Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

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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
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Page 11 and 12: attention of the class was never a
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Page 15 and 16: at times, abscond during the sermon
Page 17 and 18: ceiling meant to hold the door shut
Page 19 and 20: After the fall of the Berlin wall,A
Page 21 and 22: where the early missionaries had la
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Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

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