Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North

Emily Hahn. Congo Solo: Misadventures Two Degrees North. London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011.Interested in life as it was really lived in the Belgian Congo, and what Belgian colonialism looked like on the ground? This is the book for you. Emily Hahn went alone to Congo in 1931, arriving by ship in Matadi, taking the train to Kinshasa (yes, she used that name), a boat to Stanleyville (Kisangani), a trip described in somewhat Heart of Darkness terms, and finally car and motor-driven pirogue to Penge in the Ituri forest northeast of Kisangani, in today's Tsopo District of Haut Congo province.Why there? She had been invited by a friend, Patrick Putnam, who ran a medical clinic, though not a medical doctor. He had returned there to be with his mistress, Abanzima, with whom he had fallen in love, and eventually concomitantly another mistress, Nambedru. He was involved in the Belgian public health program of giving shots for syphilis, yaws, etc., taking the census, and did some simpler operations. Among the ethnic groups in that region were some Mangbetu. Emily stayed in Congo for eight months, and left Penge when Patrick became more and more obstreperous, especially after he mistreated Abanzima after he caught her in ¬¬flagrante delicto with another man, a Congolese. Emily went on to travel the world, write 53 books, and many, many articles for The New Yorker from 1929 to 1996.Emily recounts her adventures and feelings in chronological order, very frankly and directly. Crocodiles were close to her pirogue on one trip. "I had never been so frightened" she admitted.(67) She hiked quite a bit, enjoying the freedom that gave, and the better relations with the Congolese than was possible in the colonial atmosphere of Penge. When hiking with only Africans, "One by one the Banguana came in and sat down near the fire, and then the bush people came too. They began to talk to me. I've never seen them so friendly. It is true, then: they are nicer on a trip...I learned a great deal of Kingwana."(95) She earned a reputation among the Congolese for being a strong woman. At one period she was four months without seeing a car.Upon returning from one expedition of 13 miles on foot, she states: "I am still in a warm glow of affection for everyone, especially the expedition behaving so nicely: Ngimu and Abanzinga greeted me as if I'd been away a long time, and I love the Negroes." (97)After another long trip, she says: "I hate to see the trip end. Even at my most tired, when I think about the end, I don't like it. White-men at Motokolia, and suddenly all my people, even Msaba, will begin to salute when I give an order and to say "Yes, Madame," and nothing else. No more careless conversation in my presence; no more loud arguments of a morning. Only "Yes" and "No" and "Master, I'm dying of hunger." (252) There were dances that the foreigners enjoyed watching, and army ants that she didn't enjoy. She had a little boy of four or five under her care, and also a pet monkey. She helped Patrick at times in the clinic, read, wrote (she had a typewriter), and learned some Kingwana, a regional dialect of Swahili.Her attitude was of course influenced by that of the time, and she called some the Congolese she saw on her boat trip to Kisangani "animals," (30) then in the next moment spoke of the "lovely" face of one of the men (32). Later she felt a "glow of affection" for the Africans. (97). She did once threaten to have the administrator whip a man when he didn't accede to her wishes. She also brought out her gun, and loaded it, as a way to menace the man.She had some intense arguments with some of the few colonial agents she encountered, and once after reestablishing less confrontational relations, she states "We roared with laughter and Pavloff blushed deeply, and Vendevelde did come, and we practiced shooting at bottles with a little rifle, from the back veranda. To look at us you would never think that we all said such nasty things about one another in private." (159) After another argument, she states "I changed the subject to keep myself from wrangling. It's no use arguing with an idiot." (182)Emily has several insightful and critical statements concerning the colonialism of the Belgian Congo. Arguing with Patrick one day, she stated: "This country isn't like Australia, I said. Here they don't want to kill-off the Negro [as in Tasmania] they want to help him increase, because they need his labor....until that's done [having white settlers] you must have roads and sewers and trains, and the Negro's got to build those, and he's got to be beaten into it-- that is, if you're honestly relentless for your own gain--and exploited and driven and occasionally, because of some inefficient person like Vandevelde, starved for lack of proper provision. Patrick pointed out there that the conservation of the Negroes is the Government plan purely; a good far-seeing one; but for the small private concerns it has no value or significance: they're working to get as much as possible as soon as possible and devil take the hindmost Negro..." (123)The issue came up often of how much to pay for food. The colonial personnel paid poorly, and Patrick was criticized by them for paying more, but Emily felt too that it was simply a fair price, and had practical consequences. Those colonial agents had a hard time finding enough food, but not Patrick or Emily. Another problem was that as the territorial agents were itinerating, collecting taxes, the soldiers with them stole chickens and demanded women for sex.She states concerning the government policy of forcing the moving of villages: "This was once a big village, but most of the people have been transferred to Avakubi and the rest will follow soon, following the Government's idiotic habit of shifting all the villages every year or two. The reason they do it is that they keep digging up new ethnological facts and theories; they want to divide the people up according to race now. It plays hob with the plantations, though." (130) [For the context of all these issues of colonial rule, see my "Les Kwilois parlent de l'époque coloniale," Annales Aequatoria 26(2005), pp. 165-217]Concerning road building: "In this district, the chief problem is the new road, and in relation to the building of this road you can get some idea of the Administration of the Congo....the head of our post is the Administrator. He spends most of his time writing reports; one morning of each week, he sits in judgment. He interviews the chiefs and sub- chiefs, and in our neighborhood he sees to it that the natives supply food to the workers on the road, and also he must make them supply men for the work...the chiefs and capitas ...protest that they have neither sufficient food nor sufficient people to carry it to the road...he is a first-termer...he is what is called a "Negrophile,' in a mild way. That is, he hasn't yet come to look upon the Negro as an inefficient machine that must be employed for lack of a better machine, to develop the Congo...he hates his job, and waits eagerly for the day he will be finished...he usually follows in the footsteps of his predecessors... "The Agent Territorial is an old-timer...he adheres whenever possible to the letter of the law...he is a good hard worker, an excellent soldier...Two [foreign] men are working on the road itself...one is an old trooper who understands how to build a road and does not take it too hard. He curses the Administrator in a half-hearted and traditional way, and smokes his pipe. The other is an eager young man and conscientious. He wants to build his road well... he needs food for his men. Very well, he gets it. That he is scouring the countryside and spreading mild famine does not worry him. He is building a good road and any capita who says he hasn't enough bananas to fill the weekly demand is a scoundrel and a liar. If, on the other hand, he had the job of conserving the plantations and increasing the food supply of the Congo, he would curse all roads and do his best to skimp the worker...There is an alternative that no one admits. This is, to send the men home and tell the Government that the road cannot be built on Congo's resources." (172-174) [Building a road is the central theme in the novel and the film of colonial West Africa, "Mister Johnson"]Concerning prisoners, they are used to carry wood and water for the colonials at Avakubi, unlike Penge, that had no prisoners to exploit. Men who had not paid their taxes were chained together around the necks and forced to be porters for colonial agents. And in jail, there were chains around the neck and whippings. Emily didn't want a soldier to go along with her on her travels. "He would only knock everybody about and cause trouble." (229) Emily criticized colonial agent Vandevelde for riding in the tipoye, the man-carried litter, all the time, even though he was very fat and heavy, and in principle should use it only occasionally when tired of hiking.The big chiefs authorized by the State, like Kayumba, held trials. Emily states "as Patrick is never tired of explaining the people in this part of the Congo never did have big chiefs. They had systems of tribunal and they were practically republicans. It's only the Government's all-embracing theories that have set Kayumba where he is, and he keeps his seat well, if probably unscrupulously." (196)All but one of the seven or eight "palavers" Kayumba was adjudicating and that Emily attended were about women she says. After Patrick criticized women's conduct, she retorted: "I've just come from the barza (public meeting place) and it was all about women, and I don't blame any woman for acting like a sheep or a cow or a bitch if she's treated like one." (196-7)Emily was sticking up for women again in an argument with Vandevelde, and the latter told her that Patrick should keep out of "politics" (i.e. the judicial system) in a case under litigation. When Vandeveld defended his action in that case by saying "I can't go against the customs of the country", Emily retorts: "But you go against the customs of the country when you appoint Kayumba chief. He wouldn't be chief if the Government wasn't behind him." (201-202) Lots of spunk in that woman! After another incident she crossed swords with him again: "He, who is always the first to excuse an injustice between Negroes by saying you mustn't interfere with Custom, as though he could tell what Custom is. If it comes to that, is it Custom to be managed by a white Administrator?" (208)Near the end of her book she comes down with a harsh general indictment: "As Kayumba said some time ago, it's worse now than in the notorious days of the rubber regime [of the Congo Free State 1885-1908]. All those atrocities are not true that I've been reading about--they don't cut off hands any more, nor throw children into the river, nor give people to cannibals to eat, but certainly they are still impressing all the labor they can to the extent of chaining them in gangs; surely the women continue to do the hardest work of carrying; surely a high food tax is still levied, for the price paid by the Government for food is practically nothing...the reward for native produce goes down farther and farther, and the tax goes up and up. Trade conditions are much better, but the Negroes are too poor to buy." (225)Well, this review is getting too long, but there was so much juicy fruit to pick! This is basically a diary, prosaic at times: "It's really cold now that the rain has finished and I regret having left my second blanket in Penge." (132) There are several black and white photographs. The editor, Ken Cuthbertson has done an excellent job of presenting this book that had a bad birth in the 1930s, having been heavily doctored to avoid lawsuits then, and coming on the market during the Great Depression. The footnotes are numerous and accurate. The map is just right. The editor is the author of a biography of Hahn, and presents all the relevant facts of her life in the long introduction. There is also a glossary, two appendices, a bibliography, and, to top it off, a fine forward by a woman whom you who know Congo admire for her efforts to heal the wounds of the war of Eastern Congo today, Anneke Van Woudenberg.

Absolutely brilliant on the British colonial era. I thoroughly recommend this book. It's still relevant today. Especially brilliant on European-African relations and sexual hypocrisy in inter-marriage and sexual relations between Blacks and Whites.

The preview of this book was far more interesting than the book itself. While the author's solo adventure into Africa was admirable the book fell short and didn't grab me.

This doesn't lose anything with time. I only wish I was more like this lady.

Very accessible and interesting. The author has a distinctive, likeable, intelligent voice. Good Congo colonial history, for those interested in such.

This fascinating, contemporaneous account will appeal to intrepid travelers. Readers who enjoyed Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa or Osa Johnson's I Married Adventure will appreciate this book, too.--Elizabeth Connor, The Citadel, Military Coll. of South Carolina, Lib., Charleston writing in Library Journal/School Library Journal - August 23, 2011