1954–55
Some Notes on Our Stay in the Belgian Congo, 1954–1955
The following notes are written for our children Tom and Liz, and we hope that they may also be of interest to our grandchildren. Both of our kids were old enough to remember the events of our stay in the Congo, but we suspect that they may not remember dates or time-sequences. We hope that they will remember Bukavu and Kivu Province with the same fond memories that we have.
Once Zaïre became an independent nation, almost all of the place names in French were changed to names in an African language. The older names are used in this report. But the name of the city in which we lived had been changed from Costermansville to Bukavu before our time, when the Belgians found out that Costermans had been a crook. It was Bukavu when we got there on 3 February 1954, and so it remains today.
[It was the “Belgian Congo” in our time but now it is the independent country of “Zaïre”. Many of the former European-type names have been changed. I’ll stay with the old names but on first use will present the current names within brackets.] [1]
Fresno to Bukavu
After several months of negotiation, I agreed to join the American advisory team to the Belgian Congo in mid-December 1953. The largest part of the 7-man team was to be based in Bukavu, capital of Kivu Province in East Africa.
We all left Fresno on United Air Lines on 9 Jan. 1954; spent the night in LA and flew on to Washington DC the next day. I reported to the International Cooperation Administration (a predecessor of today’s Agency for International Development, a branch of the State Dep’t.) on 11 Jan., mushing my way through a heavy snowstorm that paralyzed traffic. As a new hire, I needed a week for orientation. Among other things, we all got yellow fever shots and anti-malarial drugs.
On 16 Jan., we trained to New York, did some last-minute shopping and enjoyed a lobster dinner at the Gloucester House.
We left New York on a Sabena “Super DC-6” on the 17th. Each of us had a berth and Liz was empressed as a “Junior Hostess” to take care of a group of youngsters.
Following refueling stops at Newfoundland and Manchester, we landed in Brussels at noon, 18 Jan., and an Embassy car took us to the Hotel Métropole.
There was orientation for me, 19-21 Jan., with both US and Belgian authorities and I spent some time with the geologists at the Royal Belgian Congo Museum in Tervueren. Jeanne and the kids did some sightseeing, and we all got tetanus shots.
We left Brussels in the late afternoon of 22 Jan. and by mistake were given only 3 berths, so Liz and I doubled up. The plane refueled at Casablanca and Kano (where the crowd of vultures on the airfield’s garbage dump was unforgettable) and we arrived in Léopoldville [now Kinshasa] at noon on 23 Jan.
We were met by Harold Lathrop, leader of the American advisory team, who took us to the Hotel Régina. Our room there could accommodate only 3 people and Tom moved in with Lathrop, who also got Tom quickly rigged in shorts and casque.
The next day, Lathrop and I drove to an agricultural center at M’Vuazi (about 120 miles south of Léo) where I was introduced to several projects to which I was to return later. Jeanne and the kids were left behind, high and dry. We returned to Léo on 27 Jan. in time to meet new team arrivals Al, Eva, Betty and John Plummer on the 28th. We then spent a couple of days in meetings, the most notable being one with the big cheese, the Minister of Agriculture himself, who talked only French to us through an interpreter (but see below). And I had a valuable meeting at the Geological Service.
On 31 Jan., we all flew nonstop from Léo to Usumbura [now Bujumbura], the major city of the then Belgian protectorate of Burundi [now an independent nation] on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Our large group stayed at the Hotel Paguides while waiting for transport to Bukavu, some 100 miles north.
A caravan arrived for us on 3 Feb. (caravan is correct; the Logans alone had 22 pieces of baggage!) and we drove slowly, slowly on a very bad road through Burundi and Ruanda to Bukavu. We were met there by Mrs. Lathrop and daughter Elinor, and were taken to the Résidence Royal (in spite of its name, it merited about ½-star) for temporary quarters.
Bukavu was a lovely small city on the southern tip of Lake Kivu, the highest of all of the large African Lakes. Its altitude of 4800 feet was sufficiently high that the Belgians call it “two-blanket country”; the views across the lake and its islands were spectacular, as were those to the high mountains to the west.
Paul Detry’s House and the House Boys
The Lathrops had already arrived before us and had been settled in rather austere accommodations and the Plummers were also assigned similar housing close by. We Logans lucked out and hit the jackpot! MAE (see below) accountant Paul Detry, wife and daughter were ready to leave for Belgium on 6-months’ home leave as we arrived. He owned his house and we happened to get it during his leave (and stayed there after his return). Three bedrooms, large living room with a piano, dining room, one bathroom, kitchen, refrigerator and a laundry room: all on a nice large lot with a view over Lake Kivu and all completely furnished, including nudes for wall paintings in the living room! We also inherited the Detry’s house boys: cook Aloïse (whom Jeanne fired when she found that he was stealing butter); houseboy Basili Kikuni; launderer Yakobo Kambili; and two youngsters (“mtotos”; servants for the seniors) who were also soon fired. Basili and Yakobo remained with us throughout our stay and we later hired young Mikahedi and Zikomangani as mtotos. Four of us and four attendants! They lived in another part of town and walked to and from work. The two seniors were paid the equivalent of $10 a month; the mtotos, $5.
The kitchen was notable, not much larger than a closet. Cooking was done on a piece of flat steel propped up on bricks, with a wood fire below. Looking for something better, Jeanne and I searched the local market and bought a 2-burner kerosene stove and an oven that could be set on top.
Another member of our family was Didi, the Detry’s dog that was left to our care. He became a dear friend to all of us, particularly to Tom.
The Mission Anti-Erosive (“MAE”)
MAE was an agency of the Congo Ministry of Agriculture. Its principal task was the development of agriculture and irrigation in the large valley west of the Ruzizi River that flowed from Bukavu southerly to Lake Tanganyika. Headquarters were in a building about halfway between our home and downtown Bukavu to which I travelled on a bus. A large field office was at a place called Kalambo in the Ruzizi Valley, about 60 miles south of Bukavu just off the road to Usumbura: I was a frequent overnighter there.
The MAE’s director was Georges Tondeur; his assistant, Eric Beckman. I enjoyed working with both and we became good friends. Most of the other 5-6 Belgians in the office seemed like good guys but I had little to do with them.
To assist the American advisors, Tondeur hired 2 English-speaking Africans:
…Paul, a highly educated sub-noble Watusi, worked for our team in the office. He lived in a small cabin at Plummer’s house and was attended to by his own personal servant, a small boy about 8 years old (probably a slave).
…Wamara was a field man who worked mostly for Plummer. He was a son of one of the few important remaining chiefs who still operated under tribal (rather than Belgian) law. He learned English in Uganda after his father had banished his mother from the tribe following a disagreement. The chief had no loss from that action for he had many wives. Wamara told me that he had about 80 brothers and that no one had ever counted his sisters.
Although a high proportion of Belgians in the Congo were Flemish, French was the common language. And luckily for our team, most educated Belgians spoke English, and we had little difficulty communicating with our colleagues. Kiswahili, the “universal” language of East Africa, was used between Europeans and Africans: Jeanne became able to work in it and Tom became quite adept.
Life in Bukavu and Nearby
Bukavu is at the southern end of Lake Kivu, about 160 miles south of the equator. The lake is about 60 miles long and with its islands and the spectacular forested mountains nearby, the setting is beautiful indeed; and the climate is pleasant because of the altitude of nearly 5000 feet. We lived in a quiet residential area near a major boulevard that led to the main business district about a mile away, and we were only about a mile and a half from the Ruzizi River, the boundary between the Congo and the protectorate of Ruanda [now an independent nation], formerly a part of German East Africa.
Our house faced the lake. There was an unpaved alley behind us where a Belgian[2] ran a simple store that served many of our needs. A small bus ran along the nearby boulevard and permitted easy access to the business district for shopping. There was also a large grocery store near the MAE office (see the attached map) on the boulevard at which Jeanne did a fair amount of shopping: its owner was a Flamande who delighted in calling her “Miss California”. But Jeanne did most of her shopping otherwise:
…There was a constant stream of African women venders who came to our backdoor from the alley with baskets of fruits and vegetables on their heads. At first, Jeanne dickered with them using Basili as an interpreter, but she soon learned to handle the negotiations by herself.
…There was also a large market in Shangugu [now Cyangugu] across the Ruzizi in Ruanda. After we got a car, Jeanne frequently went there to stock up.
The Plummers lived almost across the street from us and Betty Plummer and Liz became great friends, as did Eva Plummer and Jeanne. The Lathrops lived nearby and provided some other American friends for us. But I must write that I had troubles on the job while Harold Lathrop was team leader: he was a pleasant fellow but had no training as a scientist or engineer. Things got much better for me when Lathrop’s 12-month tour was over in late 1954 and skilled engineer Al Plummer took over.
I have noted that stream of African salesladies came to the back door. Dog Didi tolerated that practice, but he had been trained to resist any African’s approach to the front door. Watusi Paul who lived on the Plummer’s property sent me notes from time to time by his young mtoto. On each such occasion, the boy came by the front entrance and was bitten by Didi. We all felt sorry for the kid.
We started Tom and Liz in a local grammar school that taught in French. They did not know the language, and we took them out of that school and enrolled them in the Calvert Correspondence School, by mail from the US. I have always thought that we erred: they were both about to have caught on to French and with another month or so, they might have made it.
There was a Protestant missionary family in town. The Reverend Florence often went to the native quarter, blew a trumpet to attract a crowd and then preached in Kiswahili. His son Larry was about Tom’s age and they became great friends.
There were also a group of missionaries who lived at the Kumvia Mission in the mountains near Mushweshwe, west of Bukavu. They came to town from time to time and we met them through the Florences. Jeanne and Liz spent a few days with them at their mission in June 1954. We also had a big party for them at our house on 4 July 1954 and we celebrated by flying a large American flag over our street. Dr. Chapin, a famed ornithologist who had worked for years north of Lake Kivu for the Smithsonian Institute, also attended.
An unforgettable event was the visit of King Baudouin to the Congo. No Belgian king had been there since his grandfather, but Baudouin was in Bukavu on 2-3 June 1955, just before we left. The town went boo-boo, particularly by cleaning everything; all trash was hauled away; all streets and sidewalks were washed. He came in a slow moving caravan by our street where scores of people were lined up to cheer him. He stopped his car in front of our house to accept a bouquet of flowers from a little girl, our daughter! Liz: how many American girls do you know that have presented flowers to a King? Then later that day, there was a large reception for Baudouin at a nearby soccer field. The entire town was there! A long line of costumed Africans carried gigantic elephant tusks to him as presents. The famous Watusi dancers and their dozens of drummers strutted their stuff as thousands cheered. Including the Logans!
The house next door had a tennis court. Tom and I played on it frequently: not tennis, but a ball-and-paddle game named “jokari”. About halfway through our stay, the DeSmets family moved in. Tom and Aldo DeSmets became friends, conversing in their only common tongue, Kiswahili.
We had animals; particularly sheep bought one at a time and destined for our table. They were grazed on our front lawn or in a quinine forest on the alley behind our house. Tom killed them with his .22 rifle and I dressed the carcasses, having been taught by Harold Lathrop.
…A back-door salesman came with a young monkey one day. We bought it for $2 and named her “Mme. Ginnie Frink”. Placed in a tree in our front yard, Ginnie became Liz’s special pet and Ginnie hated each of the rest of us. She disappeared one day, probably stolen.
…We also had a young dik-dik (a very small antelope) for a short time. It became very ill and had to be put down by the MAE’s veterinarian.
…There was one common animal that we had no contact with: the crocodile. Crocs abounded in the Ruzizi River, so many that two professional hunters patrolled its banks. I went to the Ruzizi many times to obtain water samples but never saw a single croc. The only one I ever saw in the Congo was in the zoo at Léo.
We bought a dug-out canoe with paddles, added a bamboo outrigger and called it the “Polepole Maru” (“polepole” = “slow”). We kept it in the lake nearby and used it for rowing and for a swimming platform. One day Belgian Dr. Borgers, our family physician, told me that the parasitic worm causing the dreaded disease bilharziosis thrived in the waters close to the shore and we never bathed in southern Lake Kivu again (although the northern waters were clear).
The road to the Ruzizi Valley descended steeply across an escarpment for about 20 miles south of Bukavu. It was a winding narrow one-way road on which traffic was controlled by a number of barriers. The African barrier attendants signaled to each other by beating on empty gasoline drums to permit the passage of uphill and downhill traffic. Alas!: the use of tom-toms would have been much more authentic. (That road has been replaced.)
Baudouin was not the only king we saw. The capital of Burundi is at Kitega, about 60 miles east of Usumbura. The King of Burundi preferred to have his social hour (i.e. beer drinking) in the dining room of the Paguides Hotel where Tom and I saw him several times. His entrance was ceremonial. Firstly, a group of tall Watusi nobles would gather at a large reserved table in the center of the dining room. When all were seated, the King would drive into the parking lot all alone in an expensive bright red sports car, uncoil his 7-foot frame therefrom, and strut to the table as the nobles all stood at strict attention. A notable sight!
In Bukavu, I adopted the clothing worn by most local Belgian office workers: white, short-sleeved shirt, white shorts, white knee-length stockings and sandals. I commuted to and from the MAE office in a bus that stopped on the road at our house that always contained a number of similarly-clad Belgians. One morning early in my period of trying to get a handle on French, a friend greeted me with a bit of slang: “Bon jour, Jean. Ça gaz?” I responded “Oui, je me gaz.” [“Hello, John. It goes well?” “Yes, I am gassing myself”] I have explained this to grandson Tommy so that he may never make such a ludicrous error.
My wife’s maiden name is Jeanne de l’Épine Smith, the middle name coming from her maternal grandmother’s family. Jeanne had heard that a Baron de l’Épine was an important coffee grower in north Kivu province. She was able to contact him, and he called on her one day. A short fellow, heel clicking, hand kissing, and wearing polished riding boots; he was a nice, polite fellow. They had a friendly talk but were not able to determine how they were related, as they probably were.
When living in Lindsay, we had seen the adventure film “King Solomon’s Mines”. It appeared when we were in Bukavu and we saw it again, along with a theater-full of Belgians. Much of the movie concerns a safari in East Africa led by great white hunter Stewart Granger who directs the safari in Kiswahili. All of the audience knew that language and was greatly amused. But the final scenes concerned a conflict between Africans in Ruanda, and they spoke Kinyaruanda to each other. The dozen or so Belgians in the audience who knew that language screamed, screamed with delight!
I went to the Congo on a 12-month assignment but in late 1954, my tour was extended for an additional 6 months. We then bought a car, a second-hand 4-door Plymouth (or “plee-moot” as it was locally called). It was not in very good condition, but it permitted us to drive in the country and greatly eased Jeanne’s shopping problems.
My extension also had another benefit. We had shipped two crates of household effects from Fresno in Jan. 1954. The first arrived on 10 Nov. of that year, the second on 29 Dec. Although there was extensive damage to clothing and linens, we were able to use the remainder for a half-year because of the extension.
When it came time for us to leave in June ’55, we were also entitled to ship belongings home at government expense. An expensive hardwood called mvulu grew in the Congo and was highly prized by cabinetmakers. I got an idea of how to make a pile of money and ordered a very large crate made of mvulu from a local lumber yard. When it arrived in North Highlands several months later, the wood was so cracked and splintered that it was worth almost nothing but I was able to find a carpenter who agreed to haul it away.
Our family took two notable trips in Kivu Province that merit more than a paragraph’s descriptions, as do several business trips that I made by myself. These are separately reported elsewhere.
The job being over, we said farewell to Bukavu on 8 June 1955 and flew to Stanleyville [now Kisangani] and spent the night. Our connecting outbound flight was delayed and we spent the next day sightseeing. The feature at the zoo was 2 young chimpanzees and 4 lion cubs who were running loose and who could be petted. Liz is the only member of this family who has been bitten by a chimp, and I am alone as a lion petter! We also visited the famed Stanley Falls on the Congo River and particularly enjoyed seeing the many fish traps set nearby.
We finally left the Congo on 10 June 1955 bound for Cairo.
* * * * * *
A Trip to the North
[through some of the most spectacular scenery on earth]
8–20 January 1955; see the attached sketch.
The four of us took off for a 2-week vacation, driving in our “new” Plymouth westerly around Lake Kivu to Kisenyi in Rwanda. After unpacking, there was swimming on the lake and at night, there was a great view of the glow from Nyiragongo Volcano. The next day, we drove around the lava fields of Nyiragongo’s 1938 eruption; shopped in Goma; miniature golf; rented a pédalo at the beach for the kids.
Driving north through beautiful farming country, the Nile divide was crossed at 8300 ft. We stopped at a large American Missionary compound near Rutshuru, cadged lunch with friends we had made in Bukavu, and Tom and Liz played with kids that they knew. We headed for Rwindi Camp (headquarters of Albert National Park) and as we approached it, we began to see some game near the road: monkeys, antelopes, buffalo and an occasional elephant. One sighting was unforgettable: as Jeanne was driving on the narrow dirt road, a large bull elephant stepped out of the very tall grass, right in front of her way! At Rwindi, we obtained two rondavels, had a fine dinner of fresh fish from Lake Edouard and spent the night.
The next day, with a Park guide, we took morning and afternoon drives on game trails as far as Lake Edouard: add warthogs, iguanas, hundreds of buffalo and many birds to our list. When it became dark after dinner, we put Liz to bed and the rest of us returned to the Camp’s restaurant for coffee. Liz got up to go to the bathroom, and our guide came to us reporting that a lion was in the camp and that Liz shouldn’t be walking around alone!
Leaving Rwindi Camp (12 Jan.), we climbed over a divide and got back to the Congo-side. A good road went up to 8400 ft., passing through well maintained plantations that featured European cows and wheat fields. A product of this high country was strawberries that we enjoyed with fresh cream at Lubero for lunch. A few miles beyond that city, we parked and walked for about a mile along a trail to the village of Ngumue to meet the father (a minor chief) of our favorite house-boy, Jakobo: the chief was not there and we gave our present to one of Jakobo’s many brothers. On to Butembo, where we spent the night in a fine hotel with excellent service: one of the best hotels in the Congo.
On to Beni: as elevations declined appreciably, we returned to Nile drainage and forests became quite thick. Some shopping. Continued ahead to Oisha where we bought some stuff (including the two pygmy chairs that we still have). Reverse direction: back to Beni and on to the Ruwenzori Hotel at Mutwanga. This place was a tourist’s delight: excellent accommodations, marvelous gardens with monkeys and deer, swimming pool, fish pond, rare spectacular views of the high Ruwenzoris (when clouds lifted), and high prices (we paid $21 U.S. a night for the 4 of us). Tom and Liz fished in the pond, and both were successful. Jeanne and I met and had dinner with American travelers from Ithaca, N.Y., the Bernstiens (more on them, below).
We lounged the next day. Tom and Liz continued to fish, and we all went driving on local roads but saw no game.
15 Jan.: Left the Ruwenzori Hotel and headed into Uganda. Entered Queen Elizabeth Park and took a 2-hour trip in a launch in the Kazinga Channel, surrounded by hippos much of the time. On to the very British (and very nice) Kitchwamba Lodge that is sited on a high ridge close to Lake Edouard, the shore of which was crowded with elephants and buffaloes and covered with antelope at sunset.
The next day, we headed south along Uganda’s fine dirt roads (much better than the Congo’s) with me driving for the first time in my life on the “wrong” side of the road, and scared stiff. We ended the day at Rutshuru where the hotel had only a single vacant apartment and Liz and I shared a narrow bed. The feature of the day was our brief stop for tea at the White Horse Inn in Kabale. Unknown to us, that was the Sunday afternoon gathering place for all the Brits for miles around: ladies in their fineries with hats and gloves; gents dressed to the nines with neckties and even a few ascots. We traveling Yankee tramps looked like bums compared to them and feeling quite out of place, quickly left from what may have been the finest hotel in East Africa.
From Rutshuru, we drove back (north) to Rwindi Camp to take the two game trails that we had not visited before: kob, topi, warthog, elephants, hippo, waterbuck, monkey, baboon, pongo (a rarely seen antelope), and our super-super-sight, the “largest elephant in the world” (according to our guide) who had tusks so long that he had to bend his head upward to prevent his tusk-tips from ploughing the ground!
Back to the Beau Séjour Hotel in Kisenyi. The kids went to the beach and being knocked out by two long, hard days of driving, I sacked out early.
Lounged on the beach at Kisenyi while Tom and Liz enjoyed (again) their rented pédalo. The Bernstiens were there and we spent some time with them.
19 Jan.: The Bernstiens had hired a Watusi dancing team and invited us to join them at a location about 10 miles out of town. Most of the dancers and musicians were Bahutu, but the stars were two Watusi: the dancing director (his performance was outstanding) and the chief dancer (about 7 ft tall; his picture was on the Congo franc and he danced for the King in Bukavu; see 3 June 1955) was non pareil. Afternoon on the beach with pédalo and miniature golf. Dinner with the Bernstiens.
20 Jan.: Drive back home from Kisenyi. Total travel = 1260 miles. Had dinner (again) with the Bernstiens at the Bodega restaurant. [And we had them at our house for dinner the next night; they took us out for the following night; and many years later, Mrs. Bernstien looked us up in Lahore, Pakistan: they were nice people.]
During this trip, we crossed the Equator four times.
What? You don’t know what a pédalo is? Ask Tom or Liz: neither will ever forget!
The Western African Rift Valley: Ruwenzoris to Lake Tanganyika (sketch map by John Logan)
Neri Menege
I cannot translate the name of this locality, suspecting that it is in a local language, perhaps Kinyaburundi. It is a remote area high above Lake Tanganyika and its feeder, the Ruzizi River, and very close to the major drainage divide to the Congo River to the west. A Dr. Wollanski of Bukavu had built a vacation cabin in this isolated locality that was taken over by the Belgian government as a “gîte” (a shelter) for travelers. It consisted of a small, combined living/sleeping/dining room with a very small kitchen (sheet steel on bricks; build your fire below) and a small shelter for house-boys, plus a primitive latrine for European residents. Haul your water from a creek about a half-mile away.
Neri Menege was close to the upper Kiliba River, an eastward flowing tributary of the Ruzizi, and in that location, the Kiliba was about 4500 feet in elevation above the Ruzizi. There was a prospective damsite at elevation 7200 ft. (cold!, cold!) to store the Kiliba’s flow as well as an almost vertical power drop about 2000 ft. below the dam that could generate an appreciable amount of electricity. There was also land in the lower Ruzizi Valley that could be irrigated with controlled flow of the Kiliba.
The MAE wanted to exploit the Kiliba and the Yankee team was taken there shortly after its arrival by MAE director George Tondeur for a look-see. Tondeur’s boy Kambali and our Basili went up the mountain a day ahead of the muzungus to get things ready for us. Tondeur, Harold Lathrop, Al Plummer and I began marching up the mountain from the road in the valley with 80 porters and 10 hangers-on at noon, 1 Mar. 1954, and after 5 hours of safari reached a “gîte” 2600 ft. above our starting point. I was thrilled by the march!: the porters sang almost continually as I gasped for breath — but not Tondeur, who was carried in a tepoy due to a back that had been damaged in an airplane accident.
After about 2 days of a guided tour by Tondeur around the upper Kiliba River, a runner came up the escarpment with a note for Tondeur: “Your big boss, the Minister of Agriculture, is in Bukavu and wants to see you immediately”. So Tondeur left, and Lathrop joined him in the chance of see a “big shot”. Before his departure, Tondeur told me something like this: “John, you know a bit of French and I’m going to leave you in charge, but you don’t know any Kiswahili.” He then spent about a half hour dictating to me a long series of phrases in Kiswahili that I could use to communicate with the porters as well as to the houseboys in the gîte.
Georges and Harold then left. Al and I divided the work of mapping the Kiliba. When we separately returned to the gîte at nightfall, I found that Kambali understood French extremely well. He had worked for Tondeur for 8 years but had only been spoken to in Kiswahili or Kinyaburundi, but I had no trouble in using French with him. And not only for the household stuff: I lined up our workers in the morning and gave instructions to them through Kambali as an interpreter. And I never told Tondeur that Kambali knew French!
Al and I finished the preliminary work, located the damsite and the power plant, and hiked down the escarpment on 6 March 1954. There was no road to Neri Menege at that time.
During that short visit, Al and I had outlined the basin’s topography and had selected the provisional locations of the damsite and the power plant. Now came the time to explore the foundations and as the only geologist on the American team, the job was mine.
A lousy road had been built to Neri Menege from the lousy main road between Bukavu and Usumbura; and the damsite itself was 4¼ miles from the gîte on a track that required a jeep. No drilling equipment was available: the foundations would be explored by pick and shovel, using local laborers. I was given the services of a jeep, a driver Gottfroid who spoke some English, and a record-keeper Augustin who knew French quite well.
Tondeur had advised me that few of the local laborers that we were going to hire spoke Kiswahili (no matter, because I did not either!). I took Tom along to be translator because he had become quite adept in that language (for the few locals who knew it) and he was quickly promoted to be my field superintendent and excavation overseer, as I concentrated on geology. He handled the field crews and did a superlative job for a 13-year-old kid, and the Africans loved him as a boss!
Jeanne, Liz and our house-boy Basili Kikuni came along with us in the MAE station wagon, meeting us, our jeep, Gottfroid and Augustin at the gîte. During his trip, Gottfroid spread the word in the villages along the way: “Plenty of work at Neri Menege. Y’all come!”
On our first day of digging, I hired 18 locals and thereafter we had as many as 44 (some days, 60 showed up), each working for the standard pay of 12 Congo francs (= 24¢ US!) a day.
The last working day was 5 May. We packed and after I took a last-minute visitor to see the damsite, we left Neri Menege at 12:30 and arrived home in Bukavu at 18:00. And now you know why I used that adjective “lousy” to describe the roads: 5½ hours for a trip of less than 100 miles!
Some comments on the way of life in the Kiliba boondocks:
…Jeanne was loaded up with medicines provided by Bukavu Dr. Borgers. She ran a daily clinic for the local Africans and often had several dozen in the waiting line for her help with burns, wounds and ill-defined “sicknesses” and for the latter she administered anti-malarial medicines on Dr. Borgers’ advice. She helped them all (with Liz as assistant) and thus began a nursing career that continued for a number of years in several other countries.
…In addition to Jeanne’s patients in her daily clinic, there were two notables: (1) an old woman who danced for her and who gave her a magnificent bracelet made of hippo ivory that Jeanne still cherishes; (2) an old man, not ill, who claimed that he walked for several days because he had heard that there was a “white woman” there, and he wanted to see one.
…A couple of days after we arrived at the gîte, Belgian veterinarian Dr. Resimont came straight up the mountain from the Ruzizi Valley in a tepoy with 80 porters, carrying him, his equipment and and his thatched-roof office. He camped next to us and we became friends during the time in which he examined animal health in this remote part of the country.
…The jeep assigned to me often broke down; or the track to the damsite was so muddy because of heavy rains that the jeep could not make the trip; or that I had sent Gottfroid in the jeep to MAE’s field headquarters for supplies and/or food (and he often did not return for a couple of days) — for whatever of those reasons, Tom, Augustin and I had the pleasure of walking the 4¼ miles to the damsite and back again. And when the jeep was not available, we were unable to haul a 42-gallon barrel of water from the creek to the gîte.
…After a week, we ran out of food and sent Gottfroid out to restock us. He took his usual 2 days to get back but Jeanne’s African friends — sympathizing for our plight — arranged to sell us a gunny-sack-full of corn, the only type of food then available in that environ. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for about two days: corn!
…The main headquarters of the MAE in the Ruzizi Valley was at Kalambo, some 4500 ft. below Neri Menege. When Jeanne and I had been there a few weeks earlier, a young man named Davidi offered his services to us, and we hired him for a few days. We liked his work and we asked Gottfroid to relay a message to him that we would like him at Neri Nenege to help Basili. So here he came walking straight up the mountain to work for us at the gîte. We hired him and he was very useful. [We liked him so much that we invited him to join our crew in Bukavu. He showed up there and we hired him — but now he was awful and we fired him after a few days. He was Muslim and did his prayers five times a day at “haut voix”, turning off our other houseboys who were dedicated pagans.]
Before I left Bukavu, I was given a briefcase full of money together with advice to ignore the rule of weekly salary payments to the laborers. Feeling sorry for those very poor people, I ignored my instructions and held pay day at the end of the first week — only to find out how why I got that advice. The weekly salary permitted purchase of 2-3 bottles of beer at a store some 15 miles away. Excavation essentially stopped for the next two days. Almost no adult laborers appeared for work because they were otherwise occupied.
Some Business Travels
Our team’s main interest was focused on the valley of the Ruzizi River that flows from Lake Kivu to Lake Tanganyika and is the border between the Congo and Ruanda/Urundi. I never kept count of the number of trips that I made from Bukavu to the Ruzizi Valley but there must have been dozens of them. Most were of several days’ duration, and I usually stayed at a primitive guesthouse (I called it the “Waldorf”) at the MAE’s field HQ at Kalambo, or I drove on to the Hotel Paguides in Usumbura in order to live it up. I must have covered every square inch of the Ruzizi Valley on the Congo side.
Some trips were not connected with our team’s main project. They are described below:
M’Vuazi: The Ministry of Agriculture had a large experimental station at M’Vuazi in the lower Congo south of Léopoldville and 2 of our team members were stationed there. M’Vuazi needed some help on a couple of damsites. I had been there briefly in January and returned on 13 April 1954 for a long visit. The Ministry borrowed geologist Alexandre Egoroff from the Geological Survey to work with me: he knew the local African language, insisted that I speak only French with him, and was a fine fellow. At M’Vuazi, I stayed with another nice guy, agricultural economist Jean Fauconnier. The Ministry provided Egoroff and me with a car and driver from Léo: as a famed striker on the Congo’s national football team, driver Camille was one of the best-known Africans in the country and when he played with the local team in its weekend matches, people came from miles around to watch. Do you think the “Camille” is a strange name for a man?: well, Egoroff’s house boy was named “Dictionnaire”!
Of the 2 damsites to be investigated, one was near a road, but the other required an hour’s walk. We had 30-40 laborers and explored the sites with pick and shovel, dug to depths up to 12-15 feet.
I took a side trip for a couple of days to look at damsites near Kipangu, close to the Angolan border, and I spent a week in M’Vuazi flat on my back with malaria. I returned to Bukavu on 6 June 1954 after an absence of nearly 2 months.
Léopoldville, 15 – 22 Aug. 1954: The U.S. was anxious to get some publicity about our team and about American financial assistance to Belgium. The Fifth International Congress of Soil Science was to be held in Léo in 1954, and it appeared to be an appropriate forum. I drew the short straw, and prepared and delivered the paper “Chemical quality of irrigation water in the Ruzizi Valley, Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi”.
During my brief stay in Léo, the Minister of Agriculture asked me to call on him and to update him on our team’s activities. Unlike our earlier meeting in January when the Minister used an interpreter, he spoke only English on this occasion.
Nyamulagira, 27 Nov. – 2 Dec. 1954: The Virunga volcanoes form an imposing mountain chain that straddles the Rift Valley just north of Lake Kivu. A number of years ago, a young Belgian geologist, Jean Verhoogan, spent several years in the boonies studying those mountains and established an observatory in the crater of the active volcano Nyamulagira, 10300 feet high. The Geological Service visited the observatory frequently to inspect the expensive instruments and to collect their records. I was invited to be part of such a visit in late 1954.
I took the daily lake boat from Bukavu to Goma on 27 Nov., staying overnight at the Hotel Régina. The next day, I was picked up by a Belgian geologist (who had brought Basili along to be my personal porter). We drove to the National Park headquarters near Rutshuru to make arrangements and spent the night there. On the 29th, we drove to the end of the road, picked up 2 guides and 15 porters, and climbed up 2800 feet over lava to a small government gîte where we spent the night. There was high rainfall at that elevation, and the gîte’s water system was simple barrels that collected rain from the roof. It was a bit noisy at night when a group of elephants came by to drink, only a few feet away from us!
The next day we climbed to the top of Nyamulagira, 980 feet above the gîte. The volcano has a level lava field about 300 feet below the top and about 1 km in diameter, within which there is a crater perhaps 500 feet deep. The whole place abounds with steaming, stinking vents. From the top, there was a magnificent view of the other six Virunga volcanoes, particularly of nearby Nyiragongo from which much lava had flowed only a few months earlier.
The geologist completed his job. We marched down to the road and drove to Kisenyi where I spent the night and returned to Bukavu by boat the next day. This trip was an unforgettable memory for me.
An afterlude: Verhoogen had left the Congo before I was there and had accepted a professorship at Berkeley. In early 1956, I attended a geological meeting in Reno and discovered that he was presenting a paper that I attended. When finished, he left. I tracked him down in an empty hallway, and he shook as I addressed him with “Jambo, bwana. Habari gani? Habari mzuri?” We then spent some time reminiscing about the Kivu and the Virunga volcanoes.
[1]Handwritten addendum, 1998: “With yet another revolution, the current government has decided to change the name of the country from Zaire back to Congo.”
[2]Marginal note: “The Flemish.”