An Outing at Maluku-the-paradise

I shot this video with a Sony still camera Cyber-shot on Sunday July 25 at Maluku, a commune of the Congolese capital, by the River Congo, about 80 km east of downtown Kinshasa.
I was privileged to spend the entire day there at the Portuguese-owned and aptly named bar-restaurant “Le Petit Paradis,” courtesy of the blogger buddy Luka Mambu I first met a few years ago on Cédric Kalonji’s blog and who later became a fixture on my blog in French.

Though his handle “Luka Mambu” is Lingala for “the one who picks quarrels,” the guy is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in Kinshasa in a long time. He is also one of those people you need to know in Kin: he’s a rich businessman (he moves every two months between Kinshasa and Brussels) and, most of all, he has a powerful machine in the shape of a brand new BMW in a city where moving around could turn into a major headache.

"Le Petit Paradis"

Maluku is steeped in Congo’s history. Mobutu always boasted to have set it into an integral commune of the capital, thus giving the Teke ethnic group—the tribal entity to whom the territory of Kinshasa traditionally belongs—the recognition they so much deserved. To get to Maluku you’d drive by N’Sele, the infamous place where Mobutu literally buried Congolese democracy underneath a stele, still visible on the left side of the road as you head towards the Congo River, where the first draft of the “N’Sele Manifesto” is interred! And today, to get to Kingakati, the presidential ranch, you also have to drive through the partially broken N’sele River Bridge (I’m told the Chinese will soon repair it) where there’s a strong police presence. That Sunday, as the Raïs went out early to his ranch, there were a few elements of the presidential guard at the bridge…

But the long overdue respect the Congolese owe to the Teke ethnic group came with a hefty price for both the Kinois and Teke common people. It turns out that Teke leaders are the ones who profit from the “manna” that this recognition showered on them. Modern land tenure and land use laws don’t apply on Tekeland; it’s the tribal leaders who decide who owns what piece of land. They have virtually sold all their tribal land to powerful Kinshasa elites, who turn them into ranches, farms or “ngandas” (sidewalk/open-air bars). And when a piece of land is sold, boundary stones and barbwires are set up to delimit the boundaries of the property, and poor Teke households are forced to move from their homesteads. In other words: the wild, Wild West.

A pirogue with a makeshift sail

After these limits have been built, the new owner then slashes and burns the place to the ground. As most of these ranches start out at the curb of the road, bamboo trees whose shoots used to add to the delicacies of the Chinese community of Kinshasa have all been burned to ashes.

I don’t know whether the members of this new tropical “landed gentry” know that their mindless slash-and-burn would end up destroying the roads and causing catastrophic erosions on the erosion-prone sandy soil of Kinshasa and its vicinities.

What’s more, a systematic attack has also been launched against the eucalyptuses that used to line so beautifully this road, trees planted under the previous regime when this roadway was opened to lead to one of Mobutu’s white elephants: the now virtually defunct steel plant “Sidérurgie de Maluku.” It’s the impoverished Teke who’ve been mowing down eucalyptuses to burn them into charcoal, a brisk commerce for fuel-hungry Kinshasa. Only a few isolated patches of these eucalyptuses have been able to repulse the seemingly unrelenting assault on them. Smaller trees and shrubs are also being systematically cut down and sold in bundles along the road or trucked to Kinshasa.

“Le Petit Paradis” is an open-air bar and restaurant that has about half a dozen gazebos by the left bank of the Congo River, whose width is so tiny at this spot (about 5 km) that it is called the Channel: you can even see through the mist of the “elanga,” Kinshasa cold dry season, a small fishermen village on the right bank, the side of Congo-Brazzaville. That explains why the place teems with plain clothed immigration security officials. At one point, as I was snapping a few photos of the place, one security agent angrily confronted me, claiming I took a picture of him. A claim I vigorously denied. His hands on the camera, he forced me to scroll the photos to make sure I didn’t take his photo. But Ntsimba, a tough Kinois who always accompanies Luka Mambu, came up and brazenly broke up the donnybrook in progress. I had a narrow escape there: the man would most certainly have seized the camera had I been alone.

Luka Mambu is known to local fishermen as a good and steady Kinois customer. As soon as we settled down under the canopy of a gazebo, a few of them flocked around it, offering their catches: “capitaines,” “zaikos” (formerly known as “congo-ya-sika” or new congo, the same name as water hyacinths that are choking the river), etc. Between the fishermen (mostly non-Teke outsiders) and the buyers, there are “commissionaires” (or brokers) who are young Teke from the village next to “Le Petit Paradis.” They are the owners of the land and the waters; and any fisherman who’d cross them would be banned from fishing around here.

Simon with his catches

Luka Mambu insisted on dealing directly with Simon (photo below), a fisherman from the Topoke ethnic group from around Kisangani in the Orientale Province. But Simon was a clever young man: it seemed to me he was just including the percentage of the required commission into the price of the fishes he was selling to Luka Mambu, $35 for 4 huge fishes, one of which was given to me as a present.

Simon introduces a "zaiko"

Oddly enough, the place was all left to the expats, there were almost no representatives of the Congolese business or political elite around. It seems that successful Congolese, with the exception of guys of the ilk of Luka Mambu, shun calm places like “Le Petit Paradis”: the crowed streets of the capital are their natural element.

Luka Mambu tells me there’s a nautical club downtown by the river that rents boats; and renting a boat is “a very, very, very expensive proposition.” As the average Congolese can’t afford renting a boat, “Le Petit Paradis” will remain for the foreseeable future the exclusive small paradise of Kinshasa expats. To make matters worse, Luka Mambu informs me, the average Kinshasa kid doesn’t have the opportunity of seeing the river up close and most of them can’t swim: businesses and industries have built warehouses and factories for kilometers on end along the bank of the Congo River. How sad!...

A boat pushes barges loaded with merchandise and hundreds of passengers towards Kisangani 

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Mwasi’s Bride-Price Invoice

Engagement, bride-price and marriage rituals are elaborate and costly affairs nowadays in the Congo. This past Saturday 17 July, I was invited to attend an engagement event of a female relative at the Commune of Gombe. I was struck by the presence of a video and still-camera team, complete with lighting equipment, mobbing both families to document the proceedings.

At one point, Patrick, the suitor, entered the living-room without fanfare and was directed to one end of the room where he sat on a white-draped sofa, in front of a table covered with white linen and enlivened with red plastic roses, probably made in China as almost everything else these days in the Congo—from battery-powered fake storm lanterns, kids' toys, to pirated BlackBerry cellphones. (As I always pack for trips at the last moment, I did forget in D.C. the USB of my BlackBerry; and I still haven't found a replacement here, all the Chinese-pirated BlackBerry USBs in Kinshasa markets being unable to connect my phone to my laptop!)

On Patrick's left side, spread on a long sofa, his family members were already seated: his dad and his dad's brother, his older sister, and his mother; and, sitting on plastic chairs, were his mother's younger sister, his older brother, and his maternal uncle who would be the family's spokesman.  The maternal uncle played such a prominent role as Patrick is from the matrilineal Bakongo ethnic group.

On Patrick's right side, we, relatives of the fiancée, sat on plastic chairs. The fiancée's mother and father sat in the front row beside the father's older brother who would also act as the family spokesman (on this side, it's obviously a patrilineal ethnic group). I sat in the second row, against the wall, next to a large table where there was food for the guests.

The fiancée's uncle started out by greeting the suitor and his relatives. (The language barrier—the fiancée's family being Swahili speakers and the suitor's side Lingala speakers—was resolved in favor of Lingala, spoken nowadays by all the Congolese.) He went on to tell the audience that the family had received the previous week a request for a meeting of both families. As these kinds of proceedings involve much acting and make-believe, he asked the guests to tell them what this meeting was all about—but this, only after the prayer by a pastor invited by the fiancée's family. To his credit, the pastor made his prayer short.

Patrick's uncle then stood up and made this unbelievable speech:

"We were one day walking past here when we suddenly noticed a beautiful mwasi [Lingala = woman]. We scrutinized her and we didn't see any visible sign telling us she belonged to someone or that someone had already laid claim on her. Emboldened, we decided to come here, to knock at the door, and to ask for the hand of the mwasi. At this stage, as we only came to ask for an invoice to pay for the mwasi, I take this opportunity to present to you the nine cases of beer required for opening up talks [he remitted an envelope containing an unspecified amount of dollars to the fiancée's uncle]. As we are your guests and we don't know anybody in the room, we would appreciate to be introduced to the mwasi's relatives in attendance. But I'll start by introducing our party."

(The part about "walking past" and "suddenly noticing" a "mwasi" is all BS. I'm told that Patrick and the fiancée have been dating for the past three years and that both the fiancée's parents know the man.)

The uncle then introduced the dozen or so relatives of Patrick, adding that theirs is a huge family and that they only chose to come in limited numbers on the occasion of this face-to-face encounter. The fiancée's uncle responded by limiting his introduction to the parents of the mwasi, to his wife and himself, assuring Patrick's uncle that they would get to know the other relatives in due course.

Satisfied, Patrick's uncle then resumed his spiel:

"But, as we all know, in these mwasi matters, one better be on the safe side. We want to make sure we are talking about the same mwasi we had noticed as we were taking a stroll in this neighborhood. We don't know whether you'd be replacing her with her sister or another relative. So, with all due respect, we now request to see the mwasi!"

Suddenly, one of the fiancée's aunts materialized from the adjoining room and told Patrick point-blank:

"Well, sir, that would require coughing up some dough. As you are well aware, travel is expensive these days. And to go get the mwasi from Kindu requires traveling by roads, railway and boat."

A guy sitting next to me yelled: "Are you kidding? Nowadays people travel by Hewa Bora!" (Hewa Bora Airways is a Congolese-owned airline.)

This observation emboldened the fiancée's aunt, who upped the ante:

"Well said! Forget about roadways, railways and boats. We're now talking air travel. I need to book a flight to go get the mwasi!"

Unbelievably, Patrick's uncle obliged. He fished out from the right inside pocket of his jacket a few dollar bills that the aunt turned down, claiming it wasn't enough for an airline ticket. He once again fished out more dollar bills, which were this time accepted as the fair exchange value for a ticket to the provinces. (Unfortunately, I couldn't see the exact amount of money the aunt got.)

The aunt withdrew to the fiancée's room where all of sudden ululations and chanting broke out. The lyrics of the chant in Swahili told the tale of desperation of Congolese women to find and secure husbands—though the present fiancée is a college graduate and a professional:

"You all claimed she wouldn't get married

Look who's getting married now"

Flanked by chanting female relatives, the tearful fiancée then appeared at the threshold of the living-room where she was stopped by her uncle. (This is the first time I've seen Bijou, the fiancée, since my return in Kinshasa. And I must confess she was dazzling: chubby as should be a beautiful Congolese woman, she'd strangely donned a sari like an Indian woman, with beads weaved in the tufts of her hair. I don't know how the hairdresser managed to achieve this feat: Bijou had a tuft into which were weaved jewels at whose tip dangled a pendant right in the middle of her eyebrows!)

The fiancée's uncle then called on the suitor to stand up and go to the threshold so as to face the fiancée and be properly identified by her. Patrick stood up and walked to the threshold.

"Is this the mwasi we are talking about?" the fiancée's uncle asked Patrick.

"Yes!" answered Patrick.

Then, turning to Bijou, her uncle asked: "Do you recognize this man as your suitor?"

Her eyes welling over, Bijou meekly uttered: "Yes!"

Bijou's uncle then said: "For this special occasion, I will allow the mwasi to sit by the suitor."

Patrick then walked his fiancée to the sofa where he was sitting and sat her to his right.

Patrick's uncle stood up again and formally presented Bijou's uncle with the letter requesting from the fiancée's family the "invoice" of the bride price. "We are introducing this request at this time," he said, "so that we'll have enough time to prepare ourselves for paying up the invoice of the bride price when the time comes."

Bijou's uncle then asked the fiancée's family representatives to clear the room and go outside in order to allow the "ba-bokilo" (Lingala = in-laws) to eat and drink.

We all went outside where we were also served food and drinks. I especially enjoyed the delicacies "mbindzo" (caterpillars) and "lituma" (pounded plantains) which I downed with two cold Lubumbashi-brewed Tembo beers.

***

In a country beset by economic woes, rampant unemployment, and where people eke out a miserable living on unsustainably meager salaries (for those who have jobs) and resourcefulness (known here as "Article 15"), these kinds of extravagant rituals seem to me like contraptions concocted by unhinged people to rob one another of paltry resources.  In the case described above for instance, Bijou's family incurred extraordinary expenses to organize the meeting with the suitor's family. A source told me these expenses were in the order of $2,000 at the very least! The initial move on the chessboard of out-of-control potlatches… But I also know that Bijou's parents couldn't disburse that kind of money without the contribution from their vast network of relatives.

But, try as you may to discourage these expensive social games, the Congolese would stick to their cultural guns. One of my two daughters lives in Odessa (of all places) where she met and had been seeing a Kinois for the past two years.  It now turns out that they want to get married. And the Kinois recently told my daughter's mother he's instructing his family in Kinshasa to come and see both parents (that is, me too) to formally file a request for a bride-price invoice or, as they call it here, a pro forma "facture" or simply as "liste" [list].

I thought people were kidding when they came to ask to write up a "liste" of items to put in the bride-price invoice! I first wondered how the suitor, whom I never met, would "pay" for my daughter as he happens to be in the Ukraine! "Through Western Union," I was slowly told as you would speak to a hearing-challenged person, "he sends the money to his family, then the family shows up here with the cash and the other items to be bought." A joker even asked me my shoe, shirt and pants sizes so that these data could be itemized in the invoice!

 When I told them I wouldn't be making any list or write a goddamned "invoice," they shook their heads in amazement, bluntly told me I would never be an "American-American" no matter how hard I might pretend, and warned me they'd be writing the bill for me!

I had another worry: what if the marriage doesn't work and divorce ensues, would one be required to reimburse the husband? Another joker told me with a straight face: "No way! The guy would have already consumed the goods in the meantime!" I couldn't tell if by "goods" he meant "sex"…

I recently heard the tale of a couple of young professionals who came up with a novel idea to pay an outrageously huge bride-price invoice.  The suitor, with a small family network, was underpaid and couldn't possibly afford the price set for "buying" his fiancée from her parents. Well, the mwasi, who works for an international NGO, drew money from her own savings and gave it to her lover to go pay her own parents!

I wondered aloud why a couple couldn't bypass the outrageous claims of the mwasi's parents and go directly to civil court to get married.  "That would be taboo," a friend told me, "a slight that would bring upon the bride the ineffaceable stain of the parents. She wouldn't have any kids from that marriage!" It's with this kind of bamboozlement that some whacky cultures keep their victims netted.

It seems to be a season for engagements and settlements of bride-price invoices in my extended family in Kinshasa. A couple of weeks ago, a family member of mine who is a lawyer, was finally able to settle his accounts with the family of his fiancée, a physician. I got to see the crazy pro forma invoice issued about a year ago as a fatwa by the fiancée's family. This means that it took one year of savings by the young man plus the contribution of his family network to come up with the money to pay the bride-price invoice.

Here's the ridiculous "liste" of the bride's family:

 "For the father:

1 six-button three-piece suit

2 shirts

2 undershirts

2 ties

1 pair of shoes + socks

1 wristwatch

1 six-battery boombox

1 demijohn of wine

1 big can of milk powder

5 kg of sugar

1 big Coleman storm lamp

5 goats

1 spade

$700 cash

For the mother:

1 six-yard "Superwax" cloth (for pagnes and blouse)

1 pair of shoes

1 headscarf

1 watch

1 set of jewels (earrings, chain, and bracelets)

1 blanket

1 sack of salt (20 kg)

1 sack of rice (50 kg)

25 liters of peanut oil

30 liters of palm oil

1 big cooking pot

1 goat"

I consider this list as emblematic of a cultural system gone awry. It now fills in the emptied vessels of past sound cultural features with today's garbage. And the more people tried to explain to me the necessity of these delirious bride-price invoices, the more I found these practices unjustifiable. In my view, these bride-price invoices are licit highway robberies.

(Photo : Alex Engwete)

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1. Latest Radio-Trottoir Narratives; and 2. UDPS Implosion qua Coup d’état

1. Latest Radio-Trottoir Narratives

Radio-Trottoir [Radio-Sidewalk] is the vestigial Congo grapevine. It's busy producing ever sensational narratives. For instance, according to one narrative, the Raïs is busy these days with road works in the capital—including the above recently inaugurated monument to Joseph Kasavubu (also spelled Kasa-Vubu), the first president of the DRC, at the Kimpwanza Roundabout, in the aptly named Commune Kasa-Vubu where the man was once a burgomaster—for the simple reason that he wants to buy out votes for the upcoming 2011 elections, particularly given the dismal results the President got in Kinshasa in the 2006 presidential election.

Indeed, strange tales circulate these days on the channels of Radio-Trottoir, some of those peddled even by intellectuals. The other day, I went out to the Matonge neighborhood to watch a World Cup match. (Among the famous 'Chantiers' of the Rais, electricity seems to be lagging behind: Délestage or power cut is frequent, particularly in my neighborhood. On Wednesday I had to follow the match Spain-Germany on BBC radio). At the "nganda" (sidewalk bar) where I was watching the game, I happened to meet an old acquaintance, a College graduate and erstwhile roving ambassador of Mobutu. I couldn't believe the "tales from the crypt" or right from "The Thousand Nights and One Night" the man was telling me about the head of the Enyele insurgents, Ibrahim Mangbau, and father of the insurgent-sorcerer Udjani.

The Kinois had given Ibrahim the moniker "Etoko" (mat). As I didn't understand why Ibrahim was given that nickname, the Ambassador explained: at night, like Jesus Christ, the warlord walked on the waters of the Congo River with his mat flung over his shoulder; and right in the middle of the mighty river, he'd then unfold his mat to have a much needed warrior's rest! "They claim they've arrested the Enyeles," he told me, "have you ever seen one picture of captured Enyele? These people have nkisi [juju] powers!" Two or three days later, the Ambassador was proven wrong: the Minister of Defense, Charles Mwando Simba, and the head of army intelligence produced Ibrahim Mangbau on prime-time TV news. The man was wheeled around to be shown to journalists as a war trophy: he had a perfusion needle in his arm and his left leg was bandaged, for he had sustained a gunshot wound during his arrest. I think they purposely shot the man to put to rest the rumor of his invulnerability… But as long as Udjani, the son of the captured warlord, will remain in captivity in Congo-Brazzaville (after the hoax of his arrest by the FARDC, hoax spread a while back by Lambert Mende, the communication minister), the rumors of his being elusive and invincible will persist. And, btw, they could gun down both father and son at the Stade des Martyrs (the big football stadium built by the Chinese under Mobutu), their invincibility would remain unscathed in the minds of the Kinois so eager to cling to the most tenuous storylines of outlandish fairy tales.

*

I was intrigued to see the First Lady, Maman Marie-Olive Lembe praying tearfully on TV for the atonement of the Congolese nation. She even launched a 3-day national interfaith fast (from June 26 to June 28) for everyone to cry, pray, and fast for the sins committed by the Congolese who're alleged to have wrecked their own country, a gift of the Lord… This kind of public display of religiosity was alarming to me, and I cautiously voiced this concern to some people whom I deemed weren't particularly zealous in their religiosity (most Congolese being evangelicals, they'd have branded me as a hellhound for questioning the First Lady's religious quest)…

My query opened up two strands of Radio-Trottoir narratives about the DRC first couple: A strong strand and a soft strand.

Strong Strand. For people spreading it, the Raïs is a vicious maniac—literally unhinged. They point to his changing looks: at times sporting a beard with a grey streak and dishevelled; at other times, well groomed. "A president should at all time conform with his official photograph!," I was told. The Raïs is so jealous of his power he didn't hesitate to send his henchmen after Flori Chebeya. And Maman Marie-Olive Lembe who, like Marie-Antoinette Mobutu (the first wife of the dictator), is a religious woman, was pressuring her husband to relinquish power as they have already looted the country enough. Mad at being scolded by his wife, the Raïs then beat his wife to a pulp. After the beating, he instructed a number of his bodyguards to kill and dispose of the body of the First Lady. As these bodyguards were already born-again Christians, they took the First Lady and crossed the right bank of Congo River to the neighboring capital of the other Congo, Brazzaville.  In Brazzaville, President Denis Sassou Nguesso was exercised after seeing the state of the First Lady whom he promptly dispatched to South Africa for medical treatment. Denis Sassou Nguesso then played the marriage counselor between the Raïs and Marie-Olive Lembe to have them reconcile and display the body language of the perfect couple at the parade of the "Cinquantenaire"—the 50^th Anniversary of Congo Independence on June 30… This strand of Radio-Trottoir follows closely the narrative of the death of Marie-Antoinette Mobutu who was allegedly beaten to death by Mobutu for the same reason: demanding that Mobutu relinquish power!

Soft Strand. People spreading this type of narratives are supporters of Joseph Kabila. My guess is that they have appropriated salient elements of the strong strand (the fight in the couple) to water them down, as they can't possibly suppress the narrative. According to this strand, the Raïs has a mistress—a " mulâtresse kinoise," people spreading it insist—he had moved to Goma to avoid problems with the First Lady. But as security became untenable in Goma (what with Nkunda and the CNDP), the Raïs then moved his girlfriend to Lubumbashi, under the close watch of Moïse Katumbi, the Governor of Katanga. When the First Lady heard about this arrangement, she put such pressure on Moïse Katumbi that the latter begged the Raïs to relieve him of such cumbersome charge. The "mulâtresse" is now in Kin… And when the First Lady heard about the new arrangement, she threw herself at the President and slapped him. This narrative always conclude with this rhetorical question: "What young couple doesn't have similar fights?"

2. UDPS Implosion qua coup d'état

I recently visited a relative of mine, who is in the higher circles of the leadership of Etienne Tshisekedi's Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), a long-running opposition political outfit dating back from the heyday of the Mobutu regime.  The man is disgruntled.

According to him, Tshisekedi aka Tshitshi is now senile and his family is issuing fatwas upon fatwas from their golden exile in Belgium in the name of the veteran opposition leader. Worse, the family wants to have one of Tshitshi's sons, Félix Tshisekedi, a "virtual illiterate" (my relative's expression), as the replacement of his father. The national wing of the party has decided to block this move by not recognizing any fatwas coming out these days from Tshitshi's family inner circle. The only valid fatwas have to come from the UDPS national Congress, the only entity entitled to do so. UDPS leaders point out that 5 of the original 13 MPs who created UDPS are alive and kicking; and the party not being a "family affair," any decision coming out of the family is null and void. And if the "illiterate" Félix Tshisekedi wants to be the head of UDPS, he has to go through the proper democratic channels: a candidacy at the Congress (and my relative tells me that the candidacy will be rejected right away as the man doesn't have any qualifications), a vote by members, and so on.

This is either an implosion or a coup d'état within the UDPS… 

(Photo: Alex Engwete)

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