Chapter 11 - Escape

About noon one day I was listening to "Voice of America" on the radio when I heard that the president of the United States had ordered all Americans to leave the Belgian Congo. I was so excited I ran all over the compound telling everyone. I wanted something to happen, like for us to leave. Things were bad and getting worse. We should have left long before now. I was scared, but that's not the only reason I wanted to leave. I just wanted to be back in the U.S., where there was TV and candy. Besides, America was home, at least it felt like home. I hadn't felt at home for many years. I wanted to feel home again, see Hossburg again.

Dad didn't believe me when I told him, although everyone else did. He made me sit by the radio with him in the living room. He glared at me. He was waiting to be able to punish me when the news didn't tell what I had been spreading around the compound. He warned me, "You shouldn't be scaring everyone like this." He waited till the next broadcast and then he heard it too. He wasn't as excited about this news, as I was. It would interfere with his work, his progress educating the natives. But there was no way he could keep us here now, he had orders. Dad, being a person who loved authority, now had to yield. He had a job to do. Get us out. He had orders.

I wanted out right away. Cotton candy, rock n roll music, and bubble gum were calling. Africa was a nice place but I had been here long enough. My mother operated the ham radio on the station. Sitting in a stiff backed steel folding chair, hovering over the crackling gray radio, she got the final instructions on our evacuation. I stood next to her watching the sweat slide down her cheeks and onto her neck. It was hot, and this was an exciting moment. We were given a date and told to be at the top of a certain hill in the village at noon that day. The notice over the ham radio informed us a helicopter would land and take us away. We were told we could have only one suitcase per family. That made deciding what to take very easy. Basically, one set of clothes per person, including underwear. That's all one suitcase would carry for a family of seven.

The day arrived looking like every other day this time of year. We hadn't told the natives we were leaving. We didn't want the natives to be upset, or get in the way. They had no idea. They weren't told, for no one knew what they might do. I wondered what they would think when they saw when the helicopter land. But I was ready, even if my  parents were not. At fifteen minutes before noon on the given day, the missions' three vehicles made a quick round of the mission station and picked up all the missionary families. We tried to look normal, and dad told us to look leisurely as we drove up the dirt road to our appointment on the hill.

   

Sure enough, just as we topped the hill we heard a rumble in the distance. It was a sound we hadn't heard before. It was the roar of helicopter blades. Soon a small spec was seen off in the distance, below the clouds. It came in from the horizon and became clearly a giant two bladed helicopter. The big blades, one on each end. made a low roar as it approached. It was wide bodied and slow.

It was an exciting thing to watch. By now a crowd of natives had gathered. The helicopter landed right before us on the dirt. As dust flew, my dad told some of the natives that we were all leaving for good. They took it in hurt surprise. Through the glass at the front of the helicopter I could see the pilots in their green fatigues. They were United States Marines. The cargo door flew open and I could see the sweaty foreheads and tight faces of young marines. Each had a machine gun pointed at us and the crowd. The mounted guns on the ship moved, and looked truly serious. The young men jumped out and motioned us in. They pushed and pulled us into the bay.

It didn't take two minutes to get us all in and up and away. As we soared into the air we were motioned to seats on either side of the craft. They were like little orange cots, strictly functional. I sat transfixed at the window looking at the world we were fast leaving behind. One minute we were missionaries in Africa, the next refugees. We had no idea where we were going. But it was exciting. I was happy to oblige.

I saw our little town with it's tin roofs, vanish into the distance. The jungle passed beneath me, green and unknown. It all looked so peaceful from up here. The marines told us the we were headed for Kikwuit, the capital of our province. They told us the airport there had been taken over by Belgian paratroopers the night before. It had been a quick takeover. One paratrooper had been dropped at each corner of the airfield. With machine guns in hand, they had covered the air strip, while their plane landed with the rest of the troops. There was little resistance. This was no the forward line of civilization, an operating base to get Westerners out.

Our helicopter landed on the strip and we were shown out and led to the main building where we waited with other missionaries that were being evacuated from other stations in the area. I was thrilled to be around real live soldiers, with real machine guns, and live ammo. This was the real thing. Everyone had an air of seriousness. You could see it and you feel it. There was an alertness in the soldiers eyes. No one had died in the takeover, the African troops had left without a fight. No one knew if they would attack. We didn't know if they would return.

The American soldiers were kind to us. They opened their backpacks and gave us what we wanted. I ate C rations. Real crackers and cheese, peanut butter, stuff I hadn't had in several years. It was wonderful. Still I wanted to see some action. But not be in it, just be able to see it. The marines told us that we wouldn't see a thing because we were leaving soon. Shortly we were herded towards an old DC-3, a decrepit looking silver hulk. There were no seats in the plane. It was a cargo plane, used for bulk carry. It could hold a lot more without seats, and they had all been taken out long ago. We all sat on the floor. The doorway into the cockpit was open and I stood there as we took off into the cool African evening air.

Once in the air we were told that we were headed to Brazzaville, capital of the neighboring French Congo. We were overloaded but the old bird still flew. The pilot told me that we were flying at night so that we wouldn't be shot down. Flying at night was interesting in that there were almost no lights, just an occasional fire below. We were in the air for about three hours. Long enough or me to be ready for the next stop. Then we landed, slow and easy, the same way these old planes flew.

We landed in Brazzaville and stepped out into the night, standing in the shadows of large planes. We stood in groups, some of sitting on suitcases. We all waited. We weren't immediately told what would happen next. There was a very large plane nearby being refueled. I thought that would be our next ride. While we waited we kids started running and playing hide and seek under the big planes. I hide under the wing of the one being refueled. It said United States Air Force on it. It was a Globe Master, the largest plane in the world at the time.

As we waited, more planes and helicopters landed. Each had a load of missionaries or other foreigners being evacuated. They formed their own groups and waited too. By late evening there were more than twenty denominations represented on the airstrip. Each having left their respective enclave in the jungle. Some had some very bad stories to tell. Some had seen lives lost or taken. I was glad Bangala had no stories to tell. We were among the lucky ones.

An army jeep came barreling down the tarmac and stopped next to the Globe  Master. Army pilots got out and went into the nose of the plane. Another man in a green uniform came over and told us we would be leaving soon. There had been some delays. We were glad to be leaving. Jeep lights turned on and marked a path to the large plane. We followed the headlamps to where they pointed. We climbed aboard the Globe Master in the eerie unnatural light and found our seats.

Again, we were seated on cots all across the sides of the large open body. The long road down the runway made a deep impression on me, it was a great flying machine. It was amazing to see the city lights beneath us as we left. By morning we were flying over the Sahara desert. We were flying Northwest to the coast of Morocco. There was another army base there.

The Globe Master rode very high in the sky. I could see ice form on the wings, and although it was interesting, it was also scary. I pointed it out to the pilot, but he didn't seem to think it mattered. He let me sit in the co-pilot's seat for a few minutes as a reward. It was exciting and I was glad I had warned him about the ice.

Because of the high altitude several people fainted due to lack of oxygen. My mother was one of them. That was hard to watch. She never complained much, so when she got sick, it was frightening. I thought it was serious. This was not a good time for me to loose my mother. She was given oxygen and that revived her. She stayed quiet and didn't have any more trouble.

One of the children close to me vomited on my flight bag. Carl lost his glasses in the bomb bay and we never found them. Those were a couple of memorable moments. We landed mid morning in bright sunlight of Morocco.

We stayed in Morocco for several days. We stayed in army housing, little one story block homes. The weather was warm and dry, the sun bright and cheerful. I recall my mother washing clothes and hanging them outside. We flew from Morocco to the Azores, islands in the Atlantic. They were beautiful to see and fun to land on, but we didn't stay any longer than it took to refuel. From there the last leg of our flight was to Washington D.C.

It seemed like we were foreign dignitaries with all the film crews and reporters crowding about the tarmac. We were all interviewed, even the kids. The reporters asked us kids questions, trying to get an angle on the story, or find out something that the adults weren't telling. One of them asked me what I liked to watch on TV. I said "cowboys," he assured me that he would have his company show a cowboy show that afternoon, just for me. I felt very important. When we finally got to our hotel, and settled in, I spent the whole afternoon switching channels on the TV trying to find a cowboy show. None ever came on. I was very hurt. I didn't think a reporter would lie to me. Our relatives arrived the next day and we were taken home to the hills of Pennsylvania.

End -  chapter 11

Chapter 10 - Another Summer

That summer Carl and Jimmy came back to Bangala. I was already there because I had been sent home from school. We three played the summer for all it was worth. Summer was the longest break we got from school, you have to understand that this was ultimate heaven for us. The jungle was ours, and we were determined to play it for all it was worth.

In the Belgian Congo the weather was always summer. There was the wet season and the dry season, but as far as the temperature was concerned, it was always summer. We took to the jungle and the swamps chasing every insect, bird and animal we could. And we were constantly getting spooked by ones we could hear, but couldn't see. It was adventure we were after, something to make up for all the boredom and harassment at school. We got into as much mischief as we could, including climbing in Aunt Kath's Frangie Pangie trees. She had planted them herself years ago, and they were her pride and joy. We weren't supposed to climb in them because the branches broke easily. But we climbed the fragile limbs and played among them till she came running out, waving her cane and yelling.

We swam in the river every time we got close to it. Usually several times a day. Their was a cement pier, built by Uncle Totty, and we could dive into the dark swift moving current. We swam, even though occasionally, we heard stories of children being eaten, sometimes even a man, by the large crocodiles that sometimes ventured close. Although I was often more fearful that the other kids, we mostly convinced ourselves that it wouldn't happen to us. Just childish thinking, I suppose, not believing that our lives would ever end.

Now and then when a crocodile was killed, the natives would cut it up to eat, and often the stomach was found to have lots of little red undigested beads. Not a comforting sign, as these were the beads the young native girls often wore around their waists. A common decoration for the little girls who had no other clothes. Not a small gesture, this type of ornament, as they were lovingly put there by their mothers. The beads were evidence that the crocks did eat a child now and then.

We boys were horrified at seeing the beads. We didn't want to think of dying in such an inglorious manner. We wanted to die bravely as warriors defending our domain. We would throw our fears off with brave talk, and myth, for our cook told us that we white boys wouldn't be eaten by a crocodile because our pale skin looked sickly to them. Maybe he was right. So, we still swam, and our parents never said a word to discourage us. I often wondered why they didn't? I believe they had better things to do, like saving the natives. I had read somewhere that "charity begins at home," but the missionaries did not seem to believe this.

The current of the Kwilu river could keep a grown man from making even an inch of headway, if he were trying to swim upstream. Perhaps our parents prayed a lot and had great faith that their prayers would protect us. However, even as a child, I could vouch  that their prayers never kept us from psychological harm, for the pain of the missionary children was real, and it carried on into their lives.

Our cook and the other natives were always telling us children stories that were outrageous and hard to believe. They told us stories and myths from their culture, things that they never told the adult missionaries. They scared us with their stories, the ones they never could tell to the missionary fathers. Maybe this was a way of getting some of their power back? Who knows? The anecdotes they told were sometimes very hard to believe. So we told stores in return, that were just as preposterous and the natives didn't know if they were true or not.

We learned from the native children and they learned from us. They showed us how to make toys from sticks and fruit and left over bicycle parts. It was amazing what kind of toys they could create with just a small knife and machete. One was a real noisemaker on wheels. It was made from a palm branch, with a grapefruit sliced into wheels. A handle was made of a palm branch, split at one end. A shaft was placed between the split ends, and the center of two slices of grapefruit would be placed on the shaft. Spokes made of little sticks, stuck between the grapefruit slices,created a toy that could be pushed. A tin can would be tied to the branch, and a stick tied to the tin can. When the toy was pushed, the stick slapped the spokes between the grapefruit wheels, it resonated in the tin can and made a load motor sound. The native kids would push this type of little toy around our neighborhood by the hour. Very creative I thought. I learned to make them too.

One of the most impressive things I learned from the native boys was how to make a slingshot. There were  old bicycle inner tubes to be found abandoned  around the village. We would take one of them and cut it into long strips. Since the rubber from the tube was very thin, yet strong, it stretched very well. We would cut a forked twig from a limb, and then wrap the rubber strands around it, leaving two long lengths dangling from the ends of the forked stick. A piece of leather from an old shoe would be tied between the ends of the two rubber strips. This made a very handy, absolutely free weapon. We killed a lot of birds, toads and lizards with them.

We made a lot of palm nut rings too. They took a while to make, but were rather pretty when done. We would take a palm nut, eat the fruit off the outside. Then we would start rubbing the hard inner nut shell on any cement surface. Soon we would have worn through part of the outside and the white meat would be exposed. This was done the same to both sides. When the meat showed on both sides we would dig it out. Now you had hollow a ring. We would then find old pieces of broken china and rub them on the cement, making a fine white powder. Rubbing the shinny black palm nut shell in the fine polish gave  these rings a smooth finish. A natural oil in the shell kept the rings shiny. Their natural black color was like onyx. Sometimes, if we were feeling gregarious, we would give one to one of the girls. We just weren't real into girlfriends though. Not yet.

The native boys were left to roam and play all day  anywhere they wanted. It was the little girls they kept track of because they were more valuable to the family. At marriageable age the young women were sold to their husbands. A pretty daughter could bring a family a lot of money, or goods. Often the young girls were sold while still very young, to a gentleman that wanted to be sure he was getting a virgin.

So it was the women and girls that were watched, and guarded, and kept in line. It was also the women that did most of the work. It was always that way and I never knew why. But it always was a big contrast between the white missionaries and the native culture. In the states it seemed to me, the men did most of the work. The Africans in this area had a very matriarchal society. So I never got to play much with the little native girls.

The women at Bangala nursed their babies till they were five or six years old. This seemed to make the children very sociable and community oriented. They were not very differentiated from the tribe. When children misbehaved, they were punished by having red hot pepper juice, called "peli peli," squeezed into their eyes. This was so painful that it didn't take but once to get most children in line. After one experience of this punishment, just the threat of having it done again, was enough to command obedience. Spanking was unheard of, it just wasn't the native style.

So we played and the native boys played. Sometimes we played together. But the little girls were kept at home and taught to work. The native boys were left to themselves and learned to be free, to roam, and take care of themselves. This ability to wander would come in handy now and then when tribal warfare erupted. The boys would know where to flee, and lead the whole village into the jungle. Someone had to know how to survive hidden in the jungle, and the boys learned how. The abc's for a native boy, were: where the paths were, what tree or what vine was useful for what. How to climb and hide in the trees.

It was decided that I would continue to stay in the bush with my parents. When Carl and Jimmy had gone back to school, I no longer had any white boys to play with. I had the natives. This was a little disconcerting but I managed. The natives were very concerned about their status as a Belgian colony. They wanted their independence and that is all they talked about. The native boys became difficult to play with because they didn't want to play. All they wanted to do was talk about what things would be like when they got independence. They thought independence would bring immediate material wealth, and that they would then have all the things we white folk had. There was no sense that these changes would take time. They thought they would be living in my house, and I would be living in one of their mud huts.

Eventually, as tensions rose, the native kids began to beat me, saying that I should give them independence. I considered myself to be quite different from the Belgians, but all they saw was that I was white. That's all the identification they needed. I was fair game. I never really fought back. It would have been useless. There were a lot more of them than me. I was a foreigner, just as the Belgians were. I knew I could not escape, and I became a target.

Soon there were riots in the cities, people were being killed, and life became very miserable for many, white and black. Fear became rampant among all the foreigners. If you were white, you didn't belong. I would lie awake at night wondering if we would be attacked, if we would be killed. 

end chapter 10   

Chapter 9 - Back to School

When I was sent back to boarding school in Leopoldville, my younger brother Carl was sent with me. He was good company. Actually it would be better said that he was company. I mean he was familiar, and that was better than being around strangers. At least when you're young. There was also one major drawback. My father made it very clear that while he was away with me at school, I would be responsible for him. In my dad's language that meant, if anything happened to him, no matter what it was., even if he was with the hostel parents miles away, it would be my fault. That didn't make having him along a joy ride. He was, so to speak, another burden, bring my dad's intent to fruition.

My little brother at the time was a scrawny, glass-eyed runt, with a temper. He was not easy to handle for anyone, much less a brother. He did not suffer fools readily.  He was willing, at a moment's notice, to defend himself to the utmost of his ability. With his force of will, we are talking considerable strength. The hostel parents used to think I was bad, now they weren't sure if I still was. They had him! He didn't take to hostel environment very well. Anyway you looked at it, it was either him or me that gave them the most trouble. Things got worse for me because Carl would get into fights and I felt obligated to extract him from them.  I wasn't a fighter, I mean, not the open battle type. I was more clandestine. But Carl, no he did everything in the wide open. I would find him constantly right in the middle of a giant fist fight. Usually with someone twice his size. It usually ended up with him wining, but it was still scary.

Carl and I had beds close together, just a dresser between us that we shared. We also shared the same desk. It was the same with all of us. We all had to share. As a going away gift my father had given us each a watch which made us feel important. I am sure my father gave me many other gifts, but I don't recall them. There was so much pain that the bad things just overwhelmed me and took over my memory. So mostly what I remember is the bad things. Bad things and experiences are like problems, one can't leave them alone because they want to be solved. Pain is like that. That's why I remembered the pain.

I was placed in the fourth grade this year. It wasn't that I had passed the third grade, but rather that I was getting to old for the third grade after failing twice. I think that the principal felt that an ornery kid that much older and bigger would be a bad influence on the third graders if he allowed me back in there. So he didn't. And that's the way it went. My teachers all knew why I was passed on to the fourth grade and they let me know it. They were just as cruel as my previous ones. I was the dog they kicked. And I knew it! My attitude did not endear me to the authorities. But I acted out and resisted as best I could. I was again the brunt of class discussions on how not to be. The year went on.

It was this year that I began to be whipped if my studies were poor. The hostel parents had decided that I was not manageable by other means. They assumed I was dull witted and deviant and so I had to have corporal punishment. They hovered over me with hawk eyes. It was as if I were degrading them by my very being. My personal problems were seen as something to punish me for. In order to defend myself, I explored all their vicious attitudes, spending so much time doing so, that my grades suffered further. Once I was beaten for not coloring in the appropriate pages in my religious studies book. I wondered what Jesus would have thought about that. I wondered what Jesus would have thought about these adults.

All our teachers in the Congo were Belgian, and the way the Belgians taught was very formal. I hated formality. They created an atmosphere of adversaries, students against teachers, and the students never win. We were not equal as persons, only varying in the amount of information we carried. No, we were inferior by virtue of being the student. It is for this reason that there was no such thing as an "A" in this school system.  An "A" was too good. It meant excellent and no student could do that. We were graded on percentage and the highest one could ever hope to get was eighty percent. This under achievement assured to make most students subservient. Sometimes I wish they had broken my spirit.  It would have made my life easier. But I didn't break. I just felt crazy. All tests were designed with 20 percent of the questions being unanswerable by us students, thus guaranteeing the highest score could not be above that unwritten, but understood law of 80 percent max could be correct. Maybe this is why the Belgians are so stoic and cynical. They're all corrupted in the spirit.

I had done fairly well in the States. But not here! No matter how hard I tried, I didn't do well. I was never given the benefit of even the simplest of acknowledgement that I was fighting an uphill battle. Being thrown into a French speaking school system with no extra help or consideration. Just as in Belgium, the teachers played the role of an elite corp. They just weren't approachable. At least that's the way I experienced them. I was very aware that an enormous amount of energy was spent ridiculing students rather than encouraging them. Especially in my case! I had never had my fingers rapped in the U.S. for missing a multiplication problem.

Both consciously and unconsciously I fought the system. It was wrong! My body and soul told me so. I listened to my inner being, which was more kind and understanding to me than anyone on the outside, especially teachers. I became extremely passive aggressive. Never paying attention, never showing interest, never knowing where the rest of the class was. So my knuckles got rapped a lot, but my soul stayed clear. At least I had that! I could see in the adult faces, the anguish when they beat me with their smallness. It wasn't just a clash of cultures here. This was a clash of wills. I took all they could dish out and I didn't break! I may not have learned a lot of what they were intending to teach me, but I sure learned how small they were - how cruel and uncaring they were. I learned that authority didn't have the answer to being human. I was kinder to myself even as a child than any adult around me.

At recess we played marbles. Marbles is a much bigger thing with Belgian children than with American children. So we played a lot of marbles. They also play till they are much older. Why, who knows? I wasn't very good at it. So what else is new? So I lost a lot of marbles. We played for keeps. That means I lost all the ones I played with. I bought them with my allowance and they won them. I took them to school and they took them home.

When I wasn't loosing marbles to the Belgian kids I was fighting with them. The fights went on sometimes for weeks on end. We fought all recess long and would be forced to break it up so we could go back to class. Only to wait for school to be out so we could fight on the bus all the way home. I learned a few things about class consciousness. Mostly what it was like to be the lower class. One of the outcasts, the pariah!

On Sundays we had Sunday School. Wonderful! We were all loaded into various mission station vehicles and packed off to a large English speaking church. There we all spouted back bible verses to the Sunday School teachers so we could be called good little boys and girls. The Sunday school teachers felt important. We also memorized the books of the old and new testaments. Really turned me on to religion, that did!

After Sunday School we were carted off to the main sanctuary to listen to the frantic and zealous preachers of fear, desperately anxious to impress the little ones. I suspect some of them were trying to impress the Lord. God help them! They preached long and hard, till they broke out in sweat and wore themselves out. I used to sit in the front row where they seemed more human. I would watch their shifty eyes and didn't trust them even though they did scare me.

They preached hell and damnation. They preached fear and trembling. They preached about the depravity of man and his lack of any redeeming quality based on his having been born into original sin. From this there was no escape. How can one choose not to be born into original sin? What a concept to keep a man down, make him feel small and unworthy. We never heard anything about self esteem. That probably would have been associated with pride, "which cometh before the fall." All the preaching somehow didn't make me bite. Not deep down inside, at least. They could make me feel guilty, but they couldn't make me believe I was sinful. Seems like a paradox, but even then I had a mind, and a soul. My mind could suffer, but my soul stayed pure.

As I sat there through all those sermons on all those Sundays, I often thought about my fate. It was well known in my family that I was destined to become a preacher - like my father and his father and his father, as it had been all the way back to the sixteenth century. I had already been shown in the "Who's Who" book of famous people that one of my ancestors was known as the "Boy Preacher of England." way back then. Even the first of my family to come over from Europe had come with his congregation. He, of course, was the minister of the flock. So it was preordained that I was to become a minister too. My grandfather talked to me about it often. How to talk and think up sermons and all that. I wondered when my call would come.

Sunday nights we always had a mission station compound picnic. All the families got together and had a giant picnic together. Often we would all go up to the Stanley Livingston monument. It was on the hilltop that over looked Stanley Pool. The rapids were upriver to the left, and the pool below to the right. As the sun set it was beautiful to watch. It was a beautiful vantage point from which one could look in several directions for many miles.

While the adults sat or stood in circles having quiet conversations, we children would be running and hollering and screaming, playing catch or hide and seek. We boys chased the girls and then the girls chased us. We chased all manner of bugs and insects, and had just as good a time as we could. We all played really hard, because after the picnic, it was time for church again -  evening services. These would usually be a little less formal and a little more entertaining. They were held in the little chapel on our compound. We didn't have well known or notorious speakers in the evening. We had more normal people. And we sang a lot of hymns. I sang as loud and as happily as I could, because even though I didn't like the missionaries, and thought them cruel, I thought the Lord was real.

One Monday afternoon as I was upstairs in my room doing my homework when I heard someone yelling "neoka, neoka," which means snake in Kikongo. I ran downstairs and out the front door gabbing the only implement of destruction I could find, which was a shovel. When I got to the native who was yelling, he pointed up into a large tree. It was one of the tall mango trees behind the chapel, where we had just been playing the night before. He pointed up to a large knot on one of the limbs. He said, "There it is. A snake." A large crowd gathered to discuss the situation. but decided that it wasn't a snake. They determined that it was a malformation on the limb.

The crowd dispersed and went back to their original activities. But I didn't. I had climbed a lot of mango trees and I had never seen a knot like that. Some trees are prone to knots and have a lot of them. But this was a mango tree. I climbed them all the time to get the fruit, so I didn't think that this was really part of the tree. I thought the guy insisting that it was a snake was right. I went back to my dorm room and got my trusty BB gun, the Daisy that I had brought with me from the United States. I started pumping shot after shot into the knot. I watched carefully to see if there was any effect. It took a while, but soon the knot started to move. It was a snake! And a big one too, uncoiling. It was really scary to see it uncoil and stretch out . It was way up in the tree. I shuddered to think that we children played so much behind the chapel, under that very tree, and along the river bank. This snake was big enough to eat us. 

The native that had insisted that it was a snake was still there watching me, and he started yelling again. This time, when the crowd gathered, they could see the snake stretched out and moving along a limb. It was about eight feet long and quite big around. But it moved very gracefully, like a large greased rope. It could move as smoothly in the trees as it could on the ground. I had never seen such a thing like this before. I ran back to the hostel and got Uncle Clay and Aunt Vel. They ran back to the chapel and looked up too. All the servants came running over too. They all wanted to see this event unfold. Who would be the one to catch or kill this snake? Or would we get it at all? We could hardly wait. We stood eager and ready to partake in the kill. No one in Africa ever let a snake get away if he could help it. There were just too many of them, and they were often poisonous.

The crowd that gathered now was very excited, and you could hear the fright in their voices. The men collected all manner of bricks and bottles and anything that could be heaved into the tree. The women dodged them as they came down. The snake was unable to move to another tree even though he tried several times. But neither could we knock him out of it. Finally a policeman that had stopped because of the crowd, decided that he would climb up the tree and see if he could kill it. He took my BB gun and a machete with him. Now, I could see the machete doing him some good up there. but my BB gun, that was just a nuisance to the snake. He climbed into the tree and up towards the snake. The snake started to come directly at him but just as it got near him, the policeman cut the branch out from under the snake. This happened several times. Each time when the snake fell it was able to catch itself on another branch. It took more than an hour of being pursued in the tree, for the snake to tire. Finally, a well placed rock, knocked the snake from a limb and it came tumbling to the ground tail first.

The second the snake hit the ground, he was off like a shot. He was very fast and not easily stopped. But knives and spears rained down on him from all directions, which confused him, and made him stop. Then he was attacked with machetes and finally killed. When his head was cut off. we knew he wasn't going anywhere, but his body still writhed for several hours. Even though it was myself and the one native who had really seen the snake and gotten it to move, it was the policeman who got the kill. He took it off to his barracks no doubt, and I know he and his buddies had python steaks that night for dinner. I've heard they're very good.

This wasn't the first time a snake that large was killed on the compound. We children often saw large ones down by the river. Even as a child I thought it was odd that we children were allowed to play down by the river. But nothing was ever said about it by any adult. I thought a snake that big could eat a child and the thought scared me. Every once and awhile we heard of a native child being eaten by a crocodile or snake, but no one ever cautioned us. Since we were not restricted by our guardians, we just adopted the attitude that it was the child's fault if he got eaten. That the child had been careless. Apparently the adults thought it wouldn't happen to one of us because we would be more alert.

Adventures like this were not uncommon. But there were much more horrifying experiences than that. I can remember when two of the most favorite dogs on the compound were killed together in one instant. The female was in heat and the male was chasing her. In their excitement they didn't see the car on the street and ran in front of it. Dogs were like children to me. I identified more with them than with an adult person, and seeing them dead in the road was a hard experience. This was even worse than listening to the pigs scream when they were being killed next door. The pigs ears were cut off and they bled to death, but they squealed the whole time. Pigs are much too human to do that to. And their cries are very human too!

School got more and more difficult for me that year. I finally stopped caring about putting up with the inhuman treatment I got at school. I quit doing anything. No homework, no reading in class, nothing. I quit! They beat me but my resolve just strengthened. I hated them just that much more every time they did. My refusal to submit to their idea of what education was about gave me much more pride and dignity than they could ever give me. As far as I was concerned, I was as different from them as night is from day. I knew that I had my own daylight. They were the powers of darkness. I was just one small boy far away from home. I couldn't reason with them, they couldn't hear me, but I didn't have to give in, and I didn't. I kept my soul alive and left them to wallow in their own self righteousness.

At this juncture I was sent home to my parents. The school could not afford to have me in their midst another day. I was too disruptive. I was too blatant an example of how they were failing the children. The other children made pretense out of their lives by smiling through it and pretending to learn. But my sullen face was too much. My father was certainly displeased to see me. I was now a disgrace to the family. My mother, although more willing to forgive, could not understand how I could have done this to them. She knew I wasn't stupid. It was beyond my powers to explain. They just weren't capable of hearing my view. It was that simple. My returning home in this manner just gave my father further more excuse to take out his frustrations on me. Which he did.

The remainder of that year my poor mother tried to teach me with the Calvert Course, a home school system. This was at least in English, which was great. But she had decided to start teaching me at the grade level I was supposed to be in, in English. Even though I was already behind in my studies, and had been doing them in French. I had basically forgotten how to read English. No amount of persuasion could get me to do so. I am sure that if the French school system had gotten to me any earlier I would have become an autistic child. Now I was just in need of a major change to straighten out the mess I was in. I had a light deep down inside of me, but I never let it show because I didn't want anyone to blow it out.

A year later some book caught my fancy and within a week I was reading. Soon I was reading everything I could get my hands on. I read so voraciously my parents were dumbfounded. My mother got smart and left me alone, only making a pretense at formal education. Whatever I was doing on my own was more than I could be pushed into. My father wasn't paying enough attention to know I was simply learning on my own. He wouldn't have approved of that. But my mother at least let me be and that was a start. Just as I mentioned earlier, my whole struggle in childhood was the struggle to just be left alone so I could be myself. Just a little freedom allowed me to blossom.

end chapter 9

Chapter 8 - Ringing the Bell

The bell was imported from London, England, I knew because I had the job of ringing the bell. I was able to read the writing on the bell because it was in English, and I had the job of ringing it several times a day. I would climb the stairs to the top of the tower and ring it by hand, putting both of my little hands on the large pulley connected to it. Many times I read the date and the place of manufacture. I poured over the several pictures and text inscribed on the bell, describing the history by the factory where it was made. The captions told of a commission from the Queen of England. So, here in the heart of Africa, in the Belgian Congo, was I, ringing a large British bell.

It seemed rather strange to me while ringing this bell that it had come all the way from England. Yet I felt special to have the job of doing it, several times a day. I wasn't big enough to ring the bell as intended, by pulling the large ropes that ran all the way from the bell's pulley to the base of the tower. But I could ring it by turning the large pulley, bigger than myself, back and forth, like rocking a baby. The bell was at the top of the tower on the large church at the center of Bangala. The top of the tower was open, with arched windows without panes. I used to lean out of them while holding on to one of the corner pillars. Perhaps I was lucky to have never fallen off. It was a long, long, way down. No panes, no bars, just open space. I wondered if my parents knew  how I rang the bell?

Usually the job of ringing the bell went to an older student at the missionary school. It was usually provided a small stipend that helped provide a scholarship for a good student. I got the job when one of the students died. Dad thought it would be a responsibility that would develop my character. I was given a windup alarm, and had to carry it around with me. I had to watch the clock and run to the church to ring the bell every half hour. It was how the whole village set it's schedule. But my ringing the bell didn't last too long. I got tired of having to be there to ring it every half hour from six A.M. till nine P.M.

In the morning, soon after the ringing of the bell, the natives could be seen coming down the hill from their huts to the mission station proper. They came to work in the missionaries houses. They kept the yards, keeping the grass cut with a cycle. They carried the water, brought wood for the fire, cooked and cleaned. Their labor was cheap and every missionary family had at least four servants doing various tasks. Our family was no exception.

There was a large woodworking shop on the compound. We had some very good carpenters who made windows and doors. They cut and planned the planks we used to build the missionary homes, churches and schools. Trees were felled by hand with axes. The logs were cut by hand into planks with large saws, one man at each end. Sometimes it would take a day to cut a single log, as the wood was whatever was close by, and some of it was mahogany. Back at the shop, Uncle Totty had a V8 engine from an old truck that we used to run a large table saw. My brother Karl and I used to hand around the carpenters and watch them work, and play in the large piles of sawdust. Next to the carpentry shop was a small garage. We were able to get gasoline, so a few vehicles were kept on the station.

In the missionary homes there were four major divisions of labor, water carrying, clothes washing, cooking and yard work. We had a man for each job. Our cook, like the carpenters, made everything from scratch. This was no easy task for him, as much of what we ate was not indigenous to the region. Things such as wheat flour, bread, and things that seemed staples to us, were unheard of in the bush, except in the missionary homes. It was very difficult to keep food fresh in the tropical heat. We had no refrigeration.

If food was in a can it stayed fresh, but lots of our food, even our flour, was often full of bugs, or just spoiled. Things that were shipped to us in "ready-to-make" packages were usually inedible by the time we received them. The original flavor was lost and the contents had adopted the flavor of the packaging. This fact was not known to the good people who sent us these packages. But, due to the intense head and humidity, we had cakes that when baked tasted just like soap, because it had been shipped in a box that also contained soap. Talk about disappointment.

Our clothes were taken down to the river by the wash boy and pounded clean on large flat rocks, placed in the shallow water of the river's edge. Was it any wonder that a shirt didn't seem to last through more than six or seven washings? This primitive method was just too hard on them. I don't understand why they had to be pounded so much, but they did get very clean. 

Our yard boy cut our grass daily, all day long, as he had to do it by hand. There were no mechanized lawn mowers. The yard boy used what they called a "coup coup," a French term that literally means "cut cut." It was a long flat metal bar bent on one end with both edges sharpened. He would stand in one spot and swing this long piece of metal back and forth, cutting one small patch of grass at a time, and then moving on. It was a full time job. He took lots of breaks, but it sure kept him in shape.

This summer my father worked almost all the time, as usual, day and night. We didn't see much of him. My mother was busy with the servants and so we didn't see much of her either. We kids got to roam as we willed, most of the time. We would take off in the morning and only come home for lunch. Even though we came for lunch, we spent much of our time finding native fruits to supplement our lousy canned food, Spam and such, at home. It was an ongoing challenge, getting enough to eat. A lot of the fruits were either high up in a tree or deep in the jungle, so just getting them was an adventure.

In our wanderings we would always come across the natives doing their chores, preparing and eating their foods. It was often very interesting. They ate a lot of insects and rodents that we didn’t. It was fun to watch them and to taste what they had. Some of it was actually pretty good. Many of the insects they caught were considered delicacies. Sometimes caterpillars would be real plentiful. They would be gathered up by the basketfuls, then be squeezed to get the green guts out, and the husk dried in the sun. When dried, they were like tiny pretzels. A hard, crunchy, high protean snack. The natives certainly liked them that way.

We also caught flying ants by the dozens. Rather easy, as any time people gathered at night and had a lantern lit, the flying ants would come swarming to it. To eat them, all we had to do was catch them, hold them by their wings, and toast them next to the lantern. When dry and crispy toasted they tasted a lot like crunchy peanut butter. Other insects, we learned to eat raw, boiled, or baked in a fire.

Much of the native food was just gathered from the forest, from fields and trees. Small rats and even mice and snakes were eaten by the natives. They would make big catches of these small animals by setting fire to a field. Then, as the mice, rats, and other small animals came scurrying out to run across the road they would be grabbed. They were strangled and wrapped in green leaves and placed in the hot coals of a fire. Soon they would be nicely cooked and not burned and they would be eaten on the spot.

The staple food though, was made from the root of the manioc tree. Americans know of this primarily as tapioca, as in the pudding. But that is not how the natives in Africa eat it. They use it in several other ways. It was their major starch food for basic energy. This meant that the manioc, which starts out as a poisonous root, is the major part of their each meal. Similar to potatoes in the West, or rice in the Orient.

The common meal in Bangala would consist of a main portion of prepared manioc which they called "fufu," a vegetable, and when possible, some meat. The manioc is rendered a harmless white powder by a weeks long process that also causes it to loose a lot of its vitamins. The root is dug up, peeled, and then split. It pearly white. The pieces are then soaked in spring water or fresh ponds to leach the poison out. After this was done, it is dried by being placed on raised palm frond platforms, exposed to the sun.

Every village had lots of these platforms with the bleached white chunks basking in the sun, and the sweet acrid smell wafting over the village. When the manioc is good and dry, chunks of the tubers were placed into a hollowed wooden log and pounded into a flour. Women could be seen, every day, pounding the pieces with their large wooden sticks.

The flour is added to boiling water and stirred till it is a clear gray paste. It is sticky and rather pungent tasting. It is usually eaten with the fingers. Each person, in turn, pulls off a piece, rolls it into a ball, and then dips it in whatever sauce or flavoring was available. Much like putting gravy on potatoes. The favorite vegetable of the natives, they called "saka saka." It was a blend of small leafy greens picked wild and boiled with fresh mashed peanuts as a flavor enhancer. It was really very good!

Meat with a meal was not an every day thing. Often meat was used more as a flavoring for sauces than as a main part of the meal. Meat was scarce, except for fish, because it could be dried, salted and shipped. It retained its strong flavor and could be stored for months without the need of refrigeration. Dried fish would come up the river in huge bundles, piled on the boats, or hanging in the heavy air on ropes at the front of the boat. It didn't rot in the warm sun.

When the natives saw the boat arriving with food on the deck, they would all rush down to the water's edge to be the first to barter for it. Everything was matter of bartering in this world. There were no set standards for anything. Truly a free market economy. The dried fish was popular because of how easily it could be stored.  Stored outside and open to the air, it kept for months, but when needed could be thrown into boiling water and be ready to eat in minutes with manioc.

To prepare a meal, all that was needed was a pot of water on the fire to bring to a boil. While it was getting hot a few chips of manioc would be quickly pounded into flour. When it was boiling some of it would be poured out into another pot and the fish put in it. Then the manioc flour would be stirred into the boiling water and soon ready was their version of meat and potatoes.

The semi-domestic animals that roamed the village provided added protean. These were goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and guinea pigs. They were not sheltered or fed but foraged for themselves among the huts. They were often found loitering around the cooking areas where they would scavenge food dropped by the women. They would also get into stored food if not well hidden. There were many goats and sheep all of which had tuberculosis and could be seen coughing in the cool early morning air. It was a sorry sight. The missionaries didn't like eating the local goat meat because of their tubercular coughing. But did eat it when offered so as not to offend the natives.

Ducks really thrived in the African villages. Nine months of wet season did them royal. They could be seen waddling from puddle to puddle, hut to hut, eating every rotting piece of food found, and scavenging drowned insects. I noticed that ducks really did like anything, no matter how nasty, stinky, or rotten. But they did keep the village clean, eating up the rotten old food that would have just gotten smellier. The duck eggs were larger and richer tasting than the chicken eggs.

The chickens that ran loose around the village were small, scrawny birds. Not like the big American chickens that can't even fly. These chickens had to be swift on their feet so as not to be eaten by us and other predators. They stayed away from the puddles and stuck mostly to the roads and sandy areas where they clawed the dirt for seeds and bugs. Guinea pigs were kept in the huts with the natives because they were so small. The large pigs were also allowed to roam. They were watched carefully though, because they were a prized meat. The villagers all knew what animals belonged to whom. As we watched them grow, mate, and have babies, everyone knew which offspring belonged to which pig, and therefore who had the right to eat it. There was very little trouble over ownership.

Any animal desired for meat was chased by young boys, caught and killed. The killings were often very unsavory. Disgusting actually. The natives had very little feeling for the animals. Their life was so hard already, animals didn't seem to matter at all. Killing an animal was done with no regard whatsoever to quickness or painfulness. They would string a goat up by its hind legs, kicking and bleating, and cut its throat with a small knife. Often the knife was dull and it took a long time to cut through the neck. You could hear the goat bleating quite a ways away, struggling against the knife at their throat. And then the bleating would start coming out the hole in the throat, bubbling through the blood. The goat would hang, kicking and bleating till it bled to death.

The first time I watched this I vomited. After that, whenever I heard that sound, I ran in the opposite direction with my ears covered. A couple of times I saw my dad rush over to one of these events and knock the animal out with a rock. He could not abide the callous suffering. Though he was disgusted, the natives didn't seem to care and didn't change their habits.

Besides my brother and I, there was one other white boy on the mission station. His name was Jimmy. We were called, "mwana moondele" by the natives, which means "pale child." We three spent most of our time together exploring in the swamps and jungle around the station. We played, made primitive toys, and fought. We didn't play much with the native children because it always lead to problems. Their friendship often became oppressive. They demanded too much time and exclusivity. Then the other native kids got jealous and soon no one was happy. Also, we lost a lot of toys. It was just too hard for the native boys, who had not toys, to resist stealing ours. They had nothing like our toys. So we white kids played mostly with ourselves.

Just after breakfast, we would run off down the path to the swamps, scrambling and scurrying over the roots and rocks in our way. We loved the downhill run to the swamp. The natives didn't seem to use the paths as much as we kids did. For them they were a utility, for us the paths were adventure trails. Sometimes we would find one of the native canoes, where it had been hidden in the brush, and we would borrow it. We loved taking little canoe trips out into the swamps. These dangerous excursions, but we never knew it.

When we could find a canoe we would go to Uncle Totty's garden and steal one of his half barrels, a 55 gallon drum cut in half. He used them to plant vegetables in, to keep them raised off the ground away from insects. We would turn one over, leaving a pile of vegetables and dirt, and walk off with it. They really did work well as a little boat. We were still small enough that the half barrel boat would still float with two of us in it. We would cut a palm frond, peel off the leaves, and use the wide flat end for a paddle.

Sometimes we traveled so far into the swamp that we had to mark the trees. Once you got lost in that jungle, all the trees and bends in the swamp looked the same. Somehow, we always managed to find our way out. We would stop at interesting places and walk around on the untrammeled vegetation making our own mark. We saw many rare birds and lots of snakes. Sometimes there would only be roots to walk on, above the dark, dank, water. There really wasn't a firm bottom beneath the water. It was soft slimy mud and leaf. mixture that one really could walk in or swim in. Sort of like quicksand. We would also get covered with spiders cobwebs. They would stretch between trees and roots. When excited the spiders would vibrate and make the whole web seems like a live trap. The cobwebs felt really unpleasant when you got a bunch stuck on your arm or leg.

These unpleasant occurrences however, did not dampen our spirits or daunt our explorations. We spent long days in the jungle and loved every minute of it. But our summer days were numbered and soon it was time to go back to the capital and to school. And we did.

end chapter 8

Chapter 7 - Bangala

If you are the child of a missionary family home is always changing. So far I had moved every single year of my life, several times we moved more than once per year. As you can imagine, this constant transfer from one place to another leave no time for roots. And I had no roots anywhere! The only place I could dig in was internal space, and that is what I did.

While I was away at boarding school my first year in the Belgian Congo, my parents moved to a new mission station. I did not know the place they had moved to, but that is where I went when the school year was over. My parents and other siblings were moved in and settled. I was not. So, after flunking the third grade for the second time, I had to go to an entirely new environment, and there, face the anger of my dad. As usual, he was disappointed in me. Different place, same old punishment. I was berated, pinched and quizzed as to why I was failing. "You come from a smart family. You just don't want to do the work. You are lazy. That's why you are failing." I had no explanation good enough for dad. I could only justify myself internally, and again I proceeded to do so.

The new village my family had moved to was called Bangala. It up the river, inland from Leopoldville, several days drive from the capital. It stood on low rolling hills above the Kwilu river. The Kwilu was a tributary of the Congo River. I was taken to the new place in one of the omnipresent GMC Carryall's widely used in the tropics at the time. With no paved roads, the travel was arduous. The one lane road was little more than a wide swath cut through the jungle. It consisted of two dirt ruts which vehicle wheels made deeper, and then deeper still with the rains washing through them. A patch of green where the wheels did not tread, marked the long center. Only the passing of vehicles kept the incessant encroachment of the jungle from taking over. There was no upkeep to the roads. If a road was impassable, the current vehicle passing through, had to stop while the passengers did whatever was necessary to get moving again. Thus, trees were cut and placed over a creek bed, dirt was shoveled into a rut, or some overhanging limbs were chopped to get the car or truck by.

The road was alternately muddy, sandy, overrun, or washed out. Conditions changed. Shovels and rope and machetes were kept on board to allow for unknown. This was deep jungle. There was no seeing above, or more than a few inches into the jungle on either side. With a turn every other minute, one never knew what was around the curve. Accidents were frequent.

A common practice is to honk at each turn, for any approaching vehicle from the opposite direction was also traveling in the same ruts. A tight bend in the road was often the site of a bloody accident. The warning honks gave the other vehicle that might be coming head on towards you, at least time to brake.

As our Carryall passed through villages the natives would all come running to the road to see who was passing through. They would gesture, wave and cheer as if we were the lead car in an auto race. In the bush, a vehicle might only pass by once every few days. For many of these isolated villages, it was the most exciting event that would occur. Most of them had never ridden on a motorized vehicle, much less, a bike. As a child, I took in the excitement of the villagers as we passed through. Even though I had done nothing, all the waving and gesticulating made me feel like a traveling dignitary. My joy was real at the recognition, and I waved heartily back.

The villages changed as much as the terrain. In this part of the Congo the houses were square. In other parts they were round. Some of the villages that were closer to the city had outhouses. The ones further inland did not. Most of the huts were just one room. Sometimes they would be divided by a bamboo curtain to provide some visual privacy. A very few had two actual rooms. Usually one for the wife and kids, and one for the man of the house. The man's room was just big enough for one bed. The wife would visit the husband's room in the early evening while the kids waited, and then she would retire with the children, however many, in the other part of the hut.

All the huts were dried mud on the outside, with mud packed dirt floors inside. There was no grass in the yards around the homes because they wanted the ground bare. It was the only way they could see and kill the numerous snakes before they entered their homes. The huts were literally made of the earth. Cut palm branches were tied together with vines, mud was through at them till it filled all the cracks. The roof was thatch from tall grasses that grew in the open meadows.  With no indoor water, electricity or gas, all the cooking was done outside with a sigle pot. Very simple living.

  

There were many varieties of bridges and ferries on the journey to my new home. All the bridges were makeshift, usually an assortment of logs and boards tied together with natural vines. These were traversed very slowly. One slip of a single tire and one could be there for several days. There were ferries used to cross the larger rivers. Each one was unique to the owner and built with whatever could be scavenged and put together. Most often they consisted of two or more dugout canoes with boards placed between them, tied together with vines from the area. These wooden, jerry-rigged, floating platforms served well, and there were no other options.   One never knew if one would make it across or sink.

To use one of this ferries was a hit and miss affair. I did see several of these ferries sink during my stay in Africa. We would have to drive our vehicle onto the ferry from the shore at whatever angle seemed best that day, depending on status of the river bank that day, the speed of the river, or the depth of the water. Often, we would have to drive on and off several times before we achieved the crucial balance. At several of the docks we had to wait for the ferry to deliver a load and return to our side of the river. The ferrymen were usually old men. They took their time. Sometimes it seemed that their primary function was to recount stories of previous crossings, ones in which the ferry fell apart and the vehicle lost. These periodic sinkings were the greatest drama in town, and revisiting the scene with laughter was great joy to them. The old men would gesticulate with their arms and hands as they described how each event happened, and how such and such a vehicle had gone under. Even details of who had drowned, and how, were not left out.

So, at each crossing, we were always wary, for you didn't usually get going until the stories were told. Time was not a factor on these roads. Certainly not to the villagers who only knew now, and here. The ferrymen were usually very slow and unhurried, and so each crossing was a long drawn out process. It was with a deliberate slowness that we were loaded, then hauled, pushed, or  paddled to the other side. Each crossing was an event for the locals who would sit on the riverbank and discuss the particulars of each crossing.

When I arrived in Bangala I was stared at, pinched, prodded, poked, and laughed at. This of course, was the typical reception for any new white person arriving at the village. Out in the bush, few white people came. Bangala was far enough away from the major cites that the natives didn't see many white people. We were like circus animals to them. And how we behaved, a circus act to them. With little sense of our need to privacy, starring, touching, and feeling our straight hair was just done. The same way we would pet a dog. And touch they did! It was very annoying at first, before one became used to it.

I was taken to my new home, a large crowd of natives, following. My parents had just settled in a few weeks before. As they were also new to the bush, they too were still having problems with crowds  of natives starring at them constantly. No privacy at all! Large numbers of natives, fifty to a hundred at a time surrounded our house and peered in the windows. Large flat noses pressed even flatter as they pushed against the screened windows. Eager brown eyes peered into our home. Every available inch of window space had a face on it. A live face, watching us. Making us feel very uncomfortable. We were the animals in the zoo. Not an experience I that allows one to be comfortable.

 

Our house at Bangala was very large compared to the one we had had in Sona Lala. The structure was of hand made cement blocks dried in the tropical sun. It had never been painted and so was still the soft gray color of dry cement. We were perched atop a ridge with a view of the Kwilu river. A wrap around porch covered two sides of the house, from which the river could be seen below, vast and swift moving. It was dark, beautiful, and mysterious. In the mornings, the sun rose over the river, first showing its rays above the green horizon, and then shimmering on the water as it rose into the sky. At night, as the sun went down, the sky would be multicolored and resplendent, beautiful beyond belief.

  

From morning to nightfall one could see natives in their canoes crossing the water. It was a quiet peaceful scene. The natives blended so simply with their surroundings that they were inseparate of the landscape itself. The canoes were all hand made. Dug out from the trunks of trees. Their poise and balance as they paddled in their canoes was as artful as it was athletic.

The river was the main means of travel throughout the interior. Large numbers of people made their way in and out of the bush on various old riverboats, which we watched as they plied by. Their were Lever Brother's boats hauling palm oil out, and other boats carrying mercenariness in. Flat barges were hauled behind in front of the boats, carrying big loads of rare lumber, taken from the jungle. No roads could carry the material in or out. It all went by boat on the rivers.

Because the rivers were there and didn't have to be maintained, they were the natural way to move material. Towns formed and grew on the river banks, and Bangala was one of them. My favorite boats to watch were the paddle-wheel boats. The faster propeller driven boats just didn't have the same appeal to a little boy. The Hoboken was a big passenger boat that docked beneath our hose every couple weeks. Most of what we saw go by never stopped. I spent many hours watching boats go by,just sitting on the front porch.

The sound of the paddle-wheel boats was distinct. The huge wooden planks hit the water with a hypnotic drumming sound. Very pleasurable. I would stand on the riverbank and sway to the rhythm - my own private little dance. There was a small very fast boat that was propeller driven. It always left a rolling wake behind as it pressed up the river. It said "SHELL" on the side of it, so we called it the "Shell boat." When we heard the sound of the "Shell boat" coming, we and the native children would all run as fast as we could to the river and jump in. We loved swimming in its wake.

    

                 end chapter 7

Chapter 6 - More school

The oppression I experienced both at school and at the hostel made me wonder about the world I found myself in. I felt that something was severely wrong. Some part of me knew instinctively that this was not right. My heart told me - a fresh young, innocent child, should not be experiencing this kind of desolation and pain. I was far more perplexed by these feelings, and was much more concerned about them, than I was with my troubles at school. Even at this young age I knew that a child was not meant to feel this way. My soul screamed that a child was meant to feel loved, enjoyed, embraced. How was it that I could did not feel embraced, safe, protected?

The adults around me did not understand my distaste for their world. They didn't even try and understand! They just assumed I should buckle under and give up my mind, my soul, my self. But I thought, "Why should I adhere to what they believe, what they have to say, when what they have to say turns my stomach?" Their whole belief system, their implementation of it, was not legitimate to my mind, to my heart. I could see the results: the lies, the disingenuous, the coercions. I was determined to understand the world according to my heart, my instinct for truth. What they believed, what the had to say, needed to go through the fire of my insight, or probably more correctly, my instinct for truth. In later years I thought of my insistence on truth as a curse, not because i didn't want the truth, but because to seek the truth, put one at odds with so many others, and caused much pain. It was as if I was singled out to walk a truth that was only supported by something in me, unseen by others. Difficult for an adult, almost horrifying for a child. I thought the adults around me should reveal the truth, not try to force me to look away.

I was determined to respect my own mind, my own heart, my intuition. Why? I have no clue. I didn't care how long it would take or what the consequences would be. I could not just accept their view of the world. My own inner self was too strong. I knew that to respect myself I would have to understand the world in a manner that was mine -- mine alone.

My constant curiosity and questioning of everything did not endear me to my elders. My hostel parents, and other missionary adults on the compound saw me as a disruptive force. Unyielding, disobedience, stubborn. They would look down on me with their rigid glares and condescendingly ask, "Why can't you just accept our word? Why don't you just believe, as we do? Why can't yo be like the rest of the kids?" I could have spat in their faces. I did not find truth to be what they said it was. It certainly was not my truth. A passive acceptance of what they said felt like death to me!

So I resisted with all my heart and soul. And I kept my soul mine, though they covered it with the mud of their arrogance. I never gave my heart and soul away. Yet, I would never wish the pain and anguish I felt on anyone. Something in me resisted the "unexamined life." I had no inclination to accept as given, what others believed. Having already been a stranger in numerous schools, in numerous cities, and even foreign lands, I was already inculcated with the understanding that no culture had a lock on truth. My keepers were no exception.

I would lay in my little bed, with the other boys and girls, thinking to myself, "Why were these adults not sensitive to the pain they caused, -these commissaries of God, these do gooders, these missionaries? This lack of sensitivity to a child was a red flag for this one. For I knew that without sensitivity, the truth would never be known. I realized young, that becoming a person unto myself was not going to be an easy task.

Saturday and Sunday were the only two days of the week that were free from the tyranny of school. Yet, here again, our trustees made life miserable. They just never let up. Promptly after lunch on these two days we were put to bed and told to rest for two hours. It was called "rest period." Although the heat was at its peak this time of day, it was not oppressive. It was not a custom of the natives, and I knew that. But somehow, a rest period in the middle of the day was day was deemed necessary. The adults felt it was the perfect time of day to relax for a couple of hours. Why they forced us children, longing to play outside, into their routine, I'll never know. The results were disastrous. Yet their never was a change in the schedule.

Instead of letting us play outside under that shade of some large tropical tree they made us kids lie down in our beds. We were not supposed to talk, even in a whisper. Can you imagine a dozen kids, midday, laying down and taking a nap? We not in preschool. Did we children oblige these adults? Never! As soon as the door to our hostel room was closed, we were whispering. Then we got louder; there were sneers and jeers. Anything to get something started. Soon a pillow or a shoe would be thrown and then chaos would erupt. Sometimes every available item in the room would be picked up and thrown. Once we even stained the walls with some rotten mangoes. We really paid for that!

Of course Aunt Vel would be aroused by all the racket and come to punish us. She would emerge, strutting, through the door to our room with a fierce, angry look on her face. Incensed at our insubordination. She was usually in her bra and panties only, and seemed converted from her normal self into witch and exhibitionist! Perhaps some wish for exhibition, well suppresed, came out during these daily romps. Being only in bra and panties, exposing herself to a number of preteen boys, we had difficulty concentrating on much besides her body. Her breasts, heaving in anger, clamored to get loose of their moorings. With her face contorted, she would glare at us looking for the most guilty party. "Who started this?" She would scream! Silence.

Not one of us would admit to starting this rumble in the jungle. We would all deny partaking in any unsanctioned activity. For this, we would all be punished. Her favorite weapon was a 4" wide razor belt. Each of us in turn would be whipped. But while she spanked the others, and they screamed in protest, the rest of us boys would be watching her smooth round ass with intimate pleasure. We would watch her breasts jiggle with glee. We were young, but we were already well aware of our desire for female flesh. We lusted after it even though we weren't old enough to do anything about it. I always suspected that Aunt Vel loved having an excuse to be roused from her bed and parade among us half naked with her adulterous feelings.

Mealtimes at the hostel were no less a torture than much of the daily routine. Of all the meals, breakfast was the worst. Our morning milk was powdered milk. A dried white powder mixed with water, tasting more like weak cement than anything edible. Because it tasted so bad, and because it was difficult to get us to drink it, we were allowed to add some powdered chocolate. Many of us would have preferred to drink water, but that was "No substitute for milk," we were told. We had to finish one full glass before we were allowed from the table.

For me, one full glass was one to many. Adding chocolate, for me, wasn't helpful, for as a child, I did not like chocolate. Without chocolate, the mild was a lumpy, sticky, chalky milky slush, and it tasted like cement to me. I would wait till my hostel parents weren't looking and I would hold my nose with one hand and gulp it down as quickly as I could. Since Uncle Clay and Aunt Vel didn’t drink milk, as they were adults, they didn't have to submit to their own requirements. They didn't eat the porridge we had to eat every morning either. They had eggs and toast. The oatmeal we had came in one of those round cardboard boxes. However, having been shipped by boat from half way around the world, by the time it arrived on our table the humidity and heat had transferred the flavor of cardboard to the oatmeal. And that is just what the porridge tasted like - cardboard! As a result of poor fare at the hostel, we were a rather skinny lot of kids. We didn't hang around the kitchen for treats like stateside children.

Because of the poor nourishment we received at the hostel many of us took to foraging on the compound. Luckily for us there were many fruit tress. There wasn't one single fruit or berry on the compound that we didn't know how to gather and eat. We knew the seasons and where the trees or bushes were that bore it. We tried to be the first there to eat it. No tree on the compound was free from our climbing, struggling bare feet and sweaty, eager hands. We were impatient and daring scavengers, and would climb high and far out on the limbs. Eagerly, we wolfed down mangoes, guavas, star apples, African cherries, ceour de beoaf, and many as yet unnamed fruit.

While we children ate all the fruit we could find during the day, fruit bats claimed the eating and foraging in the night. What the fruit bats didn't get at night, we found during the day. The nights were cool and pleasant and good for sleeping. We liked to listen to the crickets and bats and other night criers. We just hoped that the bats didn't get all the fruit. We are not talking about little bats, these fruit bats had a wingspan of several feet, and their bodies were the size of a large rat. They had very ruffled noses, like the skin of ones' ears, convoluted, and thin, designed to smell and feel the fruit they ate.

That entire year my most pleasurable moments were private ones. These pleasures consisted mostly of daydreams, played just for me in my head at night. Since I didn't do well in school, I got no rewards there. So my little dream world expanded into the day, and occupied me to such an extent that I could not pay attention in school. My inattention left me never knowing where the rest of the class was - what text they were reading, or where on the page they were. When the teacher would call my name, invariably I would have no idea what place in the text they were reading. It would always have to have it pointed out. Usually I would be brought to the front of the class to have my fingers spanked with a hard wooden ruler. Then I would have to return to my seat and read longer from the text than normally required.

So that first miserable school year in Africa passed. I flunked the third grade, as I had the year before. Flunking a grade, especially for the second time, made me feel that something was wrong. However, I didn't blame myself. I knew that my childhood was not normal. Hadn't I already moved every year of my life? Hadn't I been taken from town to city, from one continent to another, always a stranger, always the new kid? And wasn't I going to school studying in French, when my native language was English?

When the school year ended, I was sent back to my parents out in the bush. As soon as my father saw me I knew I was in trouble. His stern and angry face had not even the hint of forgiveness or understanding. I was spanked as hard as he could do it and informed that I must do better and would have to study all summer. I was in trouble, as usual. I reminded myself that it was just me that was afraid of him. For I remembered that when he would come to visit at the hostel, which was only a couple of times, the other kids would hide because he looked so stern, and mean. He tried that summer to keep me completely under control. But I still managed to have some free time and enjoyed it when I could.

end chapter 6