Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

attention of the class was never a problem. They were motivated. But theirprogress was bedevilled by habits of rote learning hammered into them atprimary school level. It took enormous effort to awaken in them a spirit ofcreativity and critical thinking. Most were quite content to regurgitate what theteacher had told them even in the final year of secondary education. Theenchanted (belief in magic) universe they lived in favoured chance over abilityand hard work. When final exams came around students could be seen to puttheir writing utensils on the tombs of deceased early missionaries at Bokakata,presumably to magically absorb the knowledge of these ‘superior’ whitepeople. In the tribal society they lived in what mattered was patronage and whoyou were related to, not ability and genuine expertise. Education, so it dawnedon most of us involved in it, had to set as its ultimate goal not just the impartingof knowledge, but a veritable ‘metanoia’, a different way of thinking and being.Talk about long term objectives…! I hope that together with the other membersof the staff at Likong’a Nguwa during my seven years of direct involvement atclassroom level I have made even the tiniest contribution towards progress onthat arduous road.The school at Bonkita had quite a chequered history. It had initially been set upin the 1950’s as an agricultural school. When that proved difficult to maintainit was turned into a minor seminary with a boarding facility. This in turn wastransformed into a regular secondary school – ‘section littéraire and biochimie’- under the name Institut Likong’a Nguwa at the time of the countrywide reform of education during the 1970’s. Jan Hendriks, who had been theminor seminary director, presided over this transition and in the mid 1970’shanded over to an able Congolese headmaster called Joseph Bongwele. Thisappointment had been strongly promoted by the first Congolese bishop ofBasankusu, Mgr Ignace Matondo kwa Nzambi cicm. Clearly ‘the times theywere a-changing’!Bishop Matondo kwa NzambiThe arrival of Mgr Ignace Matondo kwa Nzambi, a Congolese Missionary ofScheut, following the unobtrusive resignation and stealthy departure of Mgrvan Kester and a number of months of ‘interregnum’, was greeted with somescepticism by the local clergy who had their own ambitions and considerablejoy combined with huge expectations by the general population.The months of apostolic administration had been difficult. Jan Hendriks, the