Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

Life in the SubmarineA huge swathe of light brownwater far out in the Atlantic wasthe tell-tale sign that we wereapproaching our destination.From then on our ship wastravelling in the waters of themind bogglingly large CongoRiver. Not the faintest glimmerof land in sight. In fact it tookanother half day before a thinstrip of coastal sandbeach withsome palm trees and theoutline of the estuary of theFellow passengersCongo river could bedistinguished far away on the horizon. Finally, after two weeks at sea, and anemotional farewell at Antwerp, I would set eyes on the country and meet thepeople to whom I had been sent as a missionary by my congregation, the MillHill Missionaries.It was the fulfilment of a long cherished dream. I had only a vague idea of whatwould be awaiting me but was excited to explore this new and mysterious landin heart of Africa, the (former Belgian) Congo. The country had hit the headlinesworldwide at the time of its chaotic accession to independence in June 1960and had remained in the spotlight ever since exemplifying, as it did, thenightmare scenario of never ending violence and mayhem. Hundreds ofmissionaries had been killed during the 1963-64 rebellion and the country wasonly just emerging from this traumatic episode under the then promisingleadership of Joseph Désiré Mobutu 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 tomake our preferred missionary destination known to our superiors. I had putPakistan on top of my list of favourites - stories about the work of missionariesthere and the contact with Muslims had grabbed my imagination - and foundat ordination time that I had been appointed to…..Congo. So Congo it wasgoing to be! After a few months of brushing up my French in a small rural parishcalled 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. Twoweeks later we arrived at Matadi. From there the journey continued by car toKinshasa and a few days later I boarded the plane for Basankusu.WakaFrans de Vrught, the societyrepresentative at the time andbishop Willem van Kesterenwere very welcoming andwasted no time in telling mewhat my first appointment wasgoing to be: I was to pitch mytent at Waka. The parish priestthere, Marinus Boonman, aveteran Congo missionary, hada reputation of being an expertspeaker of the local triballanguage, Lomongo, and ofOh, those jiggers!possessing a vast knowledge oflocal custom and traditions. He would be the ideal mentor, so the reasoningwent, of this green, inexperienced youngster who had arrived with the oil ofordination still wet on his hands. Brother Piet Tweehuijsen was also stationedat Waka as was Piet Korse whom I was meant to replace.I was grateful for this opportunity of what looked like a ‘soft landing’ – firstgetting a decent grounding in the language and acquiring a basic knowledge ofthe culture and traditions of the people- before launching into amissionary/pastoral ministry. But things rarely work out as expected orplanned, certainly not in Congo where, as I discovered and came to cherishover the years, people readily welcome the unexpected and have developedimprovisation into a fine art. Expressions like ‘Système D’, (débrouillez-vous –improvise), ‘article 15’ and ‘tomeka’ and other similar jocular terms referring tothe need to make do were the warp and woof of daily conversation.My anticipated ‘soft landing’ soon turned into a suitably bumpy ride as thereality of the extreme isolation of the area began to sink in. The somewhatstifling embrace of the omnipresent rainforest covering the whole of thediocese 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 aonce daily radio call which linked the various mission stations with each otherand with the largest village in the diocese, Basankusu. The Procure inBasankusu was the only place with equipment powerful enough tocommunicate directly with Kinshasa and from there with Europe. The postalservice was erratic at best and letters would take weeks, sometimes months toarrive.To counterbalance this feeling of isolation there was an excellent spirit ofcamaraderie among the 30 odd Mill Hill missionaries in the diocese ofBasankusu, but mission stations were few and far between. Basankusu was ata distance of 80 kms from Waka and Baringa, the next station in the otherdirection, was even further away. Transport in the rainforest is difficult at thebest of times, but downright impossible in the rainy season. There was not onesquare centimeter of tarmac in the whole of the diocese, few properlyconstructed bridges over the numerous rivers and streams, and unreliableferries at the large river crossings. Bishop Cornelio de Wit, our one timeSuperior General, famously remarked on his only visit to the diocese: “Yourexistence here is like living in a green submarine” – with a reference to thefamous Beatles song ‘We all live in a yellow submarine’ which was popular atthe time.But physical isolation was butone element of what developedinto an experience of cultureshock ‘squared’. The inabilityto communicate adequatelywith the people aroundbecause of not speaking thelanguage was hugelyconfrontational. I have neverfelt so helpless in my life. Smallkids would point at this‘bondele’ – white man - in utterastonishment saying: “He is agrown man and does not know how to speak, and we are only kids. Ourlanguage is so easy – even we, kids, can speak it!” Marinus Boonman, mymentor, was an excellent speaker, but had little inclination to teach. For mypart, I soon discovered that my preferred method of language learning was touse a grammar so as to be able to understand the structure of the language.As luck would have it there was a Lomongo grammar available and an excellent

dictionary too, plus a wealth of other material all produced by a Belgian SacredHeart missionary called Gustave Hulstaert, a linguistic genious. Thanks to hisuntiring efforts at collecting linguistic and cultural data, ever since the 1930’s,and his multifaceted scientific ability, the language of the Mongo people hasbecome one of the best documented and most fully analysed in the whole ofAfrica.Right in the middle of this rather painful learning process, after only a fewweeks at Waka, Piet Korse invited me to accompany him on a week’s pastoraltour of a number of villages in the Bolima area, a journey ‘into the interior’ asthe expression went. Piet obviously had decided that a baptism of fire – ‘sinkor swim’ – would do me a world of good and would provide an excellentopportunity to continue the learning process at the grassroots. So off we wentsome distance along the road linking Waka to Baringa. I had thought of stayingin the shadows of Piet in order to learn from his experience since this was myfirst exposure to such a ‘safari’. But Piet had other ideas. When we arrived atthe first village – Bolima Ekonda was the name, I think – he introduced me tothe local catechist and then left me there, whilst he himself continued to thenext village. “I’ll come and collect you tomorrow afternoon…..” So there I was,with hardly a word of Lomongo, feeling as inadequate as I will ever feel. I don’tremember what happened next morning, but I must have struggled through thetext of the Mass with the help of the catechist – reading a text in a Bantulanguage usually is not difficult, but to be understood at all you have to masterthe tonal system, an altogether more arduous undertaking.Anyway, I survived this ‘existential crisis’. After roughly three months I had a fairsmattering of the language and could make myself understood. I began to feelmore at ease and from then on a real ‘love story’ started to develop: I took aprofound liking both to the people and the forest. An enduring interest ineverything African, culture and inculturation, as well as in trees and plants, anda passion for orchids was the result.A few storiesAlthough I only spent just over a year in Waka I have many vivid memories ofthe first missionary experience. A few cameo’s.The apprehension and excitement of going on my first weekend trip into theinterior on my own, sleeping in the house of the headmaster, watching the

villagers keeping the elephantsat bay that evening and findinghuge elephant footprints allaround the house the nextmorning.And an outbreak of smallpox inWaka – it must have been oneof the last in Africa, becausesomewhere in the 70’s theWHO announced that thedisease had been eradicatedworldwide. Several people diedElephant huntinga horrible death, among themthe only fully qualified D6 teacher at the mission primary school, a young mancalled Jean-Paul Bokungu. I felt quite heroic at the time of the burial when noone dared to touch the coffin for fear of contamination and Marinus Boonmanand myself alone had to lower the coffin into the grave.‘Crestfallen’ would be the bestway to describe my feelingswhen through inexperienceand a wrong move I gothopelessly stuck driving theancient Volkswagen Kombithrough the marshesseparating Waka from theLifumba area. I had been sentto collect the dead body of aparishioner whose family hadrequested a transfer toBasankusu. Maybe the firstencounter 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 oftravel misery in years to come.The technological revolution to hit even the remotest outpost of the rainforestat the time was the transistor radio. The short wave news broadcasts,especially BBC Worldservice, were the only way to keep up with what was goingon above and beyond the rainforest canopy. The Americans were preparing theApollo Moon landing at the time. I happened to be on safari at 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 teacherRaphael Iwoku and a few others. The moon shone bright from the cloudlessAfrican sky. “Do you see the moon?”, I asked, and then pointed out excitedlywhat was happening there at that very moment. People walking on the moon?A look of astonished incomprehension was all it solicited. Those ‘bendele’ andtheir stories…..After just over a year of acclimatisation and initiation into the language andculture of the Mongo people in Waka I was asked to return to Europe to get alicentiate degree in Romance Philology (French and linguistics) at LouvainUniversity in preparation for a posting as a teacher at one of the two secondaryschools of the diocese. And so I left Waka in June 1969 to start the process ofenrolment at Louvain University. Some fellow MHMs in Basankusu, I heardlater, thought I would never return. Little did they know that strength ofattraction I felt for the people and the area after that one year’s initiation! Andso, after an interlude of four years - a description of my experiences of studentlife and university studies, a whole new and in many ways exciting world,constitutes a different chapter altogether and will not here be included – Ireturned to Congo and was appointed to the secondary school at Bonkita.BonkitaSituated at about 18 kms from Basankusu on the banks of the Lulonga river, atributary of the majestic Congo river, Bonkita was an idyllic spot, one of the fewplaces in the diocese which afforded a wide view over the surrounding area anda horizon not curtailed by giant rainforest trees. You could swim in the riverthere, which I did almost on a daily basis. That is to say if you took the warningsabout crocodiles with a pinch of salt. I never saw one in all those years,although there were plenty of relatively harmless small alligators, usually insmall 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 andmade regular rowing trips around the large island right in front of the house atBonkita. Peace Corps volunteers working in schools around the diocese lovedto come and visit their friends teaching English and other subjects at Likong’aNguwa, Bonkita.Fons Mertens, a veteran missionary and member of the Bonkita team (togetherwith Wim Beentjes and – initially - Jan Hendriks, and Gerrit Gerritsen for the

attention of the class was never a problem. They were motivated. But theirprogress was bedevilled by habits of rote learning hammered into them atprimary school level. It took enormous effort to awaken in them a spirit ofcreativity and critical thinking. Most were quite content to regurgitate what theteacher had told them even in the final year of secondary education. Theenchanted (belief in magic) universe they lived in favoured chance over abilityand hard work. When final exams came around students could be seen to puttheir writing utensils on the tombs of deceased early missionaries at Bokakata,presumably to magically absorb the knowledge of these ‘superior’ whitepeople. In the tribal society they lived in what mattered was patronage and whoyou were related to, not ability and genuine expertise. Education, so it dawnedon most of us involved in it, had to set as its ultimate goal not just the impartingof knowledge, but a veritable ‘metanoia’, a different way of thinking and being.Talk about long term objectives…! I hope that together with the other membersof the staff at Likong’a Nguwa during my seven years of direct involvement atclassroom level I have made even the tiniest contribution towards progress onthat arduous road.The school at Bonkita had quite a chequered history. It had initially been set upin the 1950’s as an agricultural school. When that proved difficult to maintainit was turned into a minor seminary with a boarding facility. This in turn wastransformed into a regular secondary school – ‘section littéraire and biochimie’- under the name Institut Likong’a Nguwa at the time of the countrywide reform of education during the 1970’s. Jan Hendriks, who had been theminor seminary director, presided over this transition and in the mid 1970’shanded over to an able Congolese headmaster called Joseph Bongwele. Thisappointment had been strongly promoted by the first Congolese bishop ofBasankusu, Mgr Ignace Matondo kwa Nzambi cicm. Clearly ‘the times theywere a-changing’!Bishop Matondo kwa NzambiThe arrival of Mgr Ignace Matondo kwa Nzambi, a Congolese Missionary ofScheut, following the unobtrusive resignation and stealthy departure of Mgrvan Kester and a number of months of ‘interregnum’, was greeted with somescepticism by the local clergy who had their own ambitions and considerablejoy combined with huge expectations by the general population.The months of apostolic administration had been difficult. Jan Hendriks, the

apostolic administrator had puta brave face to it and had keptthe diocese going to the best ofhis ability. At Bonkita in 1975at the end of the school yearwe stored every piece ofvaluable equipment in thesmall chapel and sealed it off.Everyone went on home leave,except for myself, amidconsiderable uncertainty as towhat the future would bring. Istill remember the feeling ofresponsibility and considerable Bishop Matondo at ordination ceremonyapprehension when those summer holidays started – I had only been in theplace for two years.Both the diocese and the country as a whole were going through a period ofuncertain transition. As it turned out, the national campaign of ‘authenticité’and ‘zaïreanisation’ (read: mindless nationalisation) initiated around this timeby President Mobutu, largely as a political ploy, proved hugelycounterproductive in the long run and quickened the country’s headlong rushtowards economic ruin. The abolition of Christian names in the name of Africanauthenticity led to a conflict with the Catholic Church and the temporarydeparture into exile of Cardinal Malula. The latter had himself spearheaded amuch sounder form of africanisation of the Catholic Church famously stating: ”A new baby is being born here, and we can be sure of one thing: it will beblack!” The irony of the situation escaped no one.At the local diocesan level bishop Matondo’spromotion of inculturation felt real and promising.In fact bishop Matondo in his early years cameacross as hugely charismatic and inspiring. Hewould prove to be someone who would bring aboutsubstantial change in the diocese againstconsiderable odds. Most noticeable were thechanges in the way we celebrated the liturgy. Tounify the diocese and bring it in line with the rest ofthe ecclesiastical province he introduced Lingala,one of the four national languages and a linguafranca in most of the country, as the only language

of the liturgy. Not everyone was happy with this change as a lot of effort hadbeen put into promoting local languages, in particular Lomongo. Aconsiderable amount of liturgical and catechetical material had been written inthis language for distribution in several dioceses in the Equator province.Together with the change of language came a change of rite. For some timeCongolese liturgists under the guidance and inspiration of Cardinal Malula hadbeen working on a Zaïrean rite of the Mass. Rome had given permission to usethis Africanised form of the Eucharist for a number of years ‘ad experimentum’.At the instigation of bishop Matondo the diocese of Basankusu enthusiasticallyjoined in the experiment. And what a change it was! The lively hymns in Lingalasung at the episcopal ordination of bishop Matondo became instant hitsamong young and old alike. Liturgical celebrations thereafter quickly turnedinto colourful feasts of rhythm and song and dance. It felt as if the celebrationof the Eucharist had finally ‘come home’ to Africa.A well thought out pastoral plan involving among other innovations the creationof CEBs (Basic Christian Communities), lay ministries and the appointment ofBakambi (lay persons in charge of a parish) put a spring into the flagging stepof church life of the diocese. The ensuing closure of the Formation Centre forCatechists in Mampoko was not to everyone’s liking. Catechists, it was clear,would no longer be an essential link between priest and people – theleadership of the community would be shared with other lay ministers. Theparish would become a ‘community of communities’. Was this intended breakdownof the hierarchical pyramid really going to work?Most innovative of all was bishop Matondo’s introduction of the Bilenge yaMwinda (Youth of the Light), a thoroughly Africanised initiation of the youth intothe Christian faith. When hewas still parish priest ofMatete, a suburb of thesprawling capital Kinshasa,Père Ignace Matondo, hadfounded and developed thisyouth ‘movement’ in responseto President Mobutu’ssuppression of any form ofreligious instruction in schoolsin the name of authenticity.“Nkombo ya yo Nkolo”, aslightly rebellious hymn

introduced at the time, became the signature tune of the Bilenge ya Mwinda.Having the founder and chief initiator of this striking pastoral initiative at thehelm of the diocese exercised a huge attraction young people all around. Manyof the students at Bonkita, where I was teaching, also got involved. Iexperienced this development as a real gift of the Spirit and was grateful forthe opportunity it afforded to acquaint the youth with the Gospel message in alanguage and a manner they could understand and relate to. Regularly everyyear bishop Matondo would write an extensive letter in the form of a brochureto the Bilenge ya Mwinda all over the country. It took a while to fully appropriatethe thoroughly African process of initiation which lay at the roots of the methodproposed by bishop Matondo. The fact that most young people had noawareness or experience of traditional tribal initiation also did not help. But atleast everyone could recognise the approach as truly African.Africa has a rich oral tradition. In Central Africa there are no written sourcespredating the colonial period. Important historical events were handed on byword of mouth and committed to memory with amazing accuracy. A well-knownBelgian scholar, Jan Vansina, has been able to trace back the lineage of theKings of the Bakuba Kingdom in Congo to the sixteenth century using oralsources. David van Reybrouck in recent his history of Congo, published tocoincide with the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence, makesextensive use of informants.Similarly Bishop Matondo was conscious of being heir to a culture centredaround ‘le Verbe’, as the French expression goes. “And the Word was madeflesh”. He was an excellent orator. His sermons and conferences were alwayswell prepared. I often saw him walking up and down the veranda of hisresidence’ 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 theaudience would respond instantly as they would at a village gathering. Oftenhe would be carried away by his own enthusiasm, sweating profusely andgesticulating wildly to the point of almost losing his mitre (bishops wear theirmitre when they preach!). African oratory is generous in its use of time too. AEuropean style ten minute sermon leaves most Congolese ‘hungry’. AEucharist celebrated in the Zaïrean rite typically lasts two hours or more – thesermon taking half an hour at least. The art of exuberant celebration – religioncan be fun! – is one of Africa’s most precious contributions to the universalChurch, in my estimation. The longest celebration I ever attended was anEaster Vigil at Basankusu Cathedral which started at 8 pm and finished wellpast midnight! Some inveterate smokers among my fellow missionaries would

at times, abscond during the sermon, have a smoke, and find the bishop stillin full oratorical swing when they returned!In a supporting roleIn 1980 bishop Matondo asked me to become his Vicar General and appointedme Conseiller Pédagogique of secondary education in the diocese. JosephBongwele had been appointed chief Coordinator of Education at the same timeand we were to work closely together to build up secondary education in thediocese. I was truly delighted to be able to work as an assistant to Congoleseleaders (Bishop, Coordinator), no longer in the driving seat, but in a supportivecapacity as I deeply felt the position of the missionary should be at this stageof the development of the Church in Congo.There had been a sudden and quite anarchic explosion of the number ofsecondary schools all over the diocese – Catholic, Baptist, Kimbanguist,Islamic and State – in response to changing government policy. To say that inthe absence of even the most basic infrastructure, with no textbooks or writingmaterial to speak of, and a host of poorly qualified teachers, giving somedirection to this chaotic growth was going to be an uphill task, would have beenthe understatement of the decade. But Joseph Bongwele was not easily putout by adverse conditions. He had the trust of the teaching personnel and abasic honesty in handling money. Dick van de Riet, who oversaw the financialdepartment of the Education Office, was a huge support as well.For the school at Bonkita with its onerous boarding facility, which proved moreand more difficult to maintain, this proliferation of secondary schools provedfatal. The new préfet, Nyenge,valiantly struggled to keep theplace going, but in the end fellvictim to the wide spread habitof ‘creative accounting’ andwas transferred. Not long afterthe entire school was moved toBasankusu to cramped andinadequate accommodation atwhat had previously been aCycle d’Orientation (the firsttwo preparatory years before

secondary education proper), and became a day school. The school buildingsat Bonkita returned to their original destination to accommodate the A.I.F.(Année Initiatique de Formation), a one year preparatory course for candidatesfor the major seminary, a brain child of the ever creative bishop Matondo, ofwhich I was initially put in charge. The main U shaped building consisting ofthe student dormitory, chapel and accommodation for teaching staff wastransformed 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 aconsequence of my new responsibilities began to lead a quite nomadicexistence. Over the next seven years till I left the diocese in 1988 I travelledthe length and breadth of the diocese ( some 800 kms from one end to theother) several times a year, got hopelessly stuck in swamps on numerousoccasions, had to cut my way through the forest once to circumvent one ofthose giant rainforest trees which had fallen over the road, and generally led anomadic existence. I enjoyed moving around, visiting fellow missionaries inevery corner of the diocese, and giving whatever assistance I could to wellmeaningbut struggling headmasters and inadequate or dishonest ones alike.Willy Lokose, an expert teacher of French, became a trusted companion forduring my final years on some of these trips. He would occasionally give modellessons and would generally be quick in picking up relational or other problemsraging underneath the surface. One day he rescued me from a particularlysticky situation when an irate teacher threatened me with a machete. I reallysympathised with the man because was going to be made redundant for lackof proper qualification. I only wish he had chosen someone else to vent hisanger on! The sad fact was that the payment of teachers during the course ofthe 1980s became more and more erratic and the level of remunerationwoefully insufficient as the country slid further down the road of economic ruindue to Mobutu’s increasingly kleptocratic regime.The 4x4 Toyota Landcuiser was our preferred means of transport on the oftentreacherous forest roads.The rainforest equivalent of the desert camel. Minewas equipped with a winch and a specially adapted jack to lift the car whenoccasionally a wheel would slide into the space between two logs on makeshiftbridges, especially after a heavy downpour. On one of those trips, a 2-3 weekodyssey to visit the far end of the diocese, the Bongando area, the car wasoverloaded as often happened. Some 20 kms out of Basankusu I had to stopbecause the load began to shift. When I tried to readjust a piece of luggage Iviolently hit the back of my head against a protruding piece of metal at the car’s

ceiling meant to hold the door shut. The wound was deep and I was bleedingprofusely. The water of a nearby stream helped to wash away the blood andeventually the bleeding stopped. We decided to continue our journey. Just pastWaka we ran into Sr Josephine who was on one of her medical trips into theinterior. 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 rightthere in the village. And so she did. The scar was visible for quite some yearsthereafter, but eventually disappeared. Rock hard missionaries? You had littlechoice in those circumstances.Crossing the two main rivers inthe diocese, the Maringa andthe Lopori, both tributaries of‘Le Fleuve’ (the Congo River),was always an adventure onthese journeys. When youarrived at the ‘bac’ (ferry) atSamba you never knewbeforehand what would berequired to make the crossing.Sometimes, when the ferry layidle at the opposite bank, thecaptain would ask you to sendthe car battery across so as toRiver ferry at Simbaenable him to start the engine, at other times it was fuel he needed. But theywould rarely leave you stranded. The ferry on the Lopori at Simba wassomething frighteningly special altogether. It consisted of five or six largedugout canoes tied together with cables and fitted with two platforms of planksto allow a car or even a lorry to manoeuver on top. This ingenious contraptionwas then pulled by sheer muscle power from one side of the river to the otherwith the help of a cable fixed to a pole on both banks. On one of my trips therethe pole on the opposite side broke when we were already some distance awayfrom the bank. I had visions of helplessly floating down river with the car andgetting irretrievably stuck somewhere in the vegetation along the banksdownstream. Fortunately the men pulling the ferry had the presence of spirit tofrantically pull back to the bank we had just left. And we made it!In 1988 I was elected to represent the Mill Hill contingent of the diocese ofBasankusu at the General Chapter at Mill Hill, London. I felt honoured andsomewhat 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 GeneralCouncil and, as they say, ‘that was that’.I did feel honoured by the trust given to me, but was also deeply pained at therealisation that I would not be able to return to Congo, at least not to stay. AndI felt totally out of place at St Joseph’s after more than twenty years of absence.It took more than a year to get re-acclimatised and to feel reasonably at easein the task entrusted to me: Councillor for Africa. My first trip in that capacitywas 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 mewith deep emotion. There I saw long stretches of tarmac road, taxi buses,decent bridges and other forms of development. Why, I wondered, was thispossible here, and still a distant dream in the Equatorial rainforest of Congo?Frequent visits to a variety of African countries in the following years helped meto 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 electedon to the General Council. And I visited the gradually shrinking contingent ofMill Hill missionaries in the diocese several more times during the course of mytwelve years tenure as Councillor for Africa from 1988 to 2000. On one ofthese trips I came together with Maurice McGill, our Superior General. It wason this occasion that I had the most frightening experience of air travel I haveever had. Here’s what happened. After the completion of our visit on our wayback to Kinshasa, before reaching the provincial capital Mbandaka for astopover, we hit a giant tropical thunderstorm. The pilot saw no way ofcircumventing it and decided to fly right through it. At first we felt no more thanthe usual turbulence on such occasions, but then the plane started to violentlysurge 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 wewould have hit our heads against the ceiling several times. People startedscreaming, 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 andflying. It was somewhat disconcerting to see the pilot walk down the aisle a fewminutes later visibly shaken and telling us all that he too had thought we weregoing down!That was my last flight in a Fokker Friendship, the trusted workhorse of theAfrican skies. They would soon be taken out of service in Congo. Things gotworse after that!

After the fall of the Berlin wall,Africa became the dumpingground not only of surplusarmoury from former EasternBloc countries, in particularYugoslavia, but poorlymaintained, obsolete Russianmade aircraft also found theirway to a host of Africancountries in the 1990’s. InCongo these Antonov jet-propswere appropriately nicknamed‘flying coffins’. Flying in one ofInside an Antonov planethose was a rather surrealexperience. Since these Antonovs were cargo planes with passengers anoptional but lucrative ad-on, the hold would be stacked with all kinds of cargo– sacks of manioc, smoked meat, live goats and other produce. Passengerswould be seated on wooden benches along the side of the plane surroundedon all sides by loosely stacked cargo. There was no air conditioning. Iremember on one of those flights peacefully eating a sandwich I had broughtwhen a few maggots suddenly dropped down from a sack of smoked meatabove my head. You could imagine your appetite being cut by less exoticingredients!Laurent Kabila’s successful challenge to the crumbling Mobutu regime in itsdeath throws was in full swing when I arrived in Basankusu in 1998. Rumourhad it that the rebels had arrived at Boende and it would be a matter of daysbefore they would arrive at Basankusu. The small remnant of Mill Hillmissionaries in the diocese had to decide: evacuate or stay put? We had arather tense meeting at Mpoma, the location of the diocesan procure andgarage which also doubled as guesthouse for passing missionaries.Arguments for and against each option were discussed and evaluated. Asrepresentative of the General Council I made it clear that we were not lookingfor ‘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 coming with us - wasduly chartered from Kinshasa and arrived the next day. We all boarded theplane and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We were on our way to safety, or sowe thought. Then disaster struck! As the large plane taxied to the end of therunway 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 cameto a shuddering halt. We were told to stay on board whilst the pilot and hisassistants tried to get the wheel free again. As it was early afternoon and thesun at full force, the cabin turned into an oven in no time and we were allabsolutely soaking with sweat. Eventually we were allowed to disembark andanxiously watched proceeding from under the shadow of the wings or fromnearby bushes. Someone was dispatched on a bicycle to Lisafa, an oil palmplantation at about 20 kms from Basankusu, to get a tractor. In the end it wasa large shovel that did the trick. The hole was evened out, the pilot restartedthe engines and the plane managed to get away all of its own – to our intenserelief. 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.On my final trip in my capacity as General Councillor for Africa there was only ahandful of Mill Hill missionaries left in the diocese of Basankusu: a small groupin and around Basankusu itself and another small group at far away Djolu inthe Bongando area. The change of regime at Kinshasa had brought nodiscernible benefits or improvements to the provinces so far. All infra-structureseemed in a state of advanced decay: schools, hospitals and dispensaries,administrative buildings. The roads, never in a state to write home about, hadbecome completely impassable and long distance travel was possible only byriver. Harrie Reusen, the local Superior, thought it would be possible to travelto Djolu by motorcycle to visit the small Mill Hill contingent there, using the littleused northern Bongandanga – Bokenda route. And so we set off by boat toKodoro, then overland to the river crossing to Djombo. The small dugout wefound at the crossing was just large enough to precariously hold ourmotorcycles and so we reached the opposite bank. Then overland to Djomboand on to another river crossing to reach Bongandanga. Same procedurethere. We spent the night at Bongandanga, celebrated the Eucharist with thelocal community and then moved on overland to Djolu, another day’s travel.Frans Kwik and Marinus de Groot were very pleased to see us. Not long afterthey were to leave the area and hand it over to the local diocesan clergy.My last visit to the diocese took place in 2005 at the occasion of the centenaryof the arrival of the first Mill Hill missionaries. The centenary year had beencarefully planned to allow each parish its own separate celebration. Bokakatabeing the place where the first missionaries were buried – one of them diedsoon after arrival and all without exception died young – I was happy to be ableto join the celebration there. Our party travelled to Bokakata from Basankusuin one of those outsize dugout canoes carved from the stem of just one giantrainforest tree. John Kirwan made sure that we came on land at the exact spot

where the early missionaries had landed a hundred years earlier. A simplecross had been erected there and was blessed that same day as part of thecommemoration. The next day we celebrated the Eucharist in true Congolesefashion, dancing around the altar at the ‘gloria’ and raising the roof withexuberant song. The offertory procession alone took more than an hour! Peoplewere so entranced by the dancing and singing and bringing of gifts that theyjoined the end of the queue again to come forward once more. The precessionto the graveyard to bless the tombs and commemorate the sacrifice of the earlymissionaries was very moving. For me this was a fitting conclusion to morethan 30 years of association – 17 years as a missionary on the spot - with thelocal Church that is in Basankusu, Equator Province, Democratic Republic ofCongo.EpilogueIt still hurts to realise that Congo, my first love, continues to be the ‘sick man’in Central Africa. Maybe the recent success of Lubumbashi’s TP Mazembefootball team who missed becoming world champions by a hair breadth, is aharbinger of better things to come? David Reybrouck’s ‘Congo’ , a beautifullywritten history of Congo published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary ofthe declaration of independence, ends on an optimistic note underlining theincredible creativity, flexibility and enterprising spirit of the Congolese. ThierryMichel’s impressive documentary on recent developments in Katanga –‘Katanga Business’ - shows the enormous potential waiting to be harnessed.Esili boye.Fons Eppink 17.01.2011

About the AuthorMy name is Alphonse Eppink (Fons for short)I’m a Mill Hill missionary and was born inHolland in 1943.After my ordination to the missionarypriesthood in 1967 my first assignment wasto the diocese of Basankusu in Congo (DRC).Here I worked as a missionary till 1988, withan interval of four years to study for a degreein French and Linguistics at the University ofLouvain (Belgium).In 1988 I was elected on to the General Council of the Mill Hill Missionaries ascouncillor for Africa, a position I held till the year 2000.After a sabbatical period in 2000 - 2001 I returned to Africa and joined the staffof the Mill Hill Formation Centre in Jinja, Uganda.When I was elected Regional Superior for East Africa in 2005 I moved toKisumu, Kenya.Before returning to Holland in 2010 at the request of the leadership in myhome country, I spent my final year in Kenya specialising in retreat work andspiritual direction.

Women in need in JinjaRegistered Charity no 1124594Waveney House, Radley RdAbingdon, Oxon OX14 3PPwww.win-jinja.co.ukWomen in Need is working in Jinja, Uganda to support women and girls whohave been affected by war, tribalism, poverty and educational disadvantage togain a degree of economic and social empowerment.The proceeds from the sale of this book have been donated to support WIN.Printed and Designed by Halcyon Press Group LimitedTel: 01582 450867 sales@halcyon-press.co.uk© 2011 Alphonse Eppink