Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

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‘adventure’. At the end of the Chapter I was elected a member of the GeneralCouncil and, as they say, ‘that was that’.I did feel honoured by the trust given to me, but was also deeply pained at therealisation that I would not be able to return to Congo, at least not to stay. AndI felt totally out of place at St Joseph’s after more than twenty years of absence.It took more than a year to get re-acclimatised and to feel reasonably at easein the task entrusted to me: Councillor for Africa. My first trip in that capacitywas to Cameroon at the invitation of George Hanser, a fellow Chapter delegate,who was Superior there. What I saw in Cameroon on that first visit filled mewith deep emotion. There I saw long stretches of tarmac road, taxi buses,decent bridges and other forms of development. Why, I wondered, was thispossible here, and still a distant dream in the Equatorial rainforest of Congo?Frequent visits to a variety of African countries in the following years helped meto get some perspective on political and economic realities in Africa.I did of course go back to Congo to say goodbye, soon after I had been electedon to the General Council. And I visited the gradually shrinking contingent ofMill Hill missionaries in the diocese several more times during the course of mytwelve years tenure as Councillor for Africa from 1988 to 2000. On one ofthese trips I came together with Maurice McGill, our Superior General. It wason this occasion that I had the most frightening experience of air travel I haveever had. Here’s what happened. After the completion of our visit on our wayback to Kinshasa, before reaching the provincial capital Mbandaka for astopover, we hit a giant tropical thunderstorm. The pilot saw no way ofcircumventing it and decided to fly right through it. At first we felt no more thanthe usual turbulence on such occasions, but then the plane started to violentlysurge and fall, lurching left and right, and shaking uncontrollably all the while.There seemed to be lightening all around us. If it were not for our seatbelts wewould have hit our heads against the ceiling several times. People startedscreaming, someone threw up. I thought we were goners – and so did Maurice,he told me afterwards. The ordeal must have lasted for about ten minutes.Then the elements calmed down and we found that we were still alive andflying. It was somewhat disconcerting to see the pilot walk down the aisle a fewminutes later visibly shaken and telling us all that he too had thought we weregoing down!That was my last flight in a Fokker Friendship, the trusted workhorse of theAfrican skies. They would soon be taken out of service in Congo. Things gotworse after that!
After the fall of the Berlin wall,Africa became the dumpingground not only of surplusarmoury from former EasternBloc countries, in particularYugoslavia, but poorlymaintained, obsolete Russianmade aircraft also found theirway to a host of Africancountries in the 1990’s. InCongo these Antonov jet-propswere appropriately nicknamed‘flying coffins’. Flying in one ofInside an Antonov planethose was a rather surrealexperience. Since these Antonovs were cargo planes with passengers anoptional but lucrative ad-on, the hold would be stacked with all kinds of cargo– sacks of manioc, smoked meat, live goats and other produce. Passengerswould be seated on wooden benches along the side of the plane surroundedon all sides by loosely stacked cargo. There was no air conditioning. Iremember on one of those flights peacefully eating a sandwich I had broughtwhen a few maggots suddenly dropped down from a sack of smoked meatabove my head. You could imagine your appetite being cut by less exoticingredients!Laurent Kabila’s successful challenge to the crumbling Mobutu regime in itsdeath throws was in full swing when I arrived in Basankusu in 1998. Rumourhad it that the rebels had arrived at Boende and it would be a matter of daysbefore they would arrive at Basankusu. The small remnant of Mill Hillmissionaries in the diocese had to decide: evacuate or stay put? We had arather tense meeting at Mpoma, the location of the diocesan procure andgarage which also doubled as guesthouse for passing missionaries.Arguments for and against each option were discussed and evaluated. Asrepresentative of the General Council I made it clear that we were not lookingfor ‘martyrs’ and that the safety of each member should be given priority,without prejudicing each person’s own discernment. In the end all except one– courageous John Kirwan - decided to temporarily withdraw. A large aircraft –the Sisters of Ten Bunderen and some others were also coming with us - wasduly chartered from Kinshasa and arrived the next day. We all boarded theplane and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. We were on our way to safety, or sowe thought. Then disaster struck! As the large plane taxied to the end of therunway and turned to make ready for take-off one of its wheels sank into the
Page 3 and 4: Life in the SubmarineA huge swathe
Page 5 and 6: my native Holland. Our only means o
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Page 11 and 12: attention of the class was never a
Page 13 and 14: of the liturgy. Not everyone was ha
Page 15 and 16: at times, abscond during the sermon
Page 17: ceiling meant to hold the door shut
Page 21 and 22: where the early missionaries had la
Page 23: Women in need in JinjaRegistered Ch

Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

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