You've been nowhere and you know nothing.

The longer you stay in a place, the more complex that place becomes, the less you understand. I am envious of so many of my colleagues in the humanitarian business who profess to the intellect and wisdom of being able to understand a community, a conflict a culture in matter of weeks. I am afraid that I don’t share their skills and rather prefer to tread the more Buddhist path: true wisdom begins when you know you know nothing.

I have now gone beyond my initial fears about being based in Kananga. For sure the place lacks the dynamism of a big city - you need to compensate for the lack of leisure activity options in creative ways; but for all that it lacks the town and the province is unique, quite unlike any other part of this vast land. Today is one of those days that I wish that I had read Anthropology instead of South Asian languages at SOAS! My understanding of the history of Kasaï is still very rudimentary, but it seems that this area was in pre-colonial times was the domain of the Kuba kingdom, which along with the Kikongo kingdom in today’s Bas-Congo region (close to the Atlantic ocean) were two of the most sophisticated feudal societies in Africa. The first outsiders to succeed in making contact with the Bakuba discovered a culture which had highly developed industries in metal, wood and textiles, a taxation system and an, albeit feudal, system of democratic representation.

The BaKuba people resisted the incursions of the Force Publique, Leopold II’s bloody mercenary force of colonisers far later than any other community in the so called Congo Free State. Leopold greedily eyed the Kasaï for its rubber reserves. The bloodiest pillaging ensued, with missionaries sending reports of annihilation of entire villages, severed hands and slave labour in the name of a free market economy.

A statistic that disturbs me the most, and qualifies, for me the Leopoldian era in the Congo along with the other great atrocities of modern times (Samantha Power, please revise your book), is that in a period of slightly less than 40 years, the population of the Congo was reduced from approximately 20 million people to 10 million. Apocalypse then: anarchy now? I am sure the linkage is slightly more complicated but in essence. There is a lot that colonialism has to answer for. Suggest that anyone who wants to explore this thesis more examine the arguments presented by Adam Hochschild in Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa.

On a more pedestrian level, my quality in of life has improved in two drastic ways: Firstly and most importantly I have to announce that I am a father! On Friday a man from Muetsche, about 200kms from here came to the door with a pair of rather lovely Grey Parrots; I have baptised them Anthony Aloiscious St. John Hancock and Cherrie Booth, and I have spent the majority of the weekend bonding with them, they are very beautiful, very keen on peanuts and their beaks are very very sharp! In the next few months, I hope that my offspring will become fluent in English, French and in Tshiluba … they are my (adopted) children after all; with that foundation we can work on the Dravidian languages.

The second great discovery is that Kananga produces excellent coffee; for sale in the market place for next to nothing. With my new companions and access to a high quality cup of Congolese coffee in the morning, Life in Kananga is becoming more and more bearable! I am even inspired to think of setting up an income generating project processing and marketing high quality café de Kasaï: with a little hard work I think Kananga can match the famous Asmara double Macchiato… coffee drinkers of the world: word up!