Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

goodbye to my family and boarded ship at Antwerp in February 1968. Twoweeks later we arrived at Matadi. From there the journey continued by car toKinshasa and a few days later I boarded the plane for Basankusu.WakaFrans de Vrught, the societyrepresentative at the time andbishop Willem van Kesterenwere very welcoming andwasted no time in telling mewhat my first appointment wasgoing to be: I was to pitch mytent at Waka. The parish priestthere, Marinus Boonman, aveteran Congo missionary, hada reputation of being an expertspeaker of the local triballanguage, Lomongo, and ofOh, those jiggers!possessing a vast knowledge oflocal custom and traditions. He would be the ideal mentor, so the reasoningwent, of this green, inexperienced youngster who had arrived with the oil ofordination still wet on his hands. Brother Piet Tweehuijsen was also stationedat Waka as was Piet Korse whom I was meant to replace.I was grateful for this opportunity of what looked like a ‘soft landing’ – firstgetting a decent grounding in the language and acquiring a basic knowledge ofthe culture and traditions of the people- before launching into amissionary/pastoral ministry. But things rarely work out as expected orplanned, certainly not in Congo where, as I discovered and came to cherishover the years, people readily welcome the unexpected and have developedimprovisation into a fine art. Expressions like ‘Système D’, (débrouillez-vous –improvise), ‘article 15’ and ‘tomeka’ and other similar jocular terms referring tothe need to make do were the warp and woof of daily conversation.My anticipated ‘soft landing’ soon turned into a suitably bumpy ride as thereality of the extreme isolation of the area began to sink in. The somewhatstifling embrace of the omnipresent rainforest covering the whole of thediocese and far beyond inevitably generated a longing for the wide horizons of