Against All Odds: Tales from Exile

By Mazemba Nzwanga

Fictions like myths are based on reality. This work is a ficti on, even
though some names of people and places may be real. Similarly,
some events related in the story may actually have occurred. This
nonetheless does not prevent the narrati ve from remaining fictional.
Any resemblance to a situati on someone may have encountered is
therefore a matt er of coincidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462883165

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Copyright © 2011 by Mazemba A Nzwanga.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011909207

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-8315-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-8314-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-8316-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

AFTERWORD

DEDICATION

To papa-leki Joseph Mwenge Soondji Gapay,

my role model and mentor

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T his book could never have been written without encouragement and support from my beloved wife Adrienne Ngayala Ngawono Andy, my daughter Nadine Luyinda Nzwanga, my cousin Michèle Mbu Musimbi, my friends Guy Yembi-Goma and Germain Badang. I owe special thanks to my daughter Ornella Clementine Malengi Nzwanga and to my colleague Jane M. Gray for reading some parts of the manuscript and for their useful comments. My heartfelt thanks also go to all the behind-the-scene actors who contributed one way or another to the fruition of this book. May they find here the expression of my deepest gratitude.

PROLOGUE

The Immaculate Conception Teachers’ College of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was founded in the late 1950s. Known as ICTCK for short, the school was one of the earliest efforts by the missionaries to promote higher education for the Congolese women. Such an education, however, had Christianity in its Roman Catholic form as channel. For many years, ICTCK had provided the country not only with teachers of high academic caliber but also with role models of a Christian way of life. Graduates from that unique institution of higher education for women were known for their dedication to teaching, as well as for their involvement in the different ministries of their parishes. Some had become nuns after being immersed in the college culture as students.

I found men and women of remarkable moral standard when I joined ICTCK as a teacher. I was impressed by the deep sense of spirituality and love characterizing the college. Regular prayer included Mass. Attendance was never mandatory, but each one felt compelled to make it a duty, especially during the times of bereavement. We indeed had a few of such moments almost every year. A former student on her hospital bed said shortly before breathing her last, I now understand why I was admitted to study at ICTCK. The Lord wanted me to leave this world surrounded with so much love. The testimony said it all. ICFCK was more than a college; it was a family.

How I got to work at ICTCK is a long story. I was a high school teacher of English and philosophy in Ngiri-Ngiri, a poor and rough neighborhood in the central area of Kinshasa. The school was created to help children of low-income families and was among the first to have a European-like infrastructure, and a teaching personnel and teaching staff. It had the same kind of buildings as those found in schools attended by the white and Congolese children of wealthy families. The teachers of Ngiri-Ngiri High School were expatriates and graduates from the Congo newly created universities and colleges.

Ngiri-Ngiri, however, meant a lot more to me. I lived there when I first arrived in Kinshasa from my home city of Mokamo in the Bandundu Province. My late maternal uncle, Mayumbu Ngombu, who welcomed me to his home, lived on Movenda Street, three blocks away from Saint Pius X Parish. Ten years later, I started my professional life there, renting a two-bedroom apartment on Yolo Street. Amba, my wife, is a native of Ngiri-Ngiri. I met and married her there. Four of our five children were born there. It was also the neighborhood where I had lived the longest in Kinshasa, before moving to Matonge, Lemba, Ma Campagne, and back to Ngiri-Ngiri. I knew every corner of it like my pocket. It was my second home to say the least.

It was a Monday, at ten o’clock in the morning, as I recall. I had a philosophy class with my twelve graders when Mr. Swana Diasolwa, the school principal, called me to his office for a very short meeting with him. This does not sound good, I said to myself. I then cross-examined my conscience and found myself not guilty of any wrongdoing. I headed to the office and found Mr. Diasolwa talking with two men. You have visitors, Citizen Kamanga, the principal said to me. The Congo in those years was in a high-gear cultural revolution under President Mobutu. Christian and foreign names, particularly those sounding European, were banned to implement a new slogan called Recourse to Authenticity. Banned with Christian names were the title terms of Mr., Mrs., and Ms. and replaced by Citizen in an effort to boost patriotism. President Joseph-Desiré Mobutu changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Zabanga. Congo was dubbed Zaire. Leopoldville, the capital city, regained its Teke name, Kinshasa, whereas Elizabethville became Lubumbashi. Luckily, the name-change policy was not enforced beyond the official settings, such as public administration, school, and business. In private, people could use any name they wanted including their Christian ones without running the risk of being molested by the JMPRs, a secret police of some sort in charge of safeguarding the acquisitions of the revolution by tracking down the dissenters.

The principal left his office for a walk to the classrooms. That gave us the opportunity to talk freely. One of the visitors was a former classmate from National Pedagogic University named Jibikilayi Muteba, JBM for short. He introduced the white guy to me as Nicolas Verger, chair of the Department of English at ICTCK. He then said to his colleague, Nick, this is Chris Kamanga, the man I have always talked to you about.

Mr. Verger was a native of Liège, the capital of the southern and French-speaking region of Belgium called Wallonia, as I came to know it later on. He had been in the Congo for five years, working as a coopérant or foreign expert within the Congolese Ministry of Higher Education. He told me that there was a vacancy in his department and wondered whether I might be interested in taking the position. I responded without hesitations that I was very much interested in the position. The rest of the conversation dealt with information about how soon I needed to start, what materials should be included in the application, and what courses were to be taught.

JBM and his companion left, and the principal returned to his office soon after. It was time for the recess. I took the opportunity to talk to the principal about the visit. He was happy for me and congratulated me wholeheartedly, even though he was going to lose one of his best teachers, he said. I said I hadn’t gotten the job yet. It was only an opportunity, but to him, I had already gotten the job. You are a strong candidate, he went on to say. I’m sure you’ll get it. Let me know if I can be of any help. I thanked him for his kind words and encouragement.

I took a day off from school to carefully prepare my application for the new job. Two letters of recommendation from individuals of good morality were required. I got one from a former president of my alma mater, Mr. Joseph Zongo, a prominent educator and civil servant of high moral integrity. The second letter, of course, came from my principal, Mr. Swana Diasolwa, with whom I had worked for five years and who held me in high esteem. The man was known for his commitment to hard work and for his resentment