a number of books. We
start a competition for children: who can write the nicest traditional fable? We publish the
stories both in Lúsogá as well as in English.
Soon I have to send away one person of our personnel since he insists on spending the first
working hour reading the local newspaper. In another office in Jinja I read a notice saying: ‘If
you have nothing to do, don’t do it here!’ This fits me perfectly.
The dedicated workers of the first hour are Jane Baméká, Patrick Kálúúba, Tabitha Náisiko
and Lydia Náisikwe.
With a video-camera we record dances and traditional ceremonies. Each time I am thoughtful
enough to leave the village concerned a copy of the videotape. The video camera was given
to me by my brother Nico and his wife Else. One day a burglar makes off with it. Nico and
Else provide another one!
Trip to Basnkusu:
When I approach the age of 65, I decide to return to Basnkusu once more but this time for a
visit of two months. I take with me my laptop in order to digitalise a book I had left fourteen
years earlier. At the time health problems prevented me to publish it. It concerns the book on
‘Pregnancy and the Infant in Mng Society’. In the course of the first week after my arrival
I break my left leg whilst visiting Abbé Albert. I decide to stick it out and to hope for the best.
It’s all awfully painful, because the accompanying wounds become infected. When returning
two months later to Uganda, my leg is only then put in plaster. But I soon take leave of
Africa. The last two weeks in Jinja I suffer from terrible bouts of malaria and diarrhoea
(e.coli bacteria) and high fevers. It’s high time to go and to let go.
Back in Holland:
In Jozefhuis and in Vrijland (in the Netherlands) I find plenty of time to write. The following
are my publications since my arrival in Holland:
1. La grossesse et l’Enfance dans la Société Mng de Basnkusu.
2. Proverbes Mng de Basnkusu.
3. Missionaris in Kongo en Oeganda, autobiografie.
4. Bomóngó, Research on the Notion of God.
5. Gezin van Jan Korse en Afra Kruijer.
6. Parenteel van de Kruijers.
7. Bokóló yk.
8. Op Studie.
9. Across to Bongandó.
Conclusions:
I closely follow developments in Africa and our Mill Hill Congregation as it continues to
form African candidates for the priesthood and to accept them as members of our Society. In
connection with the desire of African candidates to join Mill Hill, I write to the last Chapter
(in 2010):
‘Deep down African candidates are aware that they have something to offer to the Church and
to the whole world, namely their way of being human: their goodness, their kindness, their
way of life, their lifestyle, their hospitality, their smiles, their inspirations, their way of
celebrating life, their manner of comforting the afflicted and their spirituality as we find it in
their traditional stories, proverbs and so on. They have received those precious, spiritual gifts
from their ancestors and ultimately from God himself. Do we as a missionary society dare to
open ourselves to the spiritual heritage of other continents, open to the precious gifts which
they want to pass on to us and with which they want to enrich the church and the world?
There two conditions: first, our candidates should be proud of who they are and of their
spiritual legacy. Then from our side, we should not try to make the candidates more Catholic
and more Roman than the pope. Otherwise we thwart people’s wish to offer their spiritual
riches to the world.’
Just another example of enculturation: “The child is so important in the African context that it is not an exaggeration
to say that it is the centre of the African culture. In an African context, someone who has all the riches of this world
but has no child is considered as nothing and his ideas cannot be taken
seriously! And he cannot be given an honourable burial! Everything in
African life rotates and revolves around the child! This is why religious life
and celibacy do not make much sense to many Africans.” “A marriage
without a child is a real curse! And it is very difficult to tolerate! So every
possible solution has to be tried so that such a couple gets a child. This child is
the life, salvation and resurrection of its parents and their ticket to the ancestral
world. One who dies without a child cannot be welcomed into the ancestral
world! He or she becomes an evil spirit not meriting to join the ancestors!”
(Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo as quoted by CISA on 25 Febr. 2011).
‘Enculturation is not a hobby or an option; it is a sacred
obligation. It is not a subject to be studied and then to be
shelved. It is a way of life; it is a particular attitude to life. It’s opening oneself to the Spirit
that spoke through the prophets and through Jesus. It is opening oneself to the Spirit that
continues to speak to us today not only from Sacred Books but also and especially through
people’s cultures.’
I asked the past Mill Hill chapter to put celibacy on its agenda in order to insist that celibacy
should not be obligatory for priests, certainly not for African priests. If we as a missionary
society do not open up the discussion, who will do so? But, alas, the chapter had other
priorities i.e. organisational priorities at that.
I went to Africa to evangelise the Africans. But they in their turn opened my eyes, ears, mind
and soul to God’s voice calling from within their cultural heritage.
When we were students at Mill Hill, we used to ridicule teachers who knew and followed
only one book. When we consider the Bible as the only valid and all-embracing book
ignoring other ways in which God reveals Herself, shouldn’t we be called people of just one
book as well? Moreover, Mill Hill supports, in a big financial way, the formation institutes it
has set up in different African and Asian countries. However, in general it is blind to the rich
cultures and to the divine voice speaking to us from within those cultures and their timehonoured traditions. Moreover, Mill Hill fails to assume financial obligations towards those
members who do take those cultures seriously. The reports and books they write are not taken
seriously either. The authors, myself included, feel themselves the real successors of John the
Baptist whose voice rang out in the desert in vain. I always feel myself a beggar who in order
to publish a book, needs to solicit around for funds instead of being taken care of by Mill Hill
Society of which I have been a full-fledged member since 2 May 1962!
My stay in Africa taught me who Jesus was: an extremely spiritual man, open to God’s spirit;
a person who saw God active and present in people, and who was open to engage a dialogue
with whomever he met. That should, in my opinion, be our Mill Hill missionary vocation and
specialisation: spiritual dialogue. A dialogue is different from a discussion or debate where
one starts talking being convinced of one’s own right. In a dialogue we listen to each other on
a basis of equality and are keen to be inspired by the other. ‘Often enough we as Mill Hillers
leave the dialogue to people like Frans Baartmans and then prefer to ignore them.’
In my own little way I try to contribute to spiritual dialogue, first of all by making Africans
feel a justified pride of their ancestral heritage by publishing some of my books about Africa
on lokole.nl . I try to promote a spiritual dialogue among my own comrades in arms, though I
am not sure whether they hear or want to understand what I am trying to say.
I am back in Holland since April 2003 and have retired to Oosterbeek where, as I said, I find
plenty of time to write about Africa and its peoples and about my own pastoral and spiritual
learning processes in Africa and in Holland.
A proverb says: ‘Le chien aboie et la caravane passe’ (the dog barks and the caravan
passes on). A dog barks because it is scared, thought it may be aware that the caravan will
pass by all the same. I bark now and again, because I am afraid that the liberating Spirit of
Vatican II may be banned and completely disappear from our collective memory. Sure, the
world and the official church ignore my and maybe also your barking; but I feel it my
vocation and duty to bark notwithstanding people’s lack of attention. I am grateful that I can
follow that call right up to the present day, even in this story. God’s Spirit continues to invite
me and you to a permanent dialogue.
Piet Korse.
My nickname coming from my losáko is: Njku ntûták’áfka: the elephant does not walk backwards (it
never backs off; it never says die!).
24. Dick van Veen
Apologia pro vita mea:
“Can my heart ever forget what my eyes have seen and my
ears have heard?”
November 1966. Slowly the “Albertville” approaches the
harbour of Boma. For the first time since our departure from
Antwerp, I am face to face with the people I am going to live
with and work for. When, in the pleasant company of my
fellow missionary Jan Zegwaart, I stroll through the winding
little streets of Boma, the heat falls down on me like a sticky
hot blanket.
How many years have they travelled this far, the men and
women to which old, yellowed photographs bear witness:
the explorers, the railway constructors, the traders, the
engineers, the administrators, the doctors, the nurses, the teachers and the missionaries?
What pushed or inspired them to come this far, crowding together on a cramped deck, still
in the attire of their homeland, the language, customs and traditions of their native country
neatly piled up in their spiritual luggage?
Was it curiosity, generosity, thirst for money, lust for power, adventure perhaps, or just
homesickness for the beautiful landscapes and forests under the azure skies of this endless
country?
On a little hill of Boma stands a ramshackle, little church. Here, almost a century earlier, the
second wave of missionaries had founded this Congolese Christian community. Ah, yes, here
for the first time those messengers of Christ preached the gospel to the Congolese people. I
have a feeling of great reverence.
Is it typical for the present Congo (now called Zaire) that nothing has been done to maintain
this house of God as a monument of pioneer work? Has “past” become a dirty word? Are
only words like “rebellion”, “revolution” and “future” respectable? Maybe I must be happy
that, setting foot in this country, I hardly know the answers.
I feel sorry for the dockers who go about their work practically naked, for the women
carrying loads of wood and food on their backs. Right before our eyes an old lady takes
refuge behind her mud house in an effort to escape a passing car. What has, at an
unbelievable pace, happened in her country since the day the first Whites and the first
automobile entered Boma?
A good thing that we missionaries know what is best for these people and what their
priorities as to their needs are or should be! Isn’t the spiritual luggage of missionaries filled
with precious certainties: the certainty of the one true faith, the certainty of the Bible in
which God has revealed Himself and has given men the Ten Commandments, and the
certainty of the one true Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of pope and bishops
who keep telling us what we must believe and do to attain eternal happiness?
And that’s not all. The missionaries come from the West, the navel of the world and besides
the certainty of the true faith they also possess the certainty of their Western superiority in
expertise and knowledge in all fields. That should be enough to liberate the pagan and
illiterate people of Africa from the claws of sorcerers and wizards, witch doctors and their
spells, polygamy, the subjection of women and many other nameless and unmentionable
customs!
We go on to Léopoldville, the capital. I am impressed by what the Belgians have realised:
skyscrapers, cars, hotels, bars, swimming pools, post offices, an airport, factories, trains,
avenues, open-air cinemas. Aren’t they the blessings of colonisation?
In an old crowded DC-3 we depart for Basnkusu, the centre of the diocese. It is an
adventurous journey in rain and storm. Bishop van Kester and many fathers and brothers are
at the airport to welcome us. I feel great. I tell myself that here at last is what I have been
looking forward to since I was a little boy: poor people, bad roads, no luxuries, people just
emerging from the subsistence level as it says in the books I have read. I love them all, go
out of my way to greet everybody. As they answer my greeting I hear from my colleagues
that they call me “bokúné”, youngster. Never mind, I say to myself, they’ll soon find out that I
know a thing or two!
“The deeper we get into reality, the more numerous will be the questions we cannot answer”
Baron Friedrich von Hügel
My assignment had already been decided on three years earlier. My study in Antwerp
prepared me for a teaching job at the secondary school/minor seminary of Bonkita. But
before I start teaching, the bishop sends me to the mission of Baríngá to acclimatize: testing
the water, as it were, before diving in, and also in order to study Lmng, the mother
tongue of the Mng people. Flip van Leeuwen is the parish priest of Baríngá mission and
Joop Deen is his curate. I am given a book and start learning Lmng. People come in to
greet me and go away again and I laugh stupidly, unable to talk to them.
The six months at Baríngá are a quiet period with plenty of time for reflection. I gradually
begin to realise what I recently found very well described in Ben Engelbertink’s book De
Engelen van Jacobus:
“Mill Hill Fathers are known to have chosen for a secular life; ‘secular priests in the mission’
they were called in popular speech. Because the members of the Mill Hill Society did not take
vows, and did not live in communities, they could go their own way and do their own thing.”
Individualism, therefore, reigned supreme. When two missionaries didn’t hit it off together,
one of them left and founded a new mission post further down the road. The words ‘Mill
Hill’ sound to French ears like ‘mille îles’ (thousand islands). In the seventies and eighties the
members never complied with the wish of the associated members to live as a community.
Not counting exceptions, Mill Hill fathers and brothers were proud of their individualism,
maybe with pain in their hearts.
I soon realised that Flip and Joop were also going their own way and doing their own thing,
leaving me to do the same. I would so much have liked them to help me learn the language
and tell me about the people that spoke that language, but they left me to muddle on on my
own. I could have asked them. I should have asked them. But I didn’t. I am writing this 45
years after date and in all those years I have never blamed either Flip or Joop for what I went
through in Baríngá. They were both fine fellows and we had a lot of fun together, but we
obviously all came from the same mould: “every man for himself and God for us all; God
helps those who help themselves and God shapes the back to the burden!”
In May 1967 Joop drove me to the neighbouring Befale mission with the intention that I
would stay there for some time all on my own. I didn’t like the idea very much as I had to say
Mass on Sundays. Saying Mass for people whose language I didn’t speak and of whom I
knew next to nothing, seemed to me to be an unheard-of impoliteness, if not an outrageous
insult. At this point I noticed how quickly I had begun to question the certainties I was so
convinced of when I set foot on African soil. But I did say Mass. I did what was expected of
me.
During my lonely stay in Befale Abbé Joseph, one of the five indigenous priests, visited me to
tell me that my mother had died of a heart attack. There and then loneliness started to
settle in my heart. I was and still am someone who has an inquisitive mind and a sensitive
heart, who likes to communicate with people, who is curious, likes to learn about new things
and people, who is not afraid of new challenges, who knows a little about everything. And
now my world was growing so very, very small.
Gradually I no longer viewed my missionary life through those rose-tinted spectacles which I
had worn with such unquestioning ease on the “Albertville” and in the stifling streets of
Boma. I decided to pull myself together, hoping that in Bonkita things would turn out for the
better.
“The retrospect has much in it that is humiliating and calls for repentance; but Christ, in his
limitless mercy, has endured me all these years, and I cannot doubt that he will be with me
to the end.” Letters of Bishop Herbert Hensley Henson, bishop of Durham
At the start of the school year 1967-1968 I joined the teaching staff of the secondary school/
minor seminary in Bonkita: the Fathers Jan Hendriks, Wim Beentjes, Cees Castricum, Chris
Key, Fons Mertens and Brother Theo Heesterbeek who later on was succeeded by Brother
Gerrit Gerritsen.
Bonkita is beautifully situated on the banks of a river and I felt much less confined than I had
done in Baríngá.
But here too I didn’t find a community
but six individuals, made of the same
Mill Hill fabric: going their own way and
doing their own thing. Each of us had his
own subject to teach and did so without
ever comparing methods or talking
things over. I cannot recall any meeting
during which we as a team sat round the
table to look back or to make plans for
the future. I soon found out that Cees Castricum spoke Lmng very well and I suspected
that he would be well informed about the Mng people too. I could have asked him. I
should have asked him. But I didn’t.
My rattling on about “understanding the African soul” and using the right-brained approach,
as opposed to male attitudes of dominance and the “logical” intellect, didn’t make much
impression. They probably found me a bore and somewhat of a softy. Only much later in life
I understood that my right-brained approach in life was due to my upbringing in a fatherless
family by a mother and four sisters. Women can only hand on feminine energy to their
husbands, brothers, sons and daughters!
Brother Theo was the only one who confided in me. He suffered from the same loneliness.
We became good friends. And I wasn’t surprised when he decided to go back to Europe.
Father Chris Key also left us quite suddenly. Later on I suspected that he also had felt
disturbingly lonely and confined.
This shows how difficult it is to make reliable guesses about anyone’s intimate life.
Teaching, preparing classes, correcting homework, being referee at football matches in the
afternoon and supervision during study hours later in the afternoon was hard work and
physically taxing but it made me feel alive.
And gradually I became convinced of one thing: perhaps I couldn’t do anything much about
the world and about other people. But I could do something about myself. I finally realised
that the act of changing the world to become a better place begins with understanding and
changing oneself. A lot of water flowed through the river, there was no blinding white light
on the road to Basnkusu and no voice spoke from the clouds. But in a strange way the
situation at Bonkita was the stimulus for a period of growth in my personal life.
To my great surprise Frans de Vrught and I were delegated to the General Chapter of 1970. I
had a great time at Mill Hill. That was what I had always enjoyed so much: lively discussions
and real efforts to renew the Society and maybe even the Church of Rome: ‘Come, Holy
Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send out your
spirit and everything shall be recreated and you shall renew the face of the earth!’
‘The possible final calls of individual souls are known to God alone, and to the soul itself only
when it has advanced considerably on the spiritual road.” Letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel.
I had made up my mind not to go to pieces. I realised that my Mill Hill seminary training had
given me many good and valuable things. But it had not given me a realistic set of purposes
relative to the lives of African men and women. It had not challenged my assumptions about
what constituted their happiness and it had not given me values that appreciated their
growth in freedom, responsibility and the ability to control their own destiny. I, therefore,
realised that, if what I was doing in Africa was in any way sincere, I had to have at least an
inkling of how thoughts and feelings moved in the minds and hearts of African men and
women. This reminded me of the words of Christ about the seed and the soil. If what we
missionaries brought to Africa was a seed, then we would have to do some serious seed
selection and some serious soil analysis. Unless the seed married the soil, nothing much
would happen!
And so I became in my own humble way a cultural anthropologist, in search of the African
mind and the African soul. Whenever I had some spare time, I made it a habit to stroll down
the hill to the little village of Bonkita to chat with the villagers, trying out the new Lmng
words I had learned, smoking a cigarette and on occasions drinking a glass of Mama
Martha’s home-made gin. And I obviously talked a lot with the students.
At the lepers’ camp
Besides I paid regular visits to a little village
near Bonkita where a couple of families
lived afflicted with leprosy. There I learned
that even the smallest African communities
turn out men and women who show signs
of human fineness and dignity such as we,
with all our knowledge and busyness, are
often not even aware of lacking. After a
while I began saying Mass with them on
Sundays.
On the road to Basnkusu I also regularly visited some old sick people to have a chat and
give them a little money or a few cigarettes. And thus, in that “unsightly” little village, I, a
European stranger, started to pick up, from all kinds of conversations, from dance, music and
songs, in cheerful as well as in sad days, something of the depth and originality of the
African continent.
Why people live in Africa like they do, why they dance, make music, laugh and cry, I learned,
is all closely connected with their traditional way of thinking and their clan awareness. Each
clan member, dead or alive, can count on the other members. This clan awareness,
containing norms and values, helps people to face any situation in their daily lives. Here are
men, women and children united to one another and to their forebears by considerations
and ties which mould and shape every action of the day, and which provide behaviour
patterns to meet any situation in which a clan member of either gender may be placed.
Heaven in the sense of a hereafter is assured to the clan members. It is a clan heaven to
which he or she goes without failure provided that in life no act has been committed which
would involve exclusion from the clan. They, therefore, refuse to consider death a break in
human relationship.
People in Africa are so deeply connected to the past that we, Europeans, call it mistakenly
past. My European system of norms and values belongs to another people and to another
historic period. Do we, Europeans, have the patience to let growth happen in freedom and
responsibility, leaving the Africans to determine their own destiny and their own future?
This growth, it now seems to me, may be slow but is infinitely more precious than all the
things, all the buildings and services we, missionaries, might provide.
It is not so clear to me whether the clan sufficiency allows for a personal God, for something
greater than ancestral power. We, missionaries, should have patience and not force God or
Jesus upon them. But wait till God and Jesus, whose aim is not to destroy but to fulfil, can
come, not as Western strangers but as the answer to a search, the last pieces of a puzzle, the
fulfilment of a need the clan cannot attain by itself.
I slowly begin to understand why people are heartbroken when they remain childless. The
increase of the community is in importance so far beyond other matters that all questions
connected with the increase of the clan and all news relative to marriage and sex are of
central public interest. This becomes clear when people show their abundant joy at the birth
of a child and when you witness how tragic life turns when a baby dies or a wife appears to
be barren.
It seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church, by her silence, averted looks and critical
stance concerning African sexual morality, has bred in the Africans an uneasiness concerning
matters that used to be talked about openly and honourably. Only when the church dares to
talk of all these matters that surround the great affairs of marriage and bring them all
together within the circle of wise, Christian helpfulness, shall she make true contact with
African men and women on their own ground. Otherwise, it seems to me, Christian marriage
will long be a seed in a soil where it cannot really take root.
I soon draw the conclusion that it is disrespectful, inhuman and cruel on the part of the
Roman Catholic Church to expect African priests to live a celibate life. I also learn that the
world of Africans is a spiritual world. This teaches me never to laugh at any allegation of
sorcery or witchcraft and never to look superior at any talk of relief gained through the
operations of the medicine-man or healer.
“It is not quite easy to fix an autobiographical paragraph into such a composition as that
which I am now addressing to you, but I think it will have to be attempted, for undoubtedly
my personal religion has been strongly affected by the course of my life.” Herbert Hensley Henson,
Bishop of Durham.
In 1970 Piet van Run, the parish-priest of Yalisele, began negotiating with Bishop van Kester
about founding a secondary school in Yalisele for the Bongandó region. The Bongandó
region is situated in the south-eastern part of the diocese. When the negotiations turned
out positive, I was asked to start the school and become its first director. For me this meant
a great opportunity to get my teeth in something new and
challenging and I gladly answered the call.
With Piet van Run in his room.
Piet van Run – God rest his soul – impressed me as a wise, patient, experienced,
unquestionably sincere and genuine pastor of his flock. He was a great missionary and a
great human being. He possessed a sharp mind and a great heart. He was very witty and we
often laughed our hearts out. Piet was a walking medical encyclopaedia and every day rows
of people waited for him at his clinic to be treated for all sorts of diseases and physical
complaints. His curate, Harry Reusen, was a nice, down-to-earth and sturdy fellow, a great
organiser and very handy too. I was very happy at Yalisele and felt no longer the odd man
out as I did at Bonkita.
Running a school turned out to be a demanding job. I not only had to teach, but also to take
care of the school timetable, to coach the teachers, to organise entrance exams, to write
school reports, to buy cassava, fish, meat and vegetables for the students’ daily meals, to get
the school and the dormitory cleaned and to patch up little or big rows among the students.
On Sundays I celebrated Mass for the students. But I was happy being busy.
One day an incident happened which I shall not easily forget. On my way to a village to buy
whiting for the whitewashing of the houses of my teachers, the Land Rover slipped on the
muddy road and tumbled into a ravine. The Land Rover turned three times around but was
luckily stopped by a big tree. As usual, the car was filled, not only with workmen from the
mission but also with women and children who had asked for a free ride to see relatives. The
Land Rover landed upside down but when everybody had scrambled out, it appeared that
none of us had even a little scratch. The Land Rover was pulled out with manpower and the
next day it was on the road again! I was certain and still am that a miracle had happened!
Because the school kept me so busy, I regretted having less time to chat with the villagers
and thus learn a bit of the Longandó language. I, therefore, made it a daily habit to stroll
down to the maternity ward behind the school, where women were waiting to deliver their
babies. That became my way of trying out my newly acquired vocabulary. And there I
discovered that when the rights of African women are not sufficiently recognised, they
create their own dignity.
One thing I regretted very much was the fact that I was in no way a musician or dancer. I
would have liked to make more of the Sunday Masses I celebrated with the students, but
didn’t know how. During my stay in Yalisele it began more and more to dawn on me that it
was not the duty of Africans to adapt to our religious ceremonies, but that we had to adapt
ourselves to the African celebrations. If the central part in Bantu ceremonial is comradeship,
song and dance, then, I thought, this had to be as central and inescapable in Christian
ceremonies too.
“You can only go forward in your life after you have understood it by going backward”
(Kierkegaard)
In August 1974 I went to Europe for a 2-month holiday. I did not know then that I would
never return to Africa.
Back in Holland, the light went out. My whole world suddenly looked black and bleak. I
found myself a worthless fellow and the thought that, after a couple of weeks, I had to
return to Africa became unbearable. It was a terrible shock. I suffered from what later on
began to be diagnosed as a burnout. All my reserves of spiritual strength seemed to have
disappeared. I felt like a yachtsman steering straight to the rocks. I felt utterly alone and
helpless. I could have asked for help. I should have asked for help. But the pattern repeated
itself: I didn’t.
Because I found that neither God nor Mill Hill nor any of my colleagues was to blame for the
state I was in, I cultivated the – in retrospect – very silly idea that I, and I alone, was
responsible for getting myself out of this mess. Frans de Vrught, our Society Superior who
also was in Holland for a holiday, was very sympathetic and suggested the possibility of
going to East Africa to study or to teach, whatever I wished. I declined his offer. Dirk van
Lammeren, the Regional Superior, tried to convince me that joining the Promotion Team in
Roosendaal would do me a lot of good. I honestly tried, but because of my emotional
instability it did me no good at all and I felt again the odd man out.
Piet van Run and Kees Vlaming wrote me very empathetic and kind letters from Africa but I
left them unanswered. I felt pulverised by shame, guilt and anger; shame and guilt because I
had left down my colleagues in Yalisele and my other colleagues in the diocese. And I felt
very angry with myself for making such a mess of things.
I then decided asking Dirk van Lammeren to allow me to take up a sabbatical of a year or so
for an emotional cleansing, of finding out who I was, what I had been and what I was going
to do with the rest of my life.
But before I put my question to Dirk, something happened which must be mentioned. I, a
very lonely man, met another very lonely person. And that person happened to be a
woman. In retrospect I was emotionally far too unstable but I fell in love. And I became the
living proof that loneliness rather than lack of sex is most often the reason why celibacy
becomes intolerable. One important comment I can make about that period in my life is that
probably no woman could have coped with my problems before I had learned how to cope
with them myself.
In the autumn of 1974 I left Roosendaal and stayed for some weeks in a presbytery in
Rotterdam. I applied for work at an employment office in Rotterdam and got a job in the City
Hall, sorting out papers from the city registers. Because I soon didn’t feel welcome in the
presbytery anymore, I rented a small room in Gouda.
While working in Rotterdam and earning my first money, I applied for a job as teacher of
religion at the Edith Stein College, a Catholic secondary school in The Hague. I got the job
and started teaching in August 1975. But I quickly found out that I had made a completely
wrong choice. I never, in all those months, had lost my belief in God and in Christ. But the
certainties, which I had carried with me in the streets of Boma, were no longer certainties. I
had become a critical believer. There was, in my opinion, reason to criticize the Roman
Catholic Church. The message of the Church was being narrowed down to an endless
discussion, not about the message of Christ but about marginal issues, and above all about
who has the last say in matters of religion. It seemed to me that the Roman Catholic Church
kept believing in a world that was static, a world that did neither move nor change, while I
myself witnessed how quickly the world around me and the needs and questions of people
were changing.
That’s why it soon became clear to me that I was in no position to teach religion in this
rather conservative Catholic secondary school.
In december 1975 I applied for the job of socio-therapist in a big residential institute for
mentally retarded people in Nieuwveen. To my great surprise I got the job. I started in
January 1976 and worked in Nieuwveen for two and a half years. In 1978 I applied for the
job of director of a day-centre for mentally retarded people in Gouda, that was part of an
organisation of 2,000 clients and as many employees. I got the job. In 1989 the managing
director of the organisation, with whom I got on very well, asked me to become a member
of his staff, responsible for policy and quality of the organisation.
In my personal life there were quite some changes too. In 1975, when I began earning some
money I could afford renting a maisonette in Gouda. My girlfriend moved in with me and in
1977 we married. But one year later she left me for another man. I had no problem believing
that there were men far better than me. However, after having been told for quite some
time that I was the best and kindest husband in the whole world, her departure hurt me
badly and meant another period of utter despair and loneliness.
We divorced and to get away from it all I rented a house in Moordrecht. I believe that it was
in those days that I received a letter from Rome that I had been laicised.
It was in Moordrecht that, through the intervention of the parish priest, I met my present
wife. Like me, she was divorced. She had two children, a boy of 12 and a girl of 11. In 1981
we married. When they were 18 years old, our two children applied for a change of their
family name and got permission from the queen to carry my surname. I love them as my
own children. They love me as their father.
At the time of writing this ‘Apologia pro vita mea’, Corrie and I have been happily married for
30 years and are the proud grandma and grandpa of five grandchildren.
“I feel I don’t know enough to tell others what to do – all I know is my own experience. I am a
fellow student of life.” Shirley Maclaine
Conclusion:
In 1999 I was entitled to early retirement. And in 2004 I went into complete retirement and
received for the first time my old age pension.
When applying for a job I always told the selection committee and later on the people I
worked with about my life as a missionary in Africa. It always worked out to my advantage.
People often asked me why I left the priesthood. I think that, in the final analysis, it was the
painful and final consequence of the fact that it became impossible for me to live and work
in one world and to believe and pray in a totally different world.
The crisis in the Church of Rome and my personal crisis are – it seems to me - the result of a
lack of harmony and consensus between our daily life and our religious life. The dynamism
of life collides too often with the fossilised ideas, truths and values of the Church of Rome.
Instead of distrusting the experiences of men and women who live in the real world of
today, an unruly world with its pain and its joy, the Church of Rome should develop a great
sensitivity for them. Only then it can become evident whether God’s Spirit has a message,
pre-eminently meant for people of our times.
It is a remarkable thing that the Apostles didn’t find Jesus in the temple. They found him
when they were fishing on the stormy lake. They met Jesus there where they lived and
worked. Maybe this explains why the early church had no need of a temple, sacrifices, a
priesthood or of celibacy. The early Christians came together in their own homes for a
Eucharist of love in memory of the Man of Nazareth.
I am convinced that the day will come when the priesthood can include wife and marriage,
love and work, children and responsibilities, and will be open to all sorts of people, men and
women, married and celibate people, to people who become and remain priests for life or
for a period of time.
In the course of my life I have lost certainties, but found new ones. That is all part of the
dynamism of life. There is one certainty that will last: the certainty of the commandment of
Jesus: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
God has no other hands than ours to build a new world. God is not the Great Fixer. He is the
source of life who was already there before we were and from whose hands we have
received life as a borrowed gift.
He gives us this earth in loan. He expects from us that we take good care. When in Eastern
Congo 15,000 women are raped, God hasn’t fallen asleep. Raping women is something we
do. Moreover, we refuse to solve the food shortage which means that every day 24,000
children die from hunger.
Is our world terrible and wicked? Yes, our world is being defiled by blood and lacerated by
wars. Can we do something about it? Yes. Do we have to be a missionary or to travel to
foreign lands for that? No. The commandment Jesus has given us can be answered
everywhere, right on the spot where we live. We do what our hands find. We take care of a
sick person. We drive somebody to see a relative. We send an e-mail or we give a lonely
person a call. We are volunteers in a home for the elderly. We give of our time and money
for the homeless, for the refugees, for people who have less than we have.
And maybe, there is another man or woman who wants to join us, and in that case there is
still one more certainty: where two people are trying to make this world a better place, Jesus
is in our midst.
The risen Christ came to visit the Apostles when they smelt of fish and were going about
their work. From there he sent them out into the real world. And there they found, each in
his own way, their mission. He still does the same with each one of us.
Epilogue: A Christmas Story:
Tomorrow it will be Christmas. Without any worries I am sitting on the veranda of the
presbytery at Yalisele, a parish in the east of Basnkusu diocese. Flocks of chatting parrots
fly past. They are like women coming back from a communal fishing expedition. They talk
and talk and nobody knows what they are on about.
Tatá Pierre, the cook of our school, sits on a tripod near the fire and does what an old man
does: he sits down and reflects on the things of the past. When I ask him how he is doing, he
answers that his heart is heavy. The reason? Mamá Anna, his wife, has gone to her father’s
village. She is gone. Four days and four nights Tatá Pierre has been like a man without a
wife, because he did not give her money for a new cotton cloth and for a new headscarf for
Christmas. Anna’s gone. Women are like that, Pierre mumbles. Sometimes their hearts are
soft as the texture of mushrooms, sometimes as rough as a pangolin’s skin.
Tomorrow it will be Christmas. The whole past week I had meetings with teachers of the
Yalisele secondary school over which I hold sway. I wrote and distributed reports, had the
school cleaned and paid the women who sold us cassava, fish, elephant meat and vegetables.
The students are now on holiday. I am by myself, since the parish priest and his two curates
are all three visiting the neighbouring villages. The school is dead silent and completely
deserted. In the forest behind my habitation a few monkeys dare to show themselves. In the
soft breeze the African night will resound in a wonderful symphony.
Why people live here like they do, why they dance, make music, laugh and cry, and
tell their innumerable stories I now know after so many years: Each clan member ,
dead or alive, can count on the other members. This clan awareness containing
norms and values helps people to face any situation in their daily lives. Do we,
Europeans, have the patience to let the Africans determine their own destiny and
their own future?
I light the paraffin lamp and smoke a cigarette with tatá Pierre. We smoke like men smoke:
we close our eyes, inhale deeply and puff out big clouds. Helen, Pierre’s daughter, breastfeeds
her baby whilst pounding cassava. Her fingers don’t slip. Her hands are like those of a
monkey that never miss a branch. Pierre looks proudly at his daughter and says: ‘Helen’s
calves are big. She will bear many children.’ Helen giggles joyfully when tatá Pierre talks
like this. ‘Múp Dikkie’ (that’s my Afican name) she says, ‘my father is pulling your leg.’ She
intones a song whilst pounding her cassava.
To increase the clan, to beget and to bear children is in Africa so much more
important than all other matters. This becomes crystal clear when people show their
abundant joy at the birth of a child.
From behind the school voices rise and laughter explodes. The voices come from the
maternity, a small building where women ‘with bellies’ await their delivery. In the dark I
walk over to them and chat with the expectant mothers. Mamá Veronica has a very big belly. I
tell her that she will have twins. She laughs slapping her arms. ‘Stop talking, Múp Dikkie’,
she says, ‘you talk and talk and are fooling me.’
Because increasing the clan has the highest priority, all conversations and news
turn round relationships, marriage, sex and pregnancies. Getting children is of the
utmost importance in each community. We in Europe are raised with knowledge
about things and on our way we gather insight about people. Africans are brought
up with knowledge about human relations, friendships and friendly interactions.
These only are a condition and a guarantee for a successful life.
In a corner of the clinic a whole family crouches around a low hospital bed on which a girl is
lying. Her eyes are as black as ebony wood. Her belly is hard and swollen. The girl is called
Mary. When I take her hand, it’s damp. I feel she is scared, as scared as a little bird that one
holds in one’s hand. When I ask mamá Paula, the midwife, about Mary’s condition, she says
that all will be fine. ‘Sleep well’, I say to the people. ‘Sleep well, Múp Dikkie’, they answer.
I walk back home and once in bed I fall asleep immediately.
In the middle of the night I wake up and hear a knock on the door. ‘Múp Dikkie! Múp
Dikkie’, I hear people calling. I open the door and see people with paraffin lamps. They are
very quiet; their eyes look sad. They are Mary’s relatives. ‘The baby does not want to come
out’, they say. ‘We ask you to take her to the hospital. Don’t we know that your heart is as
vulnerable as a calabash?’
At this question concerning an increase of the clan, the birth of a new clan member,
I am not allowed to doubt. I need to help, to get into the car and be on my way. All I
ever said, people will forget, but not how I acted in difficult situations.
I put on my clothes and drive the Land Rover to the maternity ward. Carefully we put Mary
in the back of the vehicle on a matrass. Her relatives have packed their belongings and they
install themselves with their baskets around the poor girl. I start the engine anew and take the
road to Yskí where an English pastor-physician runs a small hospital. It’s a ride of 60 km.
The road is abominable. We make headway at about 25 km an hour. In order to climb the hills
I am forced to put the Land Rover in the smallest gear. At the bridges made of logs I ask
everybody except Mary to leave the car. I drive slowly across the slippery logs. I stare at the
road and feel that I have become soaking wet by the effort. The villages we cross are fast
asleep. Now and again a civet cat or antelope is caught in the headlights and can escape just
in time. Behind me I hear the people talk, but so softly and so rapidly that I do not understand
their conversation. When I stop and turn round to see how Mary is, I see how she is crying
without making any noise. She grips my hand and pinches it. ‘Mary’, I say, ‘this car is not
like a river that flows and flows and flows. This car will arrive at the hospital. The doctor will
help you.’ ‘’, the family answers, ‘Múp Dikkie says true things.’
Mamá Paula rubs Mary with soapy water in the belief that it will help the baby to appear
sooner. The odour in the car is a mix of sweat, food, Mary’s vomit and the moist forest air
that comes wafting inside through the small windows. Mary’s body is covered with sweat and
yet her teeth are chattering with cold. ‘Mary, please, don’t die’!’ I pray and drive faster.
Mary’s mother intones a song: ‘A baby is a joy; a baby is a new village; where is the baby?’
Nobody talks about the baby’s father. Who is he? That’s the secret between a man and a
woman. Is it not a man with hair in his armpits who needs a woman? Aren’t there two mats in
the hut? Is a woman without a husband not like a mortar without a pestle?
Because the educational institute where I work is embedded in a Catholic organisation, I
know that the Church by her critical stance concerning African sexual morality has caused
unease with regards to matters that used to be talked about openly. The Church isn’t ready to
meet the African on his own territory and to show respect for their clan-culture. Only when
the Church shows this respect, there will be a possible opening for a personal God as the great
ancestor who protects all clans within an interracial human family.
At last we arrive at the junction to Yskí. I drive dangerously fast. Mary must be suffering
immense pains from the shaking and shocking of the Land Rover. But there is not a minute
to waste. The doctor jumps out of his bed and calls his African assistants to prepare the
operation theatre. I too receive a medical mask and assist as well. The doctor goes for a
caesarean operation. He applies local anaesthetics first. The tears Mary cries are not the tears
of the eyes but the tears of a mother’s heart. Will she ever breastfeed and raise her baby?
Finally the baby is there. It’s a boy. ‘Merry Christmas’, the doctor exclaims; ‘You were just in
time.’
I walk round in the dark and look dazed into the night and do what an African man doesn’t
do: I cry. But my heart is as light as a wee bamboo stick. Back in the hospital I see how Mary
is wrapping her baby in cloths and putting it inside a small box.
Can my heart ever forget what my ear has heard and my eye has seen?
Moordrecht, 16th of April 2011.
Dick van Veen.
25. Fr Fons Eppink.
Life in the Submarine
Finally, after an emotional farewell at Antwerp and two weeks at
sea, I would set eyes on the country and meet the people to whom
I had been sent as a missionary by my congregation, the Mill Hill
Missionaries.
A huge swathe of light brown water far out in the Atlantic was the
telltale sign that we were approaching our destination. From then
on our ship was travelling in the waters of the mind-bogglingly
large Congo River. Not the faintest glimmer of land in sight. In fact
it took another half day before a thin strip of coastal sandbeach
with some palm trees and the outline of the estuary of the Congo
river could be distinguished far away on the horizon.
It was the fulfilment of a long cherished dream. I had only a vague
idea of what would be awaiting me but was excited to explore this new and mysterious land in the
heart of Africa, the (former Belgian) Congo. The country had hit the headlines worldwide at the time
of its chaotic accession to independence in June 1960 and had remained in the spotlight ever since
exemplifying, as it did, the nightmare scenario of never ending violence and mayhem. Hundreds of
missionaries had been killed during the 1964-65 rebellion and the country was only just emerging
from this traumatic episode under the then promising leadership of Joseph Désiré Mobútu who had
come to power in a military coup. The year of my arrival was 1968.
During my final year at Mill Hill, London, we had been given the opportunity to make our preferred
missionary destination known to our superiors. I had put Pakistan on top of my list of favourites stories about the work of missionaries there and the contact with Muslims had grabbed my
imagination - and found at ordination time that I had been appointed to…..Congo. So Congo it was
going to be! After a few months of brushing up my French in a small rural parish called St Aubin, in
the southern French ‘département’ of Lot et Garonne, I said goodbye to my family and boarded ship
at Antwerp in February 1968. Two weeks later we arrived at Matádi. From there the journey
continued by car to Kinshásá and a few days later I boarded the plane for Basnkusu.
Waka.
Frans de Vrught, the society representative at the time and Bishop Willem van Kester were very
welcoming and wasted no time in telling me what my first appointment was going to be: I was to
pitch my tent at Waka. The parish priest there, Marinus Boonman, a veteran Congo missionary, had
a reputation of being an expert speaker of the local tribal language, Lmng, and of possessing a
vast knowledge of local customs and traditions. He would be the ideal mentor, so the reasoning
went, of this green, inexperienced youngster who had arrived with the oil of ordination still wet on
his hands.
Brother Piet Tweehuysen was also stationed at Waka as was Piet Korse whom I was meant to
replace.
I was grateful for this opportunity of what looked like a ‘soft landing’ - first getting a decent
grounding in the language and acquiring a basic knowledge of the culture and traditions of the
people - before launching into a missionary/pastoral ministry. But things rarely work out as expected
or planned, certainly not in Congo where, as I discovered and came to cherish over the years, people
readily welcome the unexpected and have developed improvisation into a fine art. Expressions like
‘Système D’, (débrouillez-vous – improvise), ‘article 15’ and ‘tómeke’ and other similar jocular terms
referring to the need to make do were the warp and woof of daily conversation.
My anticipated ‘soft landing’ soon turned into a suitably bumpy ride as the reality of the extreme
isolation of the area began to sink in. The somewhat stifling embrace of the omnipresent rain forest
covering the whole of the diocese and far beyond inevitably generated a longing for the wide
horizons of my native Holland. Our only means of contact with the outside world was a once daily
radio-call which linked the various mission stations with each other and with the largest village in the
diocese, Basnkusu. The procure in Basnkusu was the only place with equipment powerful
enough to communicate directly with Kinshásá and from there with Europe. The postal service was
erratic at best and letters would take weeks, sometimes months to arrive.
To counterbalance this feeling of isolation there was an excellent spirit of camaraderie among the 30
odd Mill Hill missionaries in the diocese of Basnkusu, but mission stations were few and far
between. Basnkusu was at a distance of 80 km from Waka and Baríngá, the next station in the
other direction, was even further away. Transport in the rain forest is difficult at the best of times,
but downright impossible in the rainy season. There was not one square centimetre of tarmac in the
whole of the diocese, few properly constructed bridges over the numerous rivers and streams, and
unreliable ferries at the large river crossings. Bishop Cornelio de Wit, our one time Superior General,
famously remarked on his only visit to the diocese: “Your existence here is like living in a green
submarine” – with a reference to the famous Beatles’ song ‘We all live in a yellow submarine’ which
was popular at the time.
But physical isolation was but one element of what developed into an experience of culture shock
‘squared’. The inability to communicate adequately with the people around because of not speaking
the language was hugely confrontational. I have never felt so helpless in my life. Small kids would
point at this bndl – white man - in utter astonishment saying: “He is a grown man and does not
know how to speak, and we are only kids. Our language is so easy – even we, kids, can speak it!”
Marinus Boonman, my mentor, was an excellent speaker, but had little inclination to teach. For my
part, I soon discovered that my preferred method of language learning was to use a grammar so as
to be able to understand the structure of the language. As luck would have it there was a Lmng
grammar available and an excellent
dictionary too, plus a wealth of other
material all produced by a Belgian Sacred
Heart missionary called Gustaaf
Hulstaert, a linguistic genius. Thanks to
his untiring efforts at collecting linguistic
and cultural data, ever since the 1930s,
and his multifaceted scientific ability, the
language of the Mng people has
become one of the best documented and
most fully analysed in the whole of Africa.
It was Hulstaert who first made
missionaries aware that Bantu languages are tonal, thus adding a novel and difficult element to
language learning which some never fully mastered. A word like moto in Lingála for instance has 3
different meanings ( human being, head, fire) depending on the tone of each syllable and the
aperture of the vowels.
Right in the middle of this rather painful learning process, after only a few weeks at Waka, Piet
Korse invited me to accompany him on a week’s pastoral tour of a number of villages in the Bolíma
area, a journey ‘into the interior’ as the expression went. Piet obviously had decided that a baptism
of fire – ‘sink or swim’ – would do me a world of good and would provide an excellent opportunity to
continue the learning process at the grassroots. So off we went some distance along the road linking
Waka to Baríngá. I had thought of staying in the shadows of Piet in order to learn from his
experience since this was my first exposure to such a ‘safari’. But Piet had other ideas. When we
arrived at the first village – Bolímá Ekonda was the name, I think – he introduced me to the local
catechist and then left me there, whilst he himself continued to the next village. “I’ll come and
collect you tomorrow afternoon…..” So there I was, with hardly a word of Lmng, feeling as
inadequate as I will ever feel. I don’t remember what happened next morning, but I must have
struggled through the text of the Mass with the help of the catechist – reading a text in a Bantu
language usually is not difficult, but to be understood at all you have to master the tonal system, an
altogether more arduous undertaking.
Anyway, I survived this ‘existential crisis’. After roughly three months I had a fair smattering of the
language and could make myself understood. I began to feel more at ease and from then on a real
‘love story’ started to develop: I took a profound liking both to the people and the forest . An
enduring interest in everything African, culture and inculturation, as well as in trees and plants, and
a passion for orchids was the result .
A few stories.
Although I only spent just over a year in Waka I have many vivid memories of the first missionary
experience. A few cameos:
The apprehension and excitement of going on my
first weekend trip into the interior on my own,
sleeping in the house of Bruno Líkofata, the
headmaster, watching the villagers keeping the
elephants at bay that evening and finding huge
elephant footprints all around the house the next
morning.
And an outbreak of smallpox in Waka – it must
have been one of the last in Africa, because
somewhere in the ‘70s the WHO announced that
the disease had been eradicated worldwide. Several people died a horrible death, among them the
only fully qualified D6 teacher at the mission primary school, a young man called Jean-Paul Bokungú.
I felt quite heroic at the time of the burial when no one dared to touch the coffin for fear of
contamination and Marinus Boonman and myself alone had to lower the coffin into the grave.
‘Crestfallen’ would be the best way to describe my feelings when through inexperience and a wrong
move I got hopelessly stuck driving the ancient Volkswagen Kombi through the marshes separating
Waka from the Lifumba area. I had been sent to collect the dead body of a parishioner whose family
had requested a transfer to Basnkusu. Maybe the first encounter with heart-rending African
wailing had also affected my nerves! Little did I
know then that this would be the first of many
such experiences of travel misery in years to
come.
Ndeke, a large oil palm plantation within the
area of the parish of Waka when Armstrong
c.s. landed. That night I sat around for a chat
outside with primary-school teacher Raphael
Iwoku and a few others. The moon shone
bright from the cloudless African sky. “Do you
see the moon?”, I asked, and then pointed out
excitedly what was happening there at that very moment. People walking on the moon? A look of
astonished incomprehension was all it solicited. Those bndl and their stories…..
After just over a year of acclimatisation and initiation into the language and culture of the Mng
people in Waka I was asked to return to Europe to get a licentiate degree in Romance Philology
(French and linguistics) at Louvain University in preparation for a posting as a teacher at one of the
two secondary schools of the diocese. And so I left Waka in June 1969 to start the process of
enrolment at Louvain University. Some fellow-MHMs in Basnkusu, I heard later, thought I would
never return. Little did they know that strength of attraction I felt for the people and the area after
that one year’s initiation! And so, after an interlude of four years - a description of my experiences
of student life and university studies, a whole new and in many ways exciting world, constitutes a
different chapter altogether and will not here be included – I returned to Congo and was appointed
to the Likng’á Nguwa (Spear and Shield), secondary school at Bonkita.
Bonkita.
Situated at about 18 km from Basnkusu on the banks of the Lulónga River, a tributary of the
majestic Congo river, Bonkita was an idyllic spot, one of the few places in the diocese which afforded
a wide view over the surrounding area and a horizon not curtailed by giant rain forest trees. You
could swim in the river there, which I did almost on a daily basis. That is to say if you took the
warnings about crocodiles with a pinch of salt. I never saw one in all those years, although there
were plenty of relatively harmless small alligators, usually in small streams in marshes in the forest.
The people hunted and ate these, rather than the other way round! I learnt to row in an African
dugout canoe and made regular rowing trips around the large island right in front of the house at
Bonkita. Peace Corps volunteers working in schools around the diocese loved to come and visit their
friends teaching English and other subjects at Likng’á Nguwa, Bonkita.
Fons Mertens, a veteran missionary and member of the Bonkita team (together with Wim Beentjes
and – initially - Jan Hendriks, and Gerrit Gerritsen for the farm) had a knack of making young people
feel at home with his sense of humour, lively stories and encyclopaedic knowledge. An evening on
the elevated veranda with a glass of cold beer under the starry sky helped to air frustrations and
overcome inevitable crises – what we came to call the ‘three-month syndrome’, an inevitable dip
after about three months in the country when the first enthusiasm had worn off. Occasionally we
organised barbecues, but the meat of the Bonkita cows came out so tough that Wim once broke a
tooth on a particularly recalcitrant T-bone steak. “Bonkita”, one of the PCVs wrote years later, “is
not a place but a state of mind”. That’s what it came to mean for me as well over the 15 years I lived
there – a time of happiness and contentment.
We got on well together, as Mill Hill group at Bonkita. Wim Beentjes managed to persuade even the
most reluctant card players – like myself – to join in a game of canasta some of the evenings. There
was plenty of time to read too, at least as long as we had fuel for the generator. Our generator
generally ran for about three hours every evening, from 6pm till 9pm after which everyone would
retire to bed.
For the students, all of whom came from villages with no electricity, these three hours of artificial
lighting were a cause of wonder and pride. Bonkita was nicknamed ‘Paris Soir’, and after the wellknown epithet of the French capital ‘ville lumière’. At one point we ran out of fuel altogether. This
situation lasted for more than a month and we had to make do with candles; eventually even the
paschal candle was sacrificed to provide light in the dense equatorial darkness. Fuel, of course,
came at a premium since in the whole of the diocese there was not one single petrol station. Every
litre had to be purchased in Kinshásá, put in barrels and transported upriver by boat – a journey
taking several weeks.
Gerrit Gerritsen ran the cattle farm – a diminutive breed called Dama Guinéenne. Breeding cattle in
the rain forest is a most arduous undertaking. You have to practically plant the grass and wage a
never-ending war against the ever-invasive forest.
But Gerrit was indefatigable, often doing the hardest work himself whilst the workmen would be
gallantly looking on. When he left for Djmb I rediscovered my farming roots and took to driving
the old blue tractor during my spare time, to cut the tall grass and assorted bushes on the large
compound and to maintain the 3-4 kilometres of forest track linking Bonkita to the Basnkusu –
Bokákata dirt-track. And so it happened that one day disaster struck. I had left the tractor near the
top of the slope the house is built on to go on some errant or other, but forgot to pull the
handbrake….. When I returned there was no tractor to be seen anywhere. It seemed to have
dissolved into thin air. I ran down the slope, and sure enough, there it was, right down the riverbank.
Fortunately the long protruding shovel in front had prevented it from disappearing into the water
altogether. I felt a total fool. When I told Otto Perfler at the garage in Basnkusu he smiled and
must have thought : stick to your trade, schoolteacher! It took plenty of muscle – not in short supply
in the nearby village of Bakungú – to get the tractor on to the road again.
The surrounding villages of Mpoma Lolingo, Bafotó, Ngáre, Bakungú, Lifumba Ekombo, and Djáola
together formed a kind of mini-parish. Together with Wim Beentjes, with whom I developed a very
close bond, we visited each village in turn during weekends to celebrate the Eucharist and attend to
whatever pastoral needs there might be. This regular contact with people in the ordinary
circumstances of life, hearing their concerns,
celebrating their joys, sharing their sorrows, and
getting irritated at their constant begging, in
short experiencing the full gamut of human
intercourse and the predicaments of life in the
rain forest, was a real tonic and a welcome relief
from the constrictions of the classroom. An
additional benefit of these regular escapades
was the incentive to keep up our knowledge of
the local language, Lmng.
But let me get back to my principal occupation and reason for being at Bonkita:
I did not look forward to a teaching career but found that once I got into it there was both
stimulation and satisfaction in the interaction with the students. They were all eager to learn and
often showed considerable ability. Getting the attention of the class was never a problem. They
were motivated. But their progress was bedevilled by habits of rote learning hammered into them at
primary-school level. It took enormous efforts to awaken in them a spirit of creativity and critical
thinking. Most were quite content to regurgitate what the teacher had told them, even in the final
year of secondary education. The enchanted (belief in magic) universe they lived in favoured chance
over ability and hard work. When final exams
came around students could be seen to put
their writing utensils on the tombs of deceased
early missionaries at Bokákata, presumably to
magically absorb the knowledge of these
‘superior’ white people. In tribal society they
live in what matters is patronage and who you
are related to, not ability and genuine
expertise. Education, so it dawned on most of
us involved in it, had to set as its ultimate goal
not just the imparting of knowledge, but a
veritable ‘metanoia’, a different way of
thinking and being. Talk about long term objectives…! I hope that together with the other members
of the staff at Likng’á Nguwa during my seven years of direct involvement at classroom level I have
made even the tiniest contribution towards progress on that arduous road.
The school at Bonkita had quite a chequered history. It had initially been set up in the 1950s as an
agricultural school. When that proved difficult to maintain it was turned into a minor seminary with
a boarding facility. This in turn was transformed into a regular secondary school – ‘section littéraire
and bio-chimie’ - under the name Institut Likng’á Nguwa at the time of the countrywide reform of
education during the 1970s. Jan Hendriks, who had been the minor seminary director, presided over
this transition and in the mid-1970s handed the school over to an able Congolese headmaster called
Joseph Bongwele. This appointment had been strongly promoted by the first Congolese bishop of
Basnkusu, Ignace Matóndo kwa Nzámbi, cicm. Clearly ‘the times they were a-changing’!
Bishop Matóndo kwa Nzámbi.
The arrival of Bishop Ignace Matóndo kwa Nzámbi, a Congolese Missionary of Scheut, following the
unobtrusive resignation and stealthy departure of Bishop van Kester and a number of months of
‘interregnum’, was greeted with some scepticism by the local clergy who had their own ambitions
and considerable joy combined with huge expectations by the general population.
The months of apostolic administration had been difficult. Jan Hendriks, the apostolic administrator
had put a brave face to it and had kept the diocese going to the best of his ability. At Bonkita in 1975
at the end of the school year we stored every piece of valuable equipment in the small chapel and
sealed it off. Everyone went on home leave, except for myself, amid considerable uncertainty as to
what the future would bring. I still remember the feeling of responsibility and considerable
apprehension when those summer holidays started – I had only been in the place for two years.
Both the diocese and the country as a whole were going through a period of uncertain transition. As
it turned out, the national campaign of ‘authenticité’ and ‘zaïrinisation’ (read: mindless
nationalisation) initiated around this time by President Mobútu, largely as a political ploy, proved
hugely counterproductive in the long run and quickened the country’s headlong rush towards
economic ruin. The abolition of Christian names in the name of African authenticity led to a conflict
with the Catholic Church and the temporary departure into exile of Cardinal Malúla. The latter had
himself spearheaded a much sounder form of africanisation of the Catholic Church famously stating:
” A new baby is being born here, and there is one thing we can be absolutely sure of: it will be black!”
The irony of the situation escaped no one.
At the local diocesan level bishop Matóndo’s promotion of enculturation felt real and promising. In
fact bishop Matóndo in his early years came across as hugely charismatic and inspiring. He would
prove to be someone who would bring about substantial change in the diocese against considerable
odds. Most noticeable were the changes in the way we celebrated the liturgy. To unify the diocese
and bring it in line with the rest of the ecclesiastical province he introduced Lingála, one of the four
national languages and a lingua franca in most of the country, as the only language of the liturgy.
Not everyone was happy with this change as a lot of effort had been put into promoting local
languages, in particular Lmng. A considerable amount of liturgical and catechetical material had
been written in this language for distribution in several dioceses in
the Equator province.
Together with the change of language came a change of rite. For
some time Congolese liturgists under the guidance and inspiration
of Cardinal Malúla had been working on a Zairian rite of the Mass.
Rome had given permission to use this Africanised form of the
Eucharist for a number of years ‘ad experimentum’. At the
instigation of bishop Matóndo the diocese of Basnkusu
enthusiastically joined in the experiment. And what a change it
was! The lively hymns in Lingála sung at the episcopal ordination of
Bishop Matóndo became instant hits among young and old alike.
Liturgical celebrations thereafter quickly turned into colourful
feasts of rhythm, song and dance. It felt as if the celebration of the
Eucharist had finally ‘come home’ to Africa.
A well thought out pastoral plan involving among other innovations
the creation of CEBs (Basic Christian Communities), lay ministries and the appointment of Bakambi
(lay persons in charge of parishes) put a spring into the flagging step of church life of the diocese.
The ensuing closure of the Formation Centre for Catechists in Mampoko was not to everyone’s
liking. Catechists, it was clear, would no longer be an essential link between priest and people ; the
leadership of the community would be shared with other lay ministers. The parish would become a
‘community of communities’. Was this intended break-down of the hierarchical pyramid really going
to work?
Most innovative of all was bishop Matóndo’s introduction of the Bilng ya Mwínda (Youth of the
Light), a thoroughly Africanised initiation of the youth into the Christian faith. When he was still
parish priest of Matete, a suburb of the sprawling capital Kinshásá, Père Ignace Matóndo, had
founded and developed this youth movement in response to President Mobútu’s suppression of any
form of religious instruction in schools in the name of
authenticity. Nkómbó ya y, Nkóló, a slightly rebellious
hymn introduced at the time, became the signature tune
of the Bilng ya Mwínda. Having the founder and chief
initiator of this striking pastoral initiative at the helm of
the diocese exercised a huge attraction on young people
all around. Many of the students at Bonkita, where I was
teaching, also got involved. I experienced this
development as a real gift of the Spirit and was grateful
for the opportunity it afforded to acquaint the youth with
the Gospel message in a language and a manner they
could understand and relate to. Every year bishop Matóndo would write an extensive letter in the
form of a brochure to the Bilng ya Mwínda all over the country. It took a while to fully
appropriate the thoroughly African process of initiation which lay at the roots of the method
proposed by bishop Matóndo. The fact that most young people had no awareness or experience of
traditional tribal initiation did not help either. But at least everyone could recognise the approach as
truly African.
Africa has a rich oral tradition. In Central Africa there are no written sources predating the colonial
period. Important historical events were handed on by word of mouth and committed to memory
with amazing accuracy. A well-known Belgian scholar, Jan Vansina, has been able to trace back the
lineage of the Kings of the Bakuba Kingdom in Congo to the sixteenth century using oral sources.
David Van Reybrouck in his recent History of Congo, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary
of the country’s independence, makes extensive use of informants.
Similarly Bishop Matóndo was conscious of being heir to a culture centred around ‘le Verbe’ , as the
French expression goes. “And the Word was made flesh”. He was an excellent orator. His sermons
and conferences were always well prepared. I often saw him walking up and down the veranda of his
residence thinking ‘aloud’ to test and develop the flow of an sermon or a talk. His lively sermons in
true African style would be peppered with proverbs, stories, an occasional song and plenty of
rhetorical questions to which the audience would respond instantly as they would at a village
gathering. Often he would be carried away by his own enthusiasm, sweating profusely and
gesticulating wildly to the point of almost losing his mitre (bishops wear their mitre when they
preach!). African oratory is generous in its use of time too. A European style ten minute sermon
leaves most Congolese ‘hungry’. A Eucharist celebrated in the Zairian rite typically lasts two hours or
more – the sermon taking half an hour at least. The art of exuberant celebration – religion can be
fun! – is one of Africa’s most precious contributions to the universal Church, in my estimation. The
longest celebration I ever attended was an Easter Vigil at Basnkusu cathedral which started at 8pm
and finished well past midnight! Some inveterate smokers among my fellow missionaries would at
times abscond during the sermon, have a smoke, and find the bishop still in full oratorical flight
when they returned!
In a supporting role.
In 1980 bishop Matóndo asked me to become his vicar-general and appointed me Conseiller
Pédagogique of secondary education in the diocese. Joseph Bongwele had been appointed chief
Coordinator of Education at the same time and we were to work closely together to build up
secondary education in the diocese. I was truly delighted to be able to work as an assistant to
Congolese leaders (Bishop, Coordinator), no longer in the driving seat, but in a supportive capacity as
I deeply felt the position of the missionary should be at this stage of the development of the church
in Congo.
There had been a sudden and quite anarchic explosion of the number of secondary schools all over
the diocese – Catholic, Baptist, Kimbanguist, Islamic and State – in response to changing government
policy. To say that in the absence of even the most
basic infrastructure, with no textbooks or writing
material to speak of, and a host of poorly qualified
teachers, giving some direction to this chaotic
growth was going to be an uphill task, would have
been the understatement of the decade. But Joseph
Bongwele was not easily put out by adverse
conditions. He had the trust of the teaching
personnel and a basic honesty in handling money.
Dick van de Riet, who oversaw the financial
department of the Education Office, was a huge
support as well.
For the school at Bonkita with its onerous boarding facility, which proved more and more difficult to
maintain, this proliferation of secondary schools proved fatal. The new headmaster, Nyenge,
valiantly struggled to keep the place going, but in the end fell victim to the widespread habit of
‘creative accounting’ and was transferred. Not long after the entire school was moved to Basnkusu
to cramped and inadequate accommodation at what had previously been a Cycle d’Orientation (the
first two preparatory years before secondary education proper), and became a day-school. The
school buildings at Bonkita returned to their original destination to accommodate the A.I.F. (Année
Initiatique de Formation), a one-year preparatory course for candidates for the major seminary, a
brain child of the ever-creative bishop Matóndo, of which I was initially put in charge. The main Ushaped building consisting of the student dormitory, chapel and accommodation for teaching staff
was transformed into a much-needed pastoral centre for group trainings, retreats, workshops and
the like.
As for me, I was happy to be able to keep my base at Bonkita, but as a consequence of my new
responsibilities I began to lead a quite nomadic existence. Over the next seven years till I left the
diocese in 1988 I travelled the length and breadth of the diocese (some 800 km from one end to the
other) several times a year, got hopelessly stuck in swamps on numerous occasions, had to cut my
way through the forest once to circumvent one of those giant rain forest trees which had fallen over
the road. I enjoyed moving around, visiting fellow missionaries in every corner of the diocese, and
giving whatever assistance I could to well-meaning but struggling headmasters and inadequate or
dishonest ones alike.
Willy Lks, an expert teacher of French, became a trusted companion during my final years on
some of these trips. He would occasionally give model lessons and would generally be quick in
picking up relational or other problems raging underneath the surface. One day he rescued me from
a particularly sticky situation when an irate teacher threatened me with a machete. I really
sympathised with the man because he was going to be made redundant for lack of proper
qualification. I only wished he had chosen someone else to vent his anger on! The sad fact was that
the payment of teachers during the course of the 1980s became more and more erratic and the level
of remuneration woefully insufficient as the country slid further down the road of economic ruin due
to Mobútu’s increasingly kleptocratic regime.
The 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser was our preferred means of transport on the often treacherous forest
roads. It was the rain forest equivalent of the desert camel. Mine was equipped with a winch and a
specially adapted jack. The latter piece of equipment was especially useful to lift the car when a
wheel would slide into the space between two logs on makeshift bridges, especially after a heavy
downpour. On one of those trips, a 2-3 week odyssey to visit the far end of the diocese, the
Bongandó area, the car was overloaded as often happened. Some 20 km out of Basnkusu I had to
stop because the load began to shift. When I tried
to readjust a piece of luggage I violently hit the
back of my head against a protruding piece of
metal at the car’s ceiling meant to hold the door
shut. The gash was deep and I was bleeding
profusely. The water of the nearby Manyt
stream helped to wash away the blood and
eventually the bleeding stopped. We decided to
continue our journey. Just past Waka we ran into
Sister Josephine who was on one of her medical
trips into the interior. She took one look at the
wound and decided it needed to be stitched. Being a no nonsense practical Flemish nun she
proposed to set to work right there in the village. And so she did. The scar was visible for quite some
years thereafter, but eventually disappeared. Rock hard missionaries? I had little choice in those
circumstances.
Crossing the two main rivers in the diocese, the Maríngá and the Loporí, both tributaries of ‘Le
Fleuve’ (the Congo River), was always an adventure on these journeys. When you arrived at the ferry
at Sámba you never knew beforehand what would be required to make the crossing. Sometimes,
when the ferry lay idle at the opposite bank, the captain would ask you to send the car battery
across so as to enable him to start the engine; at other times it was fuel he needed. But they would
rarely leave you stranded. The ferry on the Loporí at Símbá was something frighteningly special
altogether. It consisted of five or six large dugout canoes tied together with cables and fitted with
two platforms of planks to allow a car or even a lorry to manoeuver on top. This ingenious
contraption was then pulled by sheer muscle power from one side of the river to the other with the
help of a cable fixed to a pole on both banks. On one of my trips the pole on the opposite side broke
when we were already some distance away from the bank. I had visions of helplessly floating down
river with the car and getting irretrievably stuck somewhere in the vegetation along the banks
downstream. Fortunately the men pulling the ferry had the presence of spirit to frantically pull back
to the bank we had just left. And we made it!
Mill Hill, London:
In 1988 I was elected to represent the Mill Hill contingent of the diocese of Basnkusu at the
General Chapter at Mill Hill, London. I felt honoured and somewhat awed by the prospect of
participating in such an august gathering. Little did I know then that this would mean the end of my
Congolese ‘adventure’. At the end of the Chapter I was elected a member of the General Council
and, as they say, ‘that was that’.
I did feel honoured by the trust given to me, but was also deeply pained at the realisation that I
would not be able to return to Congo, at least not to stay. And I felt totally out of place at St
Joseph’s after more than twenty years of absence. It took me more than a year to get reacclimatised and to feel reasonably at ease in the task entrusted to me: Councillor for Africa. My
first trip in that capacity was to Cameroon at
the invitation of George Hanser, a fellow
chapter delegate, who was superior there.
What I saw in Cameroon on that first visit filled
me with deep emotion. There I saw long
stretches of tarmac road, taxi buses, decent
bridges and other forms of development. Why,
I wondered, was this possible here, and still a
distant dream in the equatorial rain forest of
Congo? Frequent visits to a variety of African
countries in the following years helped me to
get some perspective on political and economic realities in Africa.
I did of course go back to Congo to say goodbye, soon after I had been elected onto the General
Council. And I visited the gradually shrinking contingent of Mill Hill missionaries in Basnkusu
diocese several times during the course of my twelve years tenure as Councillor for Africa from 1988
to 2000.
On one of these trips I went together with Fr Maurice McGill, our Superior General. It was on this
occasion that I had the most frightening experience of air travel I have ever had. Here’s what
happened. After the completion of our visit on our way back to Kinshásá, before reaching the
provincial capital Mbándáká for a stopover, we hit a giant tropical thunderstorm. The pilot saw no
way of circumventing it and decided to fly right through it. At first we felt no more than the usual
turbulence on such occasions, but then the plane started to violently surge and fall, lurching left and
right, and shaking uncontrollably all the while. There seemed to be lightening all around us. If it
were not for our seatbelts we would have hit our heads against the ceiling several times. People
started screaming, someone threw up. I thought we were goners – and so did Maurice, he told me
afterwards. The ordeal must have lasted for about ten minutes. Then the elements calmed down
and we found that we were still alive and flying. It was somewhat disconcerting to see the pilot walk
down the aisle a few minutes later visibly shaken and telling us that he too had thought we were
going down! That was my last flight in a Fokker Friendship, the trusted workhorse of the African
skies. They would soon be taken out of service in Congo. Things got worse after that!
After the fall of the Berlin wall, Africa became the dumping ground not only of surplus armoury from
former Eastern-bloc countries, in particular Yugoslavia, but also poorly maintained, obsolete Russian
made aircraft found their way to a host of African countries in the 1990s. In Congo these Antonov
jet-props are appropriately nicknamed ‘flying coffins’. Flying in one of those is a rather surreal
experience. Since these Antonovs are cargo planes with passengers an optional but lucrative ad-on,
the hold is stacked with all kinds of cargo – sacks of cassava, smoked monkey meat, live goats and
other produce. Passengers are seated on wooden benches along the side of the plane surrounded
on all sides by loosely stacked cargo. There is no airconditioning. I remember on one of those flights
peacefully eating a sandwich I had brought when a few maggots suddenly dropped down from a
sack of smoked meat above my head. You can imagine your appetite being cut by less exotic
ingredients!
On the following trip in my capacity as General Councillor for Africa there was only a handful of Mill
Hill missionaries left in the diocese of Basnkusu: a small group in and around Basnkusu itself and
another small group at faraway Djlu in the Bongandó area. The change of regime in Kinshásá had
brought no discernible benefits or improvements to the provinces so far. All infrastructure seemed
in a state of advanced decay: schools, hospitals and dispensaries, administrative buildings. The
roads, never in a state to write home about, had become completely impassable and long-distance
travel was possible only by river. Harrie Reusen, the local Superior, thought it would be possible to
travel to Djlu by motorcycle to visit the small Mill Hill contingent there, using the little-used
northern Bongándángá – Bokenda route. And so we set off by boat to Kdr, then overland to
the river crossing to Djmb. The small dugout we found at the crossing was just large enough to
precariously hold our motorcycles and so we reached the opposite bank. Then overland to Djmb
and on to another river crossing to reach Bongándángá. Same procedure there. We spent the night
at Bongándángá, celebrated the Eucharist with the local community and then moved on overland to
Djlu, another day’s travel. Frans Kwik, Marinus de Groot and Kees Vlaming were very pleased to
see us. A year later Congo entered a period of extreme turbulence and they had to leave the area in
a hurry – for good as it turned out - without being able to make their goodbyes to the local
population.
It was at that time, in April 1997, when Laurent Kabíla’s successful challenge to the crumbling
Mobútu regime in its death throes was in full swing, that I paid an emergency visit to Basnkusu.
Rumour had it that the rebels had arrived at Boéndé and it would be a matter of days before they
would push on to Basnkusu. The small remnant of Mill Hill missionaries in the diocese had to
decide: evacuate or stay put ? We had a rather tense meeting at Mpoma, the location of the
diocesan procure and garage which also doubled as guesthouse for passing missionaries. Arguments
for and against each option were discussed and evaluated. As representative of the General Council
I made it clear that we were not looking for ‘martyrs’ and that the safety of each member should be
given priority, without prejudicing each person’s own discernment. In the end all except one –
courageous John Kirwan - decided to temporarily withdraw.
A large aircraft – the Sisters of Ten Bunderen and some
others were also going with us - was duly chartered from
Kinshásá and arrived the next day. We all boarded the
plane and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We were on
our way to safety, or so we thought. Then disaster struck!
As the large plane taxied to the end of the runway and
turned to make ready for take-off, one of its wheels sank
into the soft soil just beyond the hardened surface of the
runway and the plane came to a shuddering halt. We
were told to stay on board whilst the pilot and his assistants tried to get the wheel free again. As it
was early afternoon and the sun at full force, the cabin turned into an oven in no time and we were
all soaking with sweat. Eventually we were allowed to disembark and anxiously watched
proceedings in the shadow of the wings or from nearby bushes. Someone was dispatched on a
bicycle to Lisáfá, an oil palm plantation at about 20 km from Basnkusu, to get a tractor. In the end
it was a large shovel that did the trick. The hole was evened out, the pilot restarted the engines and
the plane managed to get away all of its own – to our intense relief. It didn’t take a minute to get
everyone back on board and off we were. About two hours later we landed safely at Ndjili
International Airport.
My last visit to the diocese took place in 2005 on the occasion of the centenary of the arrival of the
first Mill Hill missionaries. The centenary year had been carefully planned to allow each parish its
own separate celebration. Bokákata being the place where the first missionaries were buried – one
of them Martin O’Grady died soon after arrival and all without exception died young – I was happy
to be able to join the celebration there. Our party travelled to Bokákata from Basnkusu in one of
those outsize dugout canoes carved from the stem of just one giant rain forest tree. John Kirwan
made sure that we set foot on land at the exact spot where the early missionaries had landed a
hundred years earlier. A simple cross had been erected there and was blessed that same day as part
of the commemoration. The next day we celebrated the Eucharist in true Congolese fashion,
dancing around the altar at the ‘gloria’ and raising the roof with exuberant songs. The offertory
procession alone took more than an hour! People were so entranced by the dancing, singing and
bringing of gifts that they joined the end of the queue again to come forward once more. The
procession to the graveyard to bless the tombs and commemorate the sacrifice of the early
missionaries was very moving. For me this was a fitting conclusion to more than 30 years of
association – 17 years as a missionary on the spot - with the local church that is in Basnkusu,
Equator Province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
At Bobangi, Bokákata.
Epilogue:
It still hurts to realise that Congo, my first love, continues to be the ‘sick man’ in Central Africa.
Maybe the recent success of Lubumbáshi’s TP Mazembe football team who missed becoming world
champions by a hairbreadth, is a harbinger of better things to come? David Van Reybrouck’s ‘Congo’
, a beautifully written history of Congo published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the
declaration of independence, ends on an optimistic note underlining the incredible creativity,
flexibility and enterprising spirit of the Congolese. Thierry Michel’s impressive documentary on
recent developments in Katánga – ‘Katanga Business’ - shows the enormous potential waiting to be
harnessed.
Esili boye.
Fons Eppink 17.01.2011
26. Harry Reusen:
I was born at Aalten, the Netherlands on the 24th of February 1940, grew up in the parish of
Breedenbroek and did there my primary education
at the Sacred Heart School; I did one year
secondary education at the technical school in
Ulft, before I left for Tilburg. After finishing my
secondary education I left for Roosendaal for two
years philosophy, and then four years theology at
St Joseph’s College, Mill Hill, London. I took my
perpetual oath in 1965 and was ordained a
missionary priest on 10 July 1966.
I was appointed to the diocese of Basnkusu in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, travelled by
boat from Antwerp and arrived in Matádi, the
harbour at the mouth of the Congo River. I was on
the boat together with Frs Piet van Run, Marinus van Emmerik and two other newlyappointed Frs Kees Vlaming and Frans Helmes. The next day we travelled by train to
Léopoldville, the capital. This day remains forever in my memory as it was my first birthday
in the Congo. The train stopped in the middle of nowhere and on all sides soldiers boarded
the train. Everybody was searched. After thieves and rebels had been taken off the train, we
continued our journey. We stayed two weeks in Léopoldville at the procure of the Scheut
Fathers before we flew to Basnkusu in a DC-3.
Bishop W. van Kester received us with open arms. Three of us, Kees, Frans and myself were
appointed for the Bongandó region. Toussaint Goessens took us to Yambóyó in his Jeep. We
spent one or two nights at each of the mission stations on our way as Toussaint was on an
inspection tour of the Catholic schools, the first one after the rebellion of ‘64-‘65.
Finally we arrived in Yambóyó where Fr Jan Hartering received us. He had been the only Mill
Hill missionary in the Bongandó region to return there immediately after the rebellion. In this
region, there are five mission stations (later on called parishes): Lingm, Djlu, Yalisele,
Símbá (in the Oriental Province) and Yambóyó. We were given six months to learn the
essentials of the Longandó language. Abbé Joseph Baambe, who at that time was a pupil in
the sixth year of the primary school, became our teacher.
The six months being over, I was asked to join Piet van Run in Yalisele, who looked after the
mission of Símbá too. Frans went to join Jan Zegwaart in Lingm, and Kees stayed in
Yambóyó where Jaap Bos became parish priest when Jan Hartering left for the Netherlands.
Piet introduced me into the work, the pastoral activities and some medical work, for which he
had studied in France during the rebellion. This medical work was very necessary as there
weren’t any doctors anymore in the region. From the beginning I was made aware and
became very conscious of the importance of the local customs, the local language and rituals
for our pastoral work. Soon the Basic Christian Communities (BCC) became the main focus
of the pastoral policy in the diocese. The leaders, catechists and the lay pastors for these
communities were formed in the CEFCAD in Mampoko by Fr Gerrit van der Arend and his
team. Jan Hartering came back to Congo after spending some years as parish priest in
Varsselder–Veldhunten (the Netherlands) and joined us in Yalisele. He started translating the
Sunday readings and prayers into the Longandó language, with the help of Agnes Buúngu and
Victorine Bolalya. Soon Piet left in order to look after his sick and ageing mother. Fr Brian
Coffey joined us in the parish.
After Ignace Matóndo, the first African bishop of Basnkusu, arrived to succeed Bishop van
Kester in 1975, he effected numerous changes in the administrative set-up of the diocese. The
mission stations became parishes and were grouped into deaneries. He asked us to use
Lingála as the liturgical language and slowly this became a spoken language in the whole of
the diocese as it was also the language of the civil administration and the army. This move
made it easier for him to change personnel from one region (deanery) to another. In 1982
Bishop Matóndo requested me to look after the parishes of Bolómba and Byng and to
head the deanary of Bolómba, which included also the parishes of Abunákombo, Mampoko
and Lolángá. I left the Bongandó region with pain in my heart, having made there many
friends.
I started a new phase in my missionary life. Fr Ben Jorna had arrived in Bolómba a few
months earlier. For him parish work was a new experience as he had been teaching in the
Teacher Training College of Bokákata for almost twenty years. We would be together for the
next eight years. In Bolómba the pastoral policy was not different from the one in the Djlu
region, but I came to work with people of another tribe with a different language and different
customs and occupations, as many people were fishermen. This entailed for me a different
mode of travel. Had I been able to reach all villages by car, I was now to travel in a canoe,
with or without an outboard engine.
I can’t forget some of the trips on the Ikelemba River to the parish of Byng, in a hand-cut
canoe with four sturdy men paddling. We used to cover the 80 kilometres in one day. The
Ikelemba River meanders very much, leaving long stretches of forest between one meander
and the next. In the rainy season, these stretches are fully inundated, so that dugouts could
pass across them making big shortcuts. We glided under huge forest trees, where monkeys
swung overhead from one branch to another. Sometimes we needed to duck away in order to
avoid big bees’ nests. Arriving in Byng we were welcomed by Tatá Jean Mákuku, the
mokambi (lay responsible) and his wife and kids. A week’s stay with them was a happy
change from Bolómba parish work: a change of company and food, living with an African
family. Every day we enjoyed fresh fish from the river or fresh bush meat. Jean Mákuku was
a very good hunter with his .22-long rifle. The evenings were also very joyful, as we sat and
chatted around a big fire leaping forth from dried bamboos as there was no electricity.
We held the necessary deanery meetings with priests and lay people, responsible for the
various pastoral activities in the parishes. Sometimes we undertook these journeys to
Mampoko in the diocesan boat, the Nzámbe Bokási, which were pleasant though timeconsuming. One particular journey remains vivid in my memory. Bishop Matóndo had asked
me to administer the sacrament of confirmation in the remotest part of Lolángá parish.
Together with the mokambi we went to the other side of the Congo River; only the crossing
of this mighty river took us almost half an hour by 25 HP outboard. That night I did not close
an eye as I was constantly busy keeping the mosquitoes at bay as we had no mosquito-nets.
Soon after my arrival at Bolómba I was asked to build a convent for the Filles de Jésus, as the
parish of Bolómba never had had a convent since its erection in the 1950s. Bishop Matóndo
had invited the French sisters to work there in the medical field, women emancipation and
recruitment for their congregation.
It was decided that a new presbytery and offices would be built
and that the existing buildings would be adapted to welcome
the sisters. We worked very fruitfully together until the first
Congo war in 1997, when I left for Basnkusu. The sisters
continued with the help of Fr Fons Ysebaert until the second
Congo war in 1999–2000, when the sisters left for good.
In the late eighties I was chosen as society superior, a job which
took me often to Basnkusu and all over the diocese, in order
to visit fellow missionaries, to attend meetings and to see the
bishop about our Mill Hill personnel and to do the necessary
paperwork - financial and other.
Mill Hill House:
Fr Ben Jorna was appointed formator of Congolese Mill Hill candidates and left for Baríngá,
where the Cefas Centre was built by Br Gerrit Gerritsen. Piet van Vliet had started work on a
Mill Hill house in Basnkusu in 1993. However, he could not finish the work as he fell ill
and left for the Netherlands. After I had left Bolómba in 1997, I looked after the completion
of the work of ‘Maison St Joseph’ and settled in Basnkusu. Bolómba was temporarily
administered by Fons Ysebaert until 1999, when everybody fled the war and when the
parishes in the whole of the Bolómba deanery were taken on by the diocesan clergy.
After working fifteen years in the Djlu region and
fifteen years in the deanery of Bolómba, I started on
the third phase of my missionary life by taking up
residence in the new St Joseph’s house near the post
office in Basnkusu. Because of illness Kees de
Lange, the parish priest of Baríngá, had to leave for
Europe. Owing to other troubles in the parish, our
formation centre had to be closed and Gerrit, Ben and
the candidates moved to Basnkusu. Formation
continued in the visitors’ rooms of the Mill Hill house
and after acquiring a plot of land next to it, a new
formation centre was built there. Ben and myself were
together again but unfortunately this was only for a
short time. The second Congo war broke out and Ben
accompanied the candidates to the Cameroons via
Gbadolíte and Bángui as Basnkusu was taken by the
rebels. Because of the war and shortage of Mill Hill personnel a moratorium was put on the
formation in Congo. I stayed in the Mill Hill house and it was only in 2005 when we were
again allowed to send candidates for formation in East Africa. We gave them a course of four
months, just sufficient for them to find their way and continue in Uganda and Kenya.
War and illness reduced the number of Mill Hill missionaries to six and in 2006 we were only
four. In 2009 only John Kirwan and I myself were left.
In 1999 Bishop Mkb, the apostolic administrator, who was to succeeded Matóndo, asked
Mill Hill to continue the formation of missionary candidates. Our superior general and his
council finally agreed in 2009 and so the first Congolese Mill Hill missionary – Father Stan
Bondoko, ordained in 1998 – was appointed to Basnkusu. He had done ten years of
missionary work in East Africa. Before taking up his appointment he did a sabbatical year
and followed a one-year course in formation. He became my successor in 2010.
I could say farewell to John Kirwan and all my Congolese friends, knowing that the work
would continue. As the regular Sunday plane of the Filair company had crashed only a few
weeks earlier I would take the first plane which would come to Basnkusu. It came rather
unannounced so that I had to take leave on a Friday morning during the Eucharist in the
chapel of the Sisters of St Theresa, where I celebrated Mass almost daily for the last eight
years. Present were most of the sisters, some brothers, the three episcopal vicars and a few
lay people. The speeches were short but very emotional. I left for St Joseph house and after a
hasty breakfast took leave of the house personnel. At the airport more people turned up. A
last look at Basnkusu from the window of the little plane ! Goodbye, my dear people !
As Bishop Mkb was returning from a trip to Europe, he decided that my very last farewell
party would take place in Kinshásá at the diocesan procure, the day after his arrival. People
who originated from the diocese of Basnkusu and were then studying, working or just
staying in Kinshásá were invited.
About one hundred and eighty persons turned up amongst them even some Bongandó whom I
had baptised in the sixties or early seventies and who are now teaching at the university or
working in the government. This was a very moving occasion.
I left the Congo on 15 October 2010.
Harry Reusen, Oosterbeek, April 2011.
27. Johanna Theresia Lammerse:
Jo was born on 18/08/1927 in Bennebroek.
After a stint of missionary work in New Guinea and in
Tanzania, Ms Lammerse commonly called Tante Jo, was
brought into contact with Mill Hill. The first person she met
was Fr Dirk van Lammeren. He referred her to Fr Gerrit van
der Arend who invited her to participate in a programme for a
new school for catechists in Mampoko, in the diocese of
Basnkusu. The catechist school was to be known as CEFCAD (Centre d’Éducation et de
Formation des Catéchistes-animateurs de Développement).
She left Holland for Congo in the second half of 1969. She first followed a Lingála course in
Lovanium, Kinshásá.
The staff of the CEFCAD was the first in the diocese to use Lingála as its daily language.
They needed to do so since the Centre received candidates who spoke three different
languages namely Longandó, Lingmbe and Lmng.
When Bishop Matóndo, an outsider to the region, made his entry into the diocese (1975), he
made Lingála the sole liturgical language. Local hymns, prayers, readings and bibles needed
to be replaced by those in Lingála. The many efforts undertaken by the foreign missionaries
to acculturate the Good News were brought to an abrupt end without any consultation. The
beautiful hymns composed by Mr Lnkngi of Bokákata were heard no more.
The first course she participated in started in March 1970. Twenty catechists from all over the
diocese followed the course together with their spouses and children.
Jo’s task in the centre was to teach the catechists’ wives how to read and write, to cook, to
sew and mend clothes. She also taught hygiene and singing. As a great number of children
accompanied their parents to the course, Jo soon kick-started a nursery school led by two
local women. Usually a course lasted nine months. When their holidays were due, Father
Gerrit and Jo took their vacations in Holland initially at the same time. But they had hardly
left the premises when people broke into the convent and stole a great number of sowingmachines and other materials. From then on they would no longer go on holiday at the same
time for fear of leaving the CEFCAD unattended to.
Year after year catechists would come to upgrade themselves at the centre. In 1986 Father
Gerrit went on holiday and had to take good care of his health.
The new bishop, Ignace Matóndo, decided one day to close the Catechetical Centre since he
preferred to emphasise the role of Basic Christian Communities where, instead of a single
catechist, a great number of people would be responsible for the various activities in the
community. Because the catechists had to provide for their own upkeep in the villages as they
needed to set the example of enterprising men, in practice they used to bother the bishop for
more payment. Bishop Matóndo regarded them as a group of beggars who were a pain in the
neck instead of leading their communities in developing the region. That’s why he regarded
the CEFCAD as failing in its mission of producing development agents. When Matóndo was
consecrated bishop on 13 April 1975, the CEFCAD had been operative for five years. He
closed the facility eleven years after his arrival at Basnkusu namely in 1986.
Once while Fr Gerrit was away for a period of 8 months, Jo took care of the centre whilst a
herd of some three hundred sheep had to be looked after. These sheep were originally
acquired in Loángá, Bokákata, via the good offices of Fr Cas Sommeling. During the courses
sheep were killed on a regular basis to feed the catechists and their families. Jo assisted
sometimes even at night at the birth of lambs or when saving them from the attacks of safari
ants. When a mother sheep would die, Jo took personally care of the lambs by rearing them
on the bottle. She gave them the necessary injections and clipped the ears of the lambs so that
their lineage could be traced. On Sundays the sheep stayed within a limited area. Jo then
connected two batteries onto the electric fence and filled the water basins for the day. After
Mass, she used to prepare food for Fr Noordman in her house and at 4pm free the sheep to
roam around. She was assisted by Mr Boyaka who served as watchman and shepherd. One
day, when people broke into the premises and stole from the centre, Jo forced the thieves to
bring back the stolen items. Besides having a weak spot for the lambs and the sheep, Jo loved
her dogs too. At first she adored her small dog called Honnepon. Later she had a big dog
called Molía (the eater).
Jo collaborated in Mampoko mission with several Mill Hillers and volunteers:
1. Fr Gerrit van der Arend:
Gerrit was born on April 3rd, 1932 in Berkel and ordained on July 12, 1959.
It was Gerrit who invited Jo to assist him in the centre.
The centre used the convent built for the Sisters of Moorslede.
After three sisters (Sr Delporte, Sr Raphaël Barbaix and Sr
Chantal Vanlerberghe) drowned on the Lulónga River at the time
of the Múlele rebellion in September 1964, the Belgian sisters
did not return to Mampoko. They were so kind as to cede the
convent for the use of the CEFCAD. Father Gerrit had his living
quarters and his office in the spacious building. The sisters’
chapel was used by the catechists for their liturgical celebrations
and daily prayers. The rainwater captured from the roof of the
convent came in handy for the catechists and their families.
Gerrit was very creative at making booklets and didactic material. He had beautiful prints
depicting what could go wrong during a pregnancy and during malaria attacks. The material
was used in such a way that the participants, both men and women, once they would be back
in the villages, could use that material in small groups and discuss their traditional behaviour
in the light of modern insights. Gerrit would regularly organise discussion groups about the
positive and negative sides of their ancestral traditions. Gerrit became an expert in teaching
topics related to rural development.
The catechists received a limited amount of money with which they had to buy or prepare
their own meals. The women grasped the opportunity of making vegetable gardens behind
their houses.
Once the catechists were back in their villages, Gerrit took it upon himself to visit them
wherever they were, to see for himself whether the catechists were applying what they had
learnt at the CEFCAD.
Gerrit raised two bullocks which were trained to pull a cart. One of them got hurt in a fight
with its friend and had to be killed. The remaining bullock called Modónga was eventually
trained to pull a cart used for transporting bricks and sand. Whenever Modónga escaped from
the compound, Jo was called to bring it back. Brother Brian Thorp was too scared to handle
the animal. Gerrit’s nickname was Mn’pinga: a hard worker not relying on anybody’s help.
2. Fr Henk Noordman:
Henk was born in Hilversum on 27 Mai 1910. He was ordained on 12
July 1936. He worked for 56 years in Congo. He retired to
Oosterbeek, Holland, in 1992 where he died on 4 July 2000.
After having worked in Bolómba parish, he stayed for many years in
Mampoko where he was the parish priest. He was in charge of the
clinic on the mission compound. He specialised as an optician. With
the help of Memisa and others he helped hundreds and maybe
thousands of people with his spectacles. He had five small houses
constructed on the mission compound for as many lepers to whom he
also donated wheelchairs. Fr Noordman looked also after a small herd
of cows that grazed around the presbytery. These cows were an occasional source of meat for
the missionaries and their helpers. In order to help the people in his isolated parish Fr
Noordman opened a small shop which sold basic items like soap, salt, cloth, matches,
copybooks, pens and so on. He was assisted by a head catechist called Seka, by his trusted
mechanic Ernest Lombóto, the cook Pierre Etúmola and the salesman Alphons. Since
Mampoko mission is situated on the banks of the Lulónga River, Noordman made sure that he
had some outboard engines mounted on traditional dugouts. Regularly he went to Mbándáká
in order to buy supplies and to transport people from Basnkusu who would pass by when
there was no plane coming. His outboard engine was also used when someone was in dire
need of hospital treatment and had to be transported to Mbándáká. On one of those occasions
his pirogue overturned in the swift waters, losing its precious load including Henk himself
who barely managed to escape from underneath the dugout.
Fr Henk Noordman celebrated several of his jubilees in the parish and invited people from
nearby and far away. These celebrations were popular happenings. On one of those occasions
he was elevated to the rank of traditional chief called nkúmu. He thoroughly enjoyed the
honour. He knew the local customs well and though he knew the Lingmb language quite
well, he was an awful speaker of it. The liturgical changeover from Lingmb to Lingála after
the arrival of bishop Matóndo in 1975 led to still more difficulties. On Ash Wednesday he is
on record as saying: ´moto aútí na mabl, akozónga na mabl: you who came from the
breast will return to the breast, instead of saying ‘moto aútí na mabelé, akozónga na mabelé’:
you who came from the dust will return to the dust. Not observing the tonalities and the
differences between  and e or  and o can lead to confusion, anger or hilarity.
Thanks to the help of Fr Gerrit van der Arend the liturgical celebrations became alive through
different campaigns. One Palm Sunday people were invited to bring palm roofing for the
houses of the five lepers and deposit them at the altar whilst singing: ‘Hosanna, blessed he
who comes in the name of the Lord.’ During Lent, Stations of the Cross were erected around
the mission compound and prayers were said at each and all of them in spite of the blazing
sun. Henk’s nickname was Adngw : a huge fellow.
3. Fr Pierre Spanjers: born on 29 August 1937 at Herpen and ordained on 8 July 1962.
Pierre was the parish curate of Fr Henk Noordman. Pierre used to make pastoral visits to the
villages along the Lulónga River and to those scattered in the forest. He did so by canoe, on
foot or by bike. He had an excellent ear for picking the Lingmb, Lmng and Lingála
languages. He made a collection of Lingmbe proverbs. He made use of the help of a man
who had worked together with Fr Klaas Rood in Kdr and who was capable of putting
the tones on the Lingmb words.
When Fr Gerrit opened the Catechists’ Centre, he invited Pierre to teach certain courses like
liturgy, catechetics, bible and actual ethical questions. Pierre had a room in the presbytery.
When Gerrit took a sabbatical and followed a course at the Ggába Institute in Kénya, Pierre
took charge of the CEFCAD for a whole year. When Gerrit came back, he brought with him
some series of beautifully made drawings which people could utilise in the villages when
teaching about malaria, worm infections, baby food and so on.
4. Brother Piet van Vliet:
It was decided that Tante Jo would have her own small house near the CEFCAD. Brother Piet
van Vliet was so kind as to start the construction. Piet had come to Mampoko to teach the
catechists the principles of carpentry. But since their technical background was very basic,
Piet soon gave up his dream of instilling some knowledge into these men. He had problems
with his back and his stomach. He felt that Mampoko was not his ideal workplace and left for
the town of Basnkusu. Mr Herman Heymerikx, a Mill Hill associate member, finished the
construction of Jo’s abode.
5. Brothers Brian Thorpe and John Smith came to Mampoko in order to learn Lingála. After a
few months John Smith was appointed to Basnkusu whilst Brother Brian stayed on to
construct solid, permanent houses for the catechists. Brian had great difficulties in picking up
the local language and his communication with the catechists became sometimes strained. He
stayed at Mampoko for a period of about three years.
6. The nurse Riek van Koevorden came to assist Fr Noordman in running the mission clinic.
She stayed for one and half years. Later she came back for another spate of time. Marleen van
Pinxten replaced her. Since she had a friend, Wim Zwetsloot, who worked in Tanzania, she
did not stay at Mampoko for a long time.
7. Fr Marinus van Emmerik became the parish priest at Mampoko after having stayed at
Bolómba for a long period of time. He was not keen on looking after the cows on the mission
compound. One Sunday the herdsman, Mr Bonkau, refused to clean the cow stable saying
that the wheelbarrow had broken down. Jo Lammerse asked Marinus to do something about
the situation. Since by 4pm nothing had been done, Jo herself cleaned the stable.
Just like in our Christian Western world, the Bantu know a repeating iconoclasm which seems
to happen every fifty years. Old fetishes and amulets need to be discarded. Groups of young
people accompanied by prophets and diviners pass through all the villages to ‘detect, dig up
and destroy hidden medicine’. Locals need to contribute to the group so that they do not
starve in trekking from one village or from one region to another. When Marinus was parish
priest at Mampoko such a cleansing was operational in the whole of the Ngmb region from
Bolómba right up to Mampoko. The happening took place in the years 1986-1987. People
called it bosíngo, a Lmng word for dance.
At Mampoko these diviners and seers detected fetishes in and underneath fruit trees. They
found hidden objects even near altars in churches. Their objective was to cut those trees and
to dig up suspected locations in order to destroy all evil influences. When these youngsters
set about to cut a fruit tree near the Mampoko presbytery, Father Marinus confronted these
‘heathen’ practices by physically opposing the cutting down of the said tree. A clash was on:
on the one hand the Western Christian faith defended by Father Marinus and on the other
hand the Bantu conviction that evil influences had to be eliminated. Different interests were
playing and at stake. Who was to decide the battle between good and evil? Where was the
good and where was the evil? Marinus had no idea what was at stake and did not try to find
out. There was no dialogue between the two parties, neither by the iconoclasts nor by the
missionary. Marinus thought he had to be prophetic by opposing physically the heathen
practices. As a consequence the iconoclasts beat him up badly. The population thought to do
the right thing by eliminating all the evil influences of witchcraft. After eliminating the old
fetishes, the population needed to be protected again by new amulets against sorcerers and
witches or by the Holy Water of the missionary.
Father Marinus had made himself impossible in Mampoko and decided to leave the place. He
left in 1988.
8. Fr Frans Kwik spent three years (1988-1991) at Mampoko until he was sacked by Bishop
Matóndo. His stay at Mampoko is described in his personal story on pages 85-86.
9. Fr Kees Vlaming:
Kees succeeded Frans in Mampoko in 1991. Kees worked there well together with his cousin
Mariette; they had collected a good sum of money for the rehabilitation of schools and
clinics. But when Kees went on holidays, the local priest, who succeeded him, ‘ate’ all the
money.
10. Fr Hennie Slot:
Hennie spent a short time in Mampoko after having been in Baríngá
(1986) where he spent three months together with Hans Eykhout and
Gerda van Kerkhof, following a Lingála cours.
From Baríngá he went to the Bongandó region for a short time. From
there he came to Mampoko.
Return to Holland: When the catechetical centre had been closed by Bishop Matóndo and Jo
experienced serious health problems, she decided to go back to Europe. She had been
working in the missions for thirty years, starting off in New Guinea, continuing in Tanzania
and then working in Congo for eighteen years. She left Congo in 1987 and retired to
Wognum. When she suffered a stroke and could no longer live on her own, she was
welcome to stay in Vrijland and entered the Mill Hill community on 13 May 2005.
Interview by the editor.
28. Brother Otto Perfler:
I am born in the Tirol at Ausservillgraten on 15 September 1944. I take my solemn perpetual oath as
a Mill Hill Brother on 29 June 1969. At the same time I receive an appointment for Basnkusu
diocese.
Arriving in Congo on 6 March 1970, I am first assigned to Bonkita to look after the farm, since Br
Gerrit Gerritsen went on holiday. I feel clearly that it is not my vocation to plant grass. After a few
months I join Br Jan de Groot to look after the Mpoma garage at Basnkusu. Very soon I feel myself
at home. I enjoy the work of repairing the worn-out cars and small motorcycles. I love to improvise
when no ready solutions to solve mechanical problems are at hand.
I live for many years in the corner room of the visitors’ wing at Mpoma. Next to my room I take care
of a store of spare parts. Very soon I find out that it is impossible to have a good store of spare parts
when the diversity in cars and motorbikes is too great, because all the parts have to be ordered at
the Mill Hill house in Antwerp and to be sent to Congo from the Goemaerelei. These parts have to be
expedited by boat. It can take up to one year for the spare parts to arrive at Basnkusu. I advise the
mission personnel to order and buy only Puch mopeds. After the sturdy Land Rovers become too
expensive, I give the advice to change over to Toyota Land Cruisers. In this way I assure myself and
all of us that spare parts are most of the time available.
I feel it a privilege to be able to use my talents in the Mpoma garage. It is exciting for me to look for
solutions when serious challenges have to be addressed. The Mpoma garage services and repairs all
the cars in the diocese. Outsiders sometimes drop in, since there is no other garage in the diocese of
some 800 km long. I am assisted by helpful men who stay on the job for many years like Valentin
Bofósá, Raphael Isl, a certain Vincent, Libo and Fidèle Agbasówa.
All the time Bishop Matóndo is at Basnkusu, I
continue my service. The number of cars drops
gradually as the missionaries retire in considerable
numbers due to poor local and national leadership.
In May 1997 Kabíla’s soldiers come in shooting and
looting. The fleeing government troops do not
leave empty-handed. In November 1999 it is
Bémba who enters the stage. But whether it is
Mobútu’s, Kabíla’s or Bemba’s troops, they are all
tarred with the same brush: they enter and leave
shooting and looting.
On Pentecost Sunday 1999 I am sitting in my room when all of a sudden two armed Kabíla soldiers
enter. One of them directs his Kalashnikov at me whilst exacting money. I stand up and take 2000
francs from a small box in my cupboard and put these on the table. The man with the gun asks for
more. I reply: ‘That is all I have.’ He asks his friend whether he should kill me. There is a big silence. I
look straight at the man and he at me. The second soldier approaches the table, picks up the money
and says: ‘Let us go.’ The first soldier threatens me, saying: ‘I’ll get you alright. I’ll be back this
evening.’ They never come back. Fear grips me only later.
Bémba rebels confiscate a number of diocesan cars, which I have the honour of repairing for
nothing. For years on end neither Mobútu nor Kabíla nor Bémba repair the murram roads or the
numerous bridges. No wonder hardly any cars are to be seen in the region.
However, Bémba installs the first radio station in Basnkusu. It is called ‘Radio Liberté’. Satellite and
mobile telephones are allowed. The town becomes part of the world. However, Bémba’s soldiers are
never paid. That’s why they molest the women returning from their fields by forcing them to hand
over at least half of the produce they are carrying in their baskets. Even the produce in the gardens
and fields are uprooted. Nearly all women stop working in the fields. From time to time President
Bémba receives a room at the procure and spends there many nights. He never pays a penny.
With the arrival of Bishop Mkb who wants to have the missionaries replaced on all levels, things
change. One day, abbé Jean-Pierre Nkómbé, who replaces Jan van Luijk as the diocesan finance man,
announces to the workers in the garage that he is the boss in the garage and no one else. I invite the
man for a glass of beer and ask him what the announcement was all about. He retorts that I should
not get worked up about it. However, very soon the payment of the workers’ salaries is done by the
abbé. In fact the one who pays is the boss and loyal allegiance to him is required. I feel myself sidelined. Each time I want to take up money from the garage account, there is no cash available.
Obviously my time as leader in the garage has run out.
Mpoma House in 2009.
I start taking an interest in computers and teach
myself the secrets and intricacies of Windows. I
start teaching others like the Religious Sisters
how to make use of a computer.
The diocesan financial man wants also to take
over the running of the Mpoma kitchen. But
here I put a veto at the proposition. Brother
Marinus and myself insist on deciding ourselves
what we are to eat. Out of our own pockets we continue to pay the kitchen personnel until we leave.
Bishop Mkb seems to find it hard to handle his financial secretary, Jean-Pierre Nkómbé, who has
taken over from Jan van Luijk and has in fact continued the same system. Jean-Pierre receives an
appointment to Byng parish and is replaced by Abbé Corneille Bolenga.
Marinus and myself decide to leave Congo together. However, as Marinus suffers from severe aches
in one of his knees, he departs two months earlier.
I leave Congo on 30 April 2008 after 38 years of continuous service and move into St Jozefhuis,
Oosterbeek, Holland, where I continue assisting people with minor computer problems.
Interview by the editor.
P.S. His local nickname was Otto Lokóká, being named after someone at Lisáfá carrying that name.
29. Piet de Moel:
Having read David Van Reybrouck’s book ‘Congo, a History’, it is now perhaps my
turn to describe the time I spent in that same country.
Missionaries all over the world have written down stories. Their stories were
sometimes curious, often fascinating. When finishing primary school, I had to
make a choice concerning my future profession. I was facing the questions: ‘What
do I want to be?’ ‘How do I continue my education?’ At that time the church was
very much present in people’s daily lives. The desire to become a missionary and
to opt for a seminary was not that extraordinary. In every town or village some
men or women had joined missionary congregations and had been sent out all over the world. Often
they were of a special calibre with adventurous inclinations and they knew how to narrate tall and
fascinating stories. That sort of life attracted me and so, still a little boy, I joined our Mill Hill
seminary in Hoorn.
I entered a closed setting which, nowadays, we regard differently from how we experienced it in
those days. We spent our time on study, sports and communal prayer. Moreover, in Hoorn and in
Tilburg I spent many hours in the gardens which had to be cleaned and planted. Our time in
Roosendaal (philosophy) was fascinating on account of studying in an international setting with
young men from England and Ireland. After Roosendaal we crossed over to England in order to study
theology in Mill Hill, London. Our college was an impressive building on top of a hill, from where one
could, so to say, drop to the depths below. I experienced that time as a mixture of good and evil. We
were a big group of young men of various nationalities preparing ourselves for missionary activities.
Where exactly I would be sent, I did not know and what it all meant remained rather vague. Some of
the classes were boring. Certain teachers, however, knew how to inspire. Some of them, spurred on
by Vatican II, tried to break new grounds. Our community opened itself more and more to the
outside world. In my last year we were, for a few months, permitted to do pastoral work in a London
parish. For me it was quite a revelation.
I felt a sense of relief when the end of our studies came in sight and my appointment was in the
offing. We were allowed to express our preference. I opted for Congo and Congo it turned out to be.
On 4 July 1970 I was ordained a priest in my home parish. Those were very special days, notably for
my parents. I was to receive an opportunity to learn more French, but things changed all of a sudden
when a Congo missionary, Fr Jozef Mous, fell ill. Fr Joop Deen expressed his wish to have another
Mill Hiller next to him. He felt that the workload was too big for a single person. Without any French
classes, I headed for Congo in October 1970. My trip to the airport in Zaventem (Belgium) took place
in pouring rain.
When the door of my plane opened in Léopoldville, I stepped into a warm atmosphere that
promised a different sort of life. Now real life was to commence. At first I looked around in
amazement as I found myself in a completely different world. Then I was still in a big city, but things
were to change even more drastically a few days later when I flew to Basnkusu. The bishop decided
to send me first to Waka to study the rudiments of the local language, Lmng. Fr Marinus
Boonman was there. He was known to be an expert in that tongue, though he left the job of
instructing me to his catechist. It did not take long before he told me that, in his opinion, I knew
enough and that Fr Joop would be very happy to have me in Baríngá. I was quite pleased with this
information. I prefer to pick things up as I go along instead of sitting down and swotting a text or a
dictionary. And it would turn out to be a very happy time indeed.
Joop had been busy doing all kind of things and was glad to receive a helping hand. In the course of
the years I came to realise what a marvellous thing it is to have a good colleague; his presence
created room to develop my talents. Joop took me as I was. We had basic things in common:
respecting each other, working hard and no whining. In the first place we both shared the
responsibility for the parish of a length of 100 km. On a regular basis we spent the weekends visiting
the villages where we conferred with the catechist about possible activities. Celebration of the
Eucharist and infant baptisms were always high on the agenda.
Construction of a large church at Lifumba.
Bishop Matóndo and I came to bless the church.
At the parish headquarters we divided the workload. Joop took care of any technical activities and I
looked after the plot and the farm. For the cows we needed to construct a good shelter, to cater for
sufficient and better meadows and sturdy fences. We started also a sheep farm. Our sheep had
lambs twice a year and it took only one workman to look after them. Henri Lombóto did this job
faithfully for many years.
In the parish we were responsible for the running of the Catholic schools. We paid the teachers and
made sure there was enough school material both for the teaching staff as well as for the pupils. We
also made sure that the boys and girls at the secondary boarding-school had sufficient food. Abbé
Albert was the headmaster, but we helped him by buying cassava in the villages. We took care to
fetch the teachers’ salaries at a distance of 200 km and to pay the teachers in cash including
transporting the money into the villages. Moreover, we paid cash money to the old-age pensioners.
Whilst transporting all that money, we never faced any threat on the road. Really unbelievable now
that I come to think of it. In other countries thugs would have broken up one of the numerous
bridges and gotten hold of the big catch of money.
Of course we were sometimes confronted with politics. We felt, as it were, the invisible power that
destroyed the structures of that immense country. Mobútu became more and more the all-powerful
ruler. His successes went to his head and he used any means to stay in power. One of those means
was his drive for authenticity. Christian names became strictly forbidden. I discovered that move
when I celebrated the Eucharist in one of the villages and baptised some children giving them
Christian names. After the service soldiers waited for me and forced me to drive with them to the
‘Zone’ town of Befale. Happily enough they let me off the hook and I could return to Baríngá in the
afternoon. But they did not forget to inform me that I had to report to the District official in Boéndé.
Joop was so kind to accompany me and the problem sizzled out. The official reproached me and told
me to listen better to the national radio. Priests were later warned that they would face five years’
imprisonment if caught baptizing a Zairian child with the name of a
European saint.
Mobútu’s policies turned into a complete disaster when he nationalised
all the enterprises that still existed, and handed them out to his cronies.
More often than not that proved to be the end of the business.
My mother came to visit me.
When I arrived in Congo, the liturgy hardly contained any African elements. Things changed rapidly
when bishop Matóndo took over the diocese and the Zairian rite was introduced. The move was
greatly welcomed. It gave the celebrations a warm and a lively character and linked up with people’s
life and experience. What people felt within could be expressed physically. They sang and danced
whilst putting their hearts and souls into what they were doing. There were even children attending
Protestant schools who, against the wishes of their headmaster, came to our celebrations, because
they were so attractive. The mutual relationship between Protestant and Catholic Churches is
another story altogether. In Baríngá village the Protestant Mission was important on account of
their hospital. In our days the competitiveness between our two faiths turned into a good
relationship. This happened in a natural way by a good mutual contact between us and the Markins,
the Rooneys and the young Swiss couple Roland and Ellen. They were part of a new generation of
Protestants who fostered respect for anybody willing to work for a better world. I often had a good
laugh with them, visited them in Paris and Switzerland and went on holidays with them in Spain.
To take care of myself, living a simple life, in need of little, in the
midst of nature and in Joop’s company, it all became very dear to
me and gave me a wonderful time. I was allowed to be the
person I was. I enjoyed that freedom. Joop’s departure for Befale
brought about a great change for me, because we had not only
encouraged each other, but we knew how to relax together by
playing many games of table-tennis. After Joop left, Ben van
Schaik made his entrance. Ben never managed to open up and
soon went back to Europe on account of health problems.
As I am at present in 2011.
At the end of 1984 I left Baríngá in order to reflect on which course of life I would follow. It was a
difficult period but in the end I decided to quit Mill Hill Society and to follow another way of life.
Amazingly, I ended up doing pastoral work but this time within the confines of nursing homes.
People ask me often: ‘How was your time in Congo?’ I can and must say: ‘It was the nicest time of
my life.’ I would not like to have missed it. I was young, healthy and strong, scared of nobody. Life
was a great adventure in an unbelievably natural environment with very special people with a
culture of their own. They became very positive people if and when life smiled on them by providing
them with healthy children and relatives. They felt happy and content when their fields yielded
sufficient crops to feed their families and to sell part of the harvest. They were content with little as
long as they had food for the day. Tomorrow was another day. They did not feel pressurised since
they were not part of any commercial enterprise. They lived in God’s own garden, though that was
an immense tropical forest that demanded a lot but also gave a lot and that in great freedom.
In Congo I never played the role of the traditional priest who tells people how to behave. I found my
spirituality in being connected to people. How people interact and assist one another is for me a
religious expression of being connected to God wherever one is, works or lives. If one wants to keep
Jesus’ message alive, one needs to direct one’s life towards encouraging people and thus improving
their well-being. This I have experienced in my later life too when being a spiritual caretaker in
nursing homes where I met youngsters attacked by incurable diseases or victims of accidents or
violence; there I found elderly who had come to say farewell to life or who could not think clearly
anymore and roamed around trying to find their way. I was privileged to be near them in their pains.
I still felt myself the missionary that I was in Congo, being present to people and letting God happen.
Love, faith and hope are seldom regarded as being useful, but time and again these qualities prove
to give sense to life. One appreciates special periods in one’s life once they are over. This holds good
for my time in Congo as well as for the time I spent working in nursing homes. This experience
strengthens my conviction that whatever one does wholeheartedly, is of great profit to oneself and
to others.
Piet de Moel.
Eindhoven. May 2011.
30. Father Jim Fanning:
At Bokkata.
The Congo first came into my consciousness in 1960 when I was ten when I heard
of the fighting at the time of Independence; then at the age of fourteen I learnt
from the television about the rebellion and the killings in Stanleyville (later known
as Kisangáni) and the loss of some of our missionaries when the rebels arrived in the Basnkusu
Diocese. I had begun to visit St Joseph’s College at that time of 1964 and John Kirwan was known to
me through the Mill Hill Students’ involvement in our Mill Hill Parish (especially in Holy Week for
singing the Passion). I remember him giving me details one day when I was coming back from school
on the 251-bus from Burnt Oak where I had bumped into him. Our home was at one end of Mill Hill
Broadway and St Joseph’s College at the other end. After deciding to join the Mill Hill Missionaries in
1966 I began to hear the music from the Misa Lúba from Congo and to learn how the Mass could
sound with an African drumbeat.
I remember one morning during Mass when Fr Brian Coogan gave us the story of how one of our
missionaries, Fr Santbergen, was killed by the rebels in Yambóyó parish. It was only when I went to
Roosendaal to study philosophy that the possibility came up of actually visiting the Congo when it
was included as an option along with Uganda and the Cameroons in our ‘Stage’ programme (now
called Mission Experience Programme or MEP). I was chosen because of my knowledge of French
and my own interest.
Part I Nov. 1970 – Feb. 1971:
The trip was a real adventure and I fell in love with the place as soon as I landed. I went there with
another student called Pim Lindner, who came from The Hague. We had been prepared well in
Roosendaal to have a positive attitude towards the new peoples and cultures that we would meet:
not to be afraid to try new foods, new languages, and new customs. We did not go to condemn but
to save: in true gospel fashion. It was exciting to land in a totally different culture to the one in
which I had grown up.
I am English from the concrete jungle of London, where the Catholics were a small but strong part of
a generally Protestant nation. Many people live in isolated pockets, although right next to one
another and each man’s house is his castle. Mill Hill was once described by a Dutch seminarian as a
place of fat schoolboys and dogs! I would probably know school friends on the other side of London
before I knew my neighbours in the same street where I lived.
The country of Congo quickly won our hearts with its welcoming, affectionate and free living people.
I loved the waving palm trees of the tropical thunderstorms, the colours, the smells and the music,
the dress and the foodstuffs of the people, the giant Congo River which snakes across the whole
northern part of the country. Religion seemed such a joy to them. It was still the glory days of
President Mobútu. We were in the company of Fr Frans de Vrught, who was returning from the 1970
Renewal Chapter, Frans Helmes, who was returning from his home leave, and Piet de Moel, a newly
ordained priest, coming to the Congo for the first time. Fr Jan Spaas was there at the airport to meet
us and take us to the procure in the middle of the city.
The day after we landed the country celebrated five years since his arrival in power after a military
coup. Mozambique and Angola had just got their independence from Portugal and the Portuguese
embassy, which was adjacent to the Procure Sainte Anne where we stayed, seemed to have been
gutted in the process. There was a very big American Embassy in Léopoldville supporting the
Mobútu regime in its fight against Communism. I remember drinking ‘Primus’ beer from specially
decorated glasses to mark the ‘Cinquième Anniversaire du MPR’. We went for sundowners on the
broad central ‘Boulevard 30 Juin’ and purchased peanuts from the passing peddlers. The 1920 four-
story procure building overlooked the great Congo River with a view of Brazzaville in the distance.
We were meant to stay only three days there but ended up spending ten days because of an abrupt
cancellation of our flight to Basnkusu. We took advantage of the occasion by visiting the capital.
We went out to the Mobútu gardens at Nsele which had vast swimming pools, conference halls and
bars for the tourists. The statue of Stanley was still standing proudly on the River bank and we went
out to the University of Lovanium where one of the Abbés called Martin Egbango was studying. He
had grown up in Byng parish at the time of Frans de Vrught.
Eventually we got the plane from Ndjili airport to Basnkusu which was deep in the rain forest, at
the junction of two rivers: the Lopolí and the Lulónga. It was a two-hour flight with a stopover in
Coquilhatville. We landed around midday.
The contrast between the asphalt airport of Léopoldville and the murram airstrip of Basnkusu
indicated to me how much we were leaving behind the luxuries of the Western world. Our newly
appointed Councillor for Africa, Fr Desmond Sullivan, was just completing his first visit to Basnkusu
and was to leave on the same plane that had brought us and I was able to have a chat with him. I
asked him how Basnkusu compared with our other missions and he said it was like Cameroon must
have been 50 years ago! The place had not moved on much from the mud houses, roofed with
plaited palm fronds and dirt-tracks. In fact Basnkusu was not more than a glorified village
compared to the big city we had just left.
Basnkusu is a glorified village!
We were collected in a Land Rover and taken a couple of kilometres to the procure and the bishop’s
residence at Mpoma where I was treated to my first Basnkusu meal. Instead of potatoes we had
cassava. There was plenty of meat and fish. I tasted tropical fruits of rambutan, soursop, sweet
apples and pawpaws, which I had never seen before and enjoyed very much. The procure building
was made of burnt red bricks and the roof from clay tiles. There was a veranda round the house
which could have five or six occupants. The community used to sit out at the front on a widened part
to have a drink before lunch and after supper. At that time Bishop van Kester was resident there and
so the meals were at the bishop’s table. We said prayers in the bishop’s chapel and stayed in the
visitors’ house between the chapel and the procure (diocesan store). Behind the procure were the
garage and the carpentry shop where Mill Hill Brothers worked.
My first impressions of the people were of the Mng women passing through the compound in the
evening bringing their foodstuffs back from the fields they had cultivated deep in the forest. ‘Losáko’
they would call, which was the greeting of respect asking me for my adage. I felt great respect
towards them especially when I saw them coming back in the evenings with such heavy loads of
firewood in their baskets on their backs after a day’s hard work in the fields. In the early morning
they would pass going to the fields and so we would greet. ‘étswa?’ have you woken up? And the
answer was ‘ooo….’ Yes!
Very soon we were off to begin a big tour of the diocese which would last over three months. The
first place was Bonkita where a full-scale minor seminary was functioning on the raised bank of the
Lulónga River. We had a superb view of the Lulónga originating from Basnkusu and stretching into
the distance for a few kilometres. But it was in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the river there
was only a dirt-track through the forest which connected us with Basnkusu 16 km away. No TV, no
newspapers, no supermarkets; the only contact was through the daily radio-call which had been
installed in every mission to help the members in isolated missions to keep contact with one
another. There was of course the world service of the BBC and the mail which came in with the
‘weekly’ plane.
Some of the fathers teaching in the seminary found it hard there, day in day out, always the same
routine, very few visitors and very few boys interested in going on for the priesthood after finishing
their final exams. Most boys chose to go on to university rather than opt for the major seminary. It
required a high degree of determination and commitment on the part of the missionaries to keep
going. I remember meeting Jan Hendriks, Cees Castricum, Wim Beentjes, Fons Mertens and Dick van
Veen. Brother Gerrit Gerritsen was looking after the farm and the general maintenance of the place.
The stories were still fresh of the Independence and the rebellion of 1964 although things seemed to
have become peaceful under Mobútu.
Of course tropical sicknesses had to be watched out against especially malaria and so we slept under
mosquito nets. I had to take my daily anti-malaria pill and the doses were double what normally
were given because of the great numbers of mosquitoes from the swampy surroundings.
A landing site
From Bonkita we went by boat with Fr Henk Noordman the next day downstream to Mampoko
amongst another tribe called the Ngmb. It took us about five hours in the blazing sun and I quickly
learnt the importance of covering up with long-sleeved shirts and big hats on such journeys. I
remember kilometres and kilometres of rain forest, dodging in and out of sand banks. It was a pity
that our outboard motor made such a noise; otherwise we would have heard the enchanting sounds
of the rain forest. Sometimes when we stopped, we heard the screeches of birds, the rustles of the
monkeys in the trees, and saw the kingfishers and eagles diving for fish and the odd reptile
submerging itself in the water. The water was of a reddish colour from the roots of trees but quite
clear and even drinkable, though it had a slightly bitter taste.
After five hours we arrived at Mampoko. It sat high on the river bank with the familiar red brick
buildings surrounding it. I was fascinated how the Mill Hill missionaries had established a network of
parishes right across a stretch of 1,000 kilometres. Here was another one almost fifty years old,
served only by river transport. Our stay there was to be for two weeks. I remember the regular
weekly ferry passing with all sorts of visitors and wares. It reminded me of the flat bottomed boats
that I had seen in pictures of the Mississippi driven by burning logs which they picked up at each
port.
Mampoko had become the new Catechist Training Centre for the diocese. Henk Noordman was the
parish priest, Gerard van der Arend, the one in charge of the CTC and Pierre Spanjers, his assistant.
Miss Jo Lammerse, a lay volunteer, was there working a lot with women. Our stay coincided with St
Nicolas celebrations (5th December) and we enjoyed all the fun of Santa Klaus and Zwarte Piet and
presents on the open veranda of Mampoko. I also remember going out in a small boat for swims in
the river most afternoons with Pierre Spanjers and small boys from the mission. We would swim
with swimming trunks but these little ones used to swim as they were born! Mampoko seemed to be
just mission buildings of burnt bricks in a clearing of the rain forest.
Sadly the sisters’ convent was now empty because of the loss of some sisters by drowning in 1964
when they were trying to get away quickly by boat at the time of the rebellion. It was now part of
the Catechist Training Centre.
A big adventure was going one weekend to a distant village along the river for the Sunday Mass. We
brought our own food (which we called chópo) along with a mission cook and we stayed in a mud
house in the ‘interior’ as we used to call the journeys into the rain forest. People showed their
happiness in seeing us by bringing eggs, pineapples and chickens as gifts for our visit. The villages
comprised of just small houses made from sun-dried bricks and palm-frond roofs. Most people were
either fishermen or hunters. They recalled names of missionaries of long ago. The Mass was very
lively with songs in Lingmb language always sung to the rhythm of drums. People have talking
drums here and they can communicate messages from village to village by beating out certain
rhythms on their drums. It is said that Independence in 1960 was announced across the rain forest
by drum beats.
When they learnt I was English they recalled Père Coulthard who had worked in Mampoko for many
years. They mostly associated English with Protestants and were happy to meet another English
Catholic. Whilst there had been a few English and Irish Catholic missionaries in the early days of the
diocese, their numbers had declined in favour of a Dutch presence as it was said that the Dutchmen
were better able to work in the Belgian environment than the British or Irish.
After two weeks we said goodbye to Mampoko, returned upstream towards Basnkusu and
disembarked at Bôsóndjafó where Fr Emile van de Hart was waiting for us to take us deep into the
interior to a mission called Abunákombo. Pim continued onto Basnkusu from where he went to the
other end of the diocese among the Bongandó people.
It was at Abunákombo that I began to sense a lot of gloominess about mission work. Things were not
really working out as the missionaries had hoped. There were only five African priests and relations
with them were not good. There was a lot of questioning about celibacy and many missionaries were
pushing for the ordination of married catechists to carry on their work. Another issue was money.
Whilst many missionaries from Europe had income from benefactors, the African Fathers had
nothing like that. Father Emile van der Hart was not really a happy man. There was also an ex-priest
who stayed in the parish on a plantation; we went to have a meal with him and he was terribly
negative about Africa and the Africans. I found it all quite hard to take and in fact became quite
gloomy.
I was happy when the opportunity came before Christmas to go to Bolómba parish on the banks of
the Ikelemba River and join Fr Fik Smit who was preparing for the Christmas safari in Byng. Fr
Marinus van Emmerik was his assistant; he had suffered a car accident just before I arrived but he
had not been too badly injured.
Byng was a four-hour journey downstream from Bolómba. It was an abandoned parish because
of its remoteness and the shortage of priests after the rebellion. Many missionaries had gone back
to Europe or had been appointed somewhere else. It was there I was treated to entertainments of
dancing and for the first time I saw girls dancing with bare breasts.
Christmas Day was preceded by hours of confessions for Fik. He heard so many confessions he lost
hearing in one ear because of a cold he had. I remember Christmas Day Mass comprised baptisms,
weddings and first communions. It lasted hours. After that we had a Christmas lunch of beautiful fish
from the river and then a long siesta on dirty wooden beds under a grotty mosquito net. I tried to
hear Queen Elizabeth’s speech on the BBC at 3pm but the network was not very good. Such was my
first Christmas Day away from UK!
Ngmb women dancing.
From Byng I went back to Bolómba and then back to Abunákombo and eventually headed for
Basnkusu. Frans de Vrught had come down with a heavy dose of malaria and so took time to come
and collect me. We passed through Bokákata where we spent a night at the secondary school.
It was a Teacher Training School. Fathers Jaap Kroon, Louis van der Meij, Ben Jorna and Cas
Sommeling were on the staff. At the parish was Jan Smit. One of Jan’s opening remarks was: ‘you
won’t change them, you know’! For me it summed up the feeling of despair that was around in the
diocese. He was referring to the disappointments that the missionaries felt when they saw the
country slowly deteriorating and the local clergy not living up to the expectations of the
missionaries. The night at the secondary school was quite sombre with little conversation during
recreation as everybody was reading his own book. I was reminded by some staff members of a
previous visit by a former superior general, Gerry Mahon, who had won the love of the students by
donating them a school radio. In fact it was Fr Mahon who had organised for the radio-call to be
installed in all the parishes of the diocese after the 1964 rebellion when the missionaries were under
attack and had no way of knowing what was going on in other missions.
From Bokákata we headed 40 kilometres back to Basnkusu. I had a day or two there at the procure
before continuing on to the east of the diocese. Fr Frans Kwik was active there in the schools. I
remember he had a lot of recorders in his house for teaching music. I also remember going with
Father Toussaint Goessens to the sisters' convent every morning in his big jeep. Toussaint was in
charge of schools at that time. He was a very nice man but too much of a perfectionist which was to
cause him a health breakdown a few years later.
The next parish was Waka where I met Marinus Boonman and Dick van der Riet. The people had just
killed a python after it had eaten a dog and the body was stretched out and cut open and the dead
dog was exposed.
After - or was it before? - Waka I remember calling in at a oil palm plantation in a big clearing in the
forest. There was a big factory turning the palm nuts into palm oil. It employed a few hundred
workers. I remember noticing that, when the forest was cleared, the whole landscape was dotted
with big anthills!
There was a young newly-married Belgian couple working there and they were friends of Fr Dick. I
felt they were in a nicely secluded and very sweltering part of the world to start their married life.
From Waka we went onto Baríngá, where Joop Deen was parish priest and Piet de Moel had been
assigned his assistant. Baríngá is one of the oldest parishes and it is accessible both by road and
river. There is also a big Protestant Mission there and was the place where, around 1900, the
Commission of Inquiry against the atrocities of King Léopold II got their evidence of hands being
chopped off if the people did not bring enough rubber. Up to very recently the relations between
the Catholics and Protestants had not been good with stories of Catholic priests being told to ‘do
their stuff’ (i.e. administer the last rites to Catholic Christians) in the bush, outside the hospital wards
of the Protestant hospital. Whilst there were still some tensions, there were now some notable
exceptions. We had supper one of the evenings in the Protestant compound.
Joop was a hard-headed but generous native from North-Holland. Having come to Congo in 1958
just before Independence, he had suffered during the transition of power in 1960, having been
rounded up and beaten by soldiers and paraded with other whites in the town without clothes.
However, he never spoke of those experiences. He was a rough but practical man and not giving
much time to the rosary or even the breviary. He had been influenced by the worker-priest idea of
France. Whilst he had been on leave he had done a short course in medicine and had a small
dispensary on the compound. He had also set up his own garage for repairing the Land Rover and
had introduced a strain of cattle into the mission which could survive the harsh rain forest though
would not give milk. Joop had cleared a big section of the forest for pasturelands and Fr Piet de Moel
enthusiastically took over the management of the farm. Joop took me to some of the interior
churches; Mongeféma was one and I remember sitting in the catechist’s house whilst Joop heard
confessions for hours. I started reading a book until a youth came in and asked if I wasn’t bored. I
said ‘No, I have my book.’ He said: ‘But people are better than books’ and I had to agree. It was at
Baríngá that I began to breathe again after the pessimism of Abunákombo.
From Baríngá to Mmpn I got a lift in a big lorry from a Belgian who was married to a Congolese.
He had lived for several years with his wife in Belgium and they had several half-caste children who
had now grown up. Fr Frits Albada Yelgersma - a Friesian with a great laugh and love of life - was the
pastor at this place. I had a pleasant week or so with him and heard many wonderful stories. For the
first time in my life I saw a pig being slaughtered and enjoyed home-made pressed brain. Frits was
also good at pulling teeth on the veranda or the barza as it was called, when the people came in the
mornings in pain with a swollen jaw.
He also fascinated me with his model railway train which he had set out in one of the rooms. Of
course it could only run when the generator was going and that meant after nightfall. It was at
Mmpn that I observed the very fast sunset on the equator. Within ten minutes of the sunset we
had nightfall and the concomitant sound of crickets and the emergence of fireflies with an in-built
glow. Frits challenged me about my studies. He maintained I didn’t need to go back to Europe for all
those extra theological studies. He maintained they were not much use for me in the Congo! I should
just come out and start working now. I think he echoed the belief of many missionaries that much of
what they had learnt in theology in the seminary was not very helpful for life in the rain forest. We
would be better learning on the spot!
Risky bridges on the way.
From Mmpn I went onto Lingm in Bongandó land where Fathers Jan Zegwaart and Frans
Helmes were staying. There was a good spirit between them, almost like a father and son. It seemed
a cosy place deep in the forest i.e. a lot of forest right up to the parish house.
The lorry pushed on the next day to Djlu, which was the Bongandó district HQ for the government.
For the first time I saw some hills in the rain forest. Djlu parish was built on a hill. It had more
modern buildings than the rest as it was a relatively new mission. Brother Marinus was there with
Father Flip van Leeuwen. Then I proceeded to Yambóyó to Fr Kees Vlaming. Yambóyó was where Fr
Santbergen had been murdered in 1964 and his grave stands high outside the church. Kees had done
a course in medicine and ran a good dispensary on the parish compound where I saw rubber trees
for the first time and saw how the sap was extracted from the trunks by piercing the bark and
putting a little cup under the perforation to catch the sap as it bled out from the tree. Also at
Yambóyó there were the remains of the dam that the missionaries had made some years earlier for
catching the water for pisciculture and also for having a good swimming area.
From Yambóyó I then went onto Yalisere where I found Pim Lindner at last. Yalisere was a big oldfashioned house and church. Unfortunately the church had collapsed in a storm and so Mass was
celebrated in a temporary shelter. Yalisere was known for lightning strikes. Therefore the mission
was protected by tall palm trees round the compound. The one painful memory of my visit was of
my nice new towel which came back from the wash in tatters when one over-enthusiastic servant
had used stones to clean it and destroyed the whole fabric! I remember Fr Piet van Run there but
forget who else was there.
The next day Pim and I set out on the return journey; first to Mmpn, then to Befale, where we
met Fr Niek Koelman. Befale had been a model village of the rain forest, in the time of the Belgians,
built with money from ‘Le Fonds du Bien-être Indigène’. Big decaying colonial houses peered out of
the fast- overgrowing forest and spoke of a time of high colonialism. The sisters’ convent had been
abandoned in 1964 after the rebels overran it and mistreated the Van Asten Sisters from Holland.
The sisters pulled out and never came back. Niek Koelman was staying in the former chaplain’s
house.
After a night in Befale we went onto Baríngá, Waka and Basnkusu. The road was still quite good
being maintained by the ‘Office des Routes.’
In Basnkusu we had to wait for the weekly plane to take us back to Léopoldville. When all was
ready and packed and we had even put our bags in the hold of the aeroplane ready for departure,
we were suddenly informed that a big delegation of government officials was to have all the seats.
Since time did not allow us to retrieve our baggage from the hold, we saw the plane lift off without
us and carry all our belongings to the capital. We were stranded for another week!
It was an interesting week, however, since Fr Toussaint Goessens took it upon himself to show us
around. We visited Basnkusu parish which was run by Abbé Joseph, one of the first parishes to be
Africanised. We also visited the Ten Bunderen Sisters’ convent where Belgian Sisters were running a
girls’ secondary school called Lotsíng’sng. They also were accepting local girls into their semienclosed congregation.
Fr Toussaint treated us to film shows he got from the British embassy in Léopoldville. He first had a
showing at Mpoma for the elite of the town and then later displayed the film on the outside of the
cathedral door for the general population. Films about wildlife in Scotland created a lot of shouting
when people saw a deer quietly grazing in the woods without being killed. ‘Kill it! Kill it!’ were the
cries of the people and they couldn’t understand why the animal was allowed to escape back to the
Balmorals Estate! Great squeals of pleasure went up when a fight between a mongoose and a snake
was screened as though they were watching a boxing match!
Waiting a week with no extra clothes caused quite some problems for me as Basnkusu has a very
high degree of humidity and clothes need to be changed every day. Of course I had to borrow from
the missionaries until I could get my own. A particular worry for me were the two pineapples I had
left in my suitcase. What would they be like after a week’s storage in Léopoldville airport?
Finally our real day for departure came and we lifted off into the skies. We managed to retrieve our
bags and we had time to check the contents before connecting with the night flight for Europe. The
pineapples were beginning to rot but had not yet done damage to the other contents of the bags.
Sadly I had to dump them before boarding the international flight to Brussels and went home to
England with only stories and without any tropical fruit that I had wanted to take home. It was
February 1971.
Part II: Appointment to Basnkusu, in April 1975 as a Priest.
A very different place: Politics
The Congo that I returned to four years later as a priest was a very different place to the one I had
left as a student. The name had been changed from ‘The Democratic Republic of Congo’ to ‘The
Republic of Zaire’; the currency had been changed from the Congolese franc to the zaire. The Congo
River had also been renamed Zaire River and Léopoldville was now Kinshásá. There was a big thrust
towards African authenticity spearheaded by President Mobútu who had also changed his name
from Joseph Désiré Mobútu to Mobútu Sése Sékó, Kúkú Ngbendu wa za Bánga (the all-powerful
warrior who is like the dominant rooster). Almost like a cultural revolution, anything that was
considered European was frowned upon. The national dress became the famous ‘abacos’ (à bas le
costume) suit with a neck scarf replacing the familiar Belgian collar and tie. All European Christian
names were deemed foreign and so people had to revert exclusively to their traditional village
names. Even Christmas had been relegated to a working day and the political party ‘le Mouvement
Populaire de la Révolution’ (MPR) was exalted as the new structure for the development of the
country. Many of these new ideas were influenced by Maoist China where the political party was
totalitarian and supreme. President Mobútu had started making trips to that country because of
growing hostilities towards him from the Western governments for his autocratic and kleptomaniac
rule.
He then turned against the Churches and accused them of not being authentically African and
proceeded to remove any control they had remaining from the colonial days. Courses in the
philosophy of Mobútu, i.e. ‘Mobutism’ replaced teaching of religion in schools. All Christian youth
movements were banned in favour of the youth movement of the national party: ‘Jeunesse du
Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution’ (JMPR).
Far more devastating for the economy, however, were the changes in the field of the private sector
of big businesses. In the name of authenticity all companies were to be ‘Africanised’ which meant
downright expropriation. Expatriate managers of practically all lucrative and successful companies
were to hand over management, virtually overnight, to Zairians, whether they were qualified,
experienced, or not. This began to have disastrous effects on many companies especially in the rain
forest where competent managers could not be found and businesses were totally mismanaged,
running up huge debts and were doomed to close down.
The Church:
On the Church level, Cardinal Malúla had been forced to flee to the Vatican when he had opposed
the president for setting up cells of his political party even in the major seminaries. Just before my
arrival Mobútu had called a big meeting of all the citizens of Kinshásá in the national stadium where
he wanted to put further proposals to them. Although his innovations in replacing expatriates with
Zairian personnel was still somehow popular, when he asked whether he should now proceed to
send away expatriate missionaries, there was a general booing from the crowd and this made him
stop in his tracks and put off, mercifully for me, further plans of 'africanisation'!
Departure of Bishop van Kester:
The Church scene in Basnkusu had also changed. Bishop van Kester had bowed out of the See of
Basnkusu unceremoniously a year earlier when tensions had reached a pitch in the demands for an
African bishop. Never a very extrovert man, he had felt insecure with the worsening political
situation and the bad relationship between the diocesan priests and the Mill Hill missionaries. One
day he just drove to Bonkita and went with the outboard motor to Mbándáká, where he boarded a
plane for Kinshásá, and from there on to Europe. He was gone before people realised he had left. He
had had enough and left the papal nuncio in Kinshásá to find a suitable successor for him.
It was a very difficult moment because the schools had just been nationalised and things belonging
to the diocese were being expropriated quite liberally by the State. The Holy See acted rather swiftly
appointing as a new bishop a young African Scheutist from a completely other part of Zaire. He had
once given a retreat in Basnkusu and had made a great name for himself in Kinshásá. This was the
dynamic Père Matóndo kwa Nzámbi. He was one-week old as a bishop when I arrived on 19 April
1975 in Basnkusu.
Arrival of Ignace Matóndo kwa Nzámbi:
Matóndo had worked closely with Cardinal Malúla in Kinshásá in
showing to Mobútu that the Catholic Church was more authentically
African than his political party. In the liturgical committee of Kinshásá
diocese they had composed the Zairian rite of the Mass where a big
attempt at inculturating the African values of community, singing,
dancing and celebration was made. He had also used his talents as a
sociologist to engage the youth in his ‘Bilng ya Mwínda’ (Youth of
the Light) programme.
When Mobútu was struggling hard to involve the youth in his political movement, Father Matóndo
was filling his church with over a thousand youths at his weekly Youth Masses.
I had met Frans de Vrught, then our Regional for Africa, in Kinshásá on his departure from the
country after attending the consecration of the new bishop in Basnkusu. Basnkusu, the previous
week, had come alive when the big Boeing landed on the small airstrip bringing crowds of faithful
from Kinshásá to see their beloved parish priest ordained the first African Bishop of Basnkusu. And
first out of the plane was the Cardinal himself! The ceremony had been full of new Lingála songs
from the capital, great swirling crowds and sumptuous rain forest dishes. At a time when things had
nosedived, both politically and ecclesiastically, a breath of new hope had been breathed into the
region.
My return to Basnkusu 19th April 1975
I arrived at 12 noon with Pierre Spanjers who had been visiting Kinshásá. We were met at the airfield
by Fr Emile van der Hart, Br John Smith and Fr Piet van Run. On the way to Mpoma I got a glimpse of
the new bishop in the distance in front of his cathedral. I saw a short, chubby man wearing his white
bishop’s cassock, which was to characterise him for me for the next two and a half years. We
branched to greet him and his opening words were “Soyez le bienvenu” (You are most welcome). He
said he would see me in the afternoon. At four o’clock, after the siesta, we were back and I met him
in his office in the newly-finished bishop’s residence. Never a man to delay things he appointed me
that very day Diocesan Animator of the Youth. He said that since I was young I could work with the
young people. My first task was to attend the Sunday Mass the next day in the cathedral. He was the
one who would train me in the youth work that he had in mind.
Mpoma was now different: with the transfer of the bishop to his own residence the atmosphere was
freer. I also noticed new faces in the persons of Br John Smith who was in charge of the kitchen and
Br Otto Perfler who was running the garage. We were treated to a ‘potje bier’ which I soon learnt
was served twice a day: before lunch and after supper. Emile van der Hart was now the procurator
of the big store. A less youthful looking Toussaint Goessens was also there, having had a health
breakdown in the intervening years which had resulted in an extended sabbatical leave when he had
travelled to Uganda and other places. He kept a parrot at the end of the veranda which occasionally
came out with some surprising Dutch words!
Frans Kwik was now the new bishop’s secretary and he came over in the evening to join in the
customary evening drinks. Piet Korse had also been posted to Mpoma and he was attached to the
parish of Basnkusu doing a lot of visits to the churches in the ‘interior’. It was a merry group which
welcomed me that first day with endless stories of the preceding weeks’ events. They also wanted to
hear news of my boat trip out from Antwerp and of my time in Mill Hill.
The cathedral of Basnkusu (rear view) in 1991
The personnel in the diocese had changed quite a bit. Frans de Vrught had been coopted into the
General Council in London. Cees Castricum had died on home leave. New non-Dutch missionaries
had joined the diocese in the persons of Brian Coffey who was at Yalisele, Paddy Molloy at Djlu,
John Smith at Basnkusu and Brian Thorpe at Mampoko.
Zairian Rite of the Mass:
And so came Sunday morning and I witnessed the Zairian rite of the Mass for the first time. The
bishop came in dancing and the whole congregation was swaying to the rhythm of the song ‘Mbóka
íns na nsé mobimba, tóyémbela libíki lya Nzámbe wa bísó’ (May all the villages of the entire world
sing out the salvation of our God). At the Gloria the bishop danced around the altar swinging the
thurible to the rhythm of the drums followed by the group of altar servants. The opening prayer was
intoned by asking the congregation to raise their hands in prayer. Each reading was announced by a
special announcer and the gospel was sung in the strong baritone voice of the bishop. The sermon
seemed to be a personal dialogue between the bishop and the congregation, being interspersed
with clapping and laughter. The whole Mass flowed with song, reverence and dance. It was a truly
wonderful experience for me which brought tears to my eyes as I remembered the pessimism and
negativity of my previous visit as a student. I felt at last the people had a shepherd who would feed
them powerfully with the Word of God.
Right from the beginning the bishop caught my enthusiasm and I was to learn many things from him
as I visited his office to get regular tips about how to approach the youth work.
Reclaiming and defending church property:
Politically, however, there was a lot of fear around. People were afraid of publicly criticizing the
government. The State Education Office had recently appropriated the photocopier which the new
bishop used his influence to recuperate. There had even been a move to carry off the cows at
Bonkita secondary school, since the seminary had become a public school now run by the State. But
with the new bishop this move was resisted.
Lingála becomes the liturgical language:
In the meantime, Bishop Matóndo set to work on drawing up plans for the complete overhaul of the
diocese. Shortly after my arrival, he went on a big tour of the diocese and saw the state of things
first-hand. It was my chance to start learning the Lingála language and orientate myself in the new
life. A teacher was appointed to help me learn my first Bantu language. The missionaries suggested
that I go to Mampoko to learn it, but the bishop opposed the idea preferring that I learn it in the
saddle, on the spot. After a few months he decided to transfer me to the parish of Basnkusu with
Abbé Pierre and Abbé Camille as he thought it would be a better immersion into the culture. I was
happy as I felt that staying in Mpoma was a bit like staying in Europe. I was now right next to the
bishop’s residence and could be consulting him more frequently.
Pastoral reform of the diocese:
The young Bishop Matóndo (he was 42 years of age) was not a man to spend time assessing the
needs of the vast diocese and waiting two years before he unrolled his pastoral plan. After clocking
up only three months he issued his famous Pastoral Letter outlining his plans for a thorough
overhaul of the diocese. He drew up plans for new deaneries, full involvement of the laity in the
affairs of the diocese, catechists’ lifestyles, increase in sacerdotal vocations, socio-economic
development of the diocese, organisation of the youth, a foundation of a new Religious Sisters’
congregation and a Religious Brothers’ congregation and much else. His plans seemed to reach to
the skies and he was filled with boundless energy. One of his first changes was to make Lingála the
liturgical language of the whole diocese. Up to then the area had been divided up into language
areas of Lmng, Lingmb and Longandó. He himself took it upon himself to teach all the new
Lingála songs in the cathedral twice a week during the singing practices. It was truly edifying to see a
bishop doing the work of teaching new hymns to the parishioners of Basnkusu. Of course he was
gifted in singing himself having composed several hymns which were found in the hymnal
Tóyémbani. Particularly memorable was the time of Advent when he introduced the congregation to
the song ‘Tómílengele malámu Mokonzi ákoyáa” (let us prepare well, the Lord is coming) of which
he was the author from his Kinshásá days.
A bishop of the youth:
But his heart remained with the youth and though he had been transferred to Basnkusu, his former
youth group in Kinshásá kept in touch with him. Some even came and joined the new religious
congregations he was setting up in the diocese. They wrote him many letters and he responded by
composing pastoral letters addressed to the youth of the whole of Zaire. The Daughters of St Paul
were only too happy to publish these much-coveted texts in small booklets.
Christmas celebration 1975:
Although there had been some relaxation in Mobútu’s aggressive stance on African authenticity and
‘Zairianisation’, the atmosphere was still tense. The church was still trying to find out how it stood.
Christmas was reinstated as a feast and Matóndo’s first Christmas in Basnkusu was a glorious
celebration with full Masses on Christmas Eve, Christmas Night, dawn Mass and day Mass. For the
first time in years everybody was full of enthusiasm in the diocese.
Not matching Bishop Matóndo’s expectations:
However, my own work as diocesan animator was not matching up to the bishop’s expectations.
One day he called me to his office and asked me what the problem was. I said that I felt I did not yet
sufficiently know the people to be able to effectively work with the youth. I wanted first to know
their background, their villages, their small brothers and sisters before I would start specialising in
the direction of youth work. He listened, and although he did not seem to agree totally, he accepted
that I