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Chapter Seven:  Study and Research 1982 to 1989

 

I left Siavonga  on the 5th of January 1982 in a sweltering heat of 40 degrees Celsius.

In Lusaka I entrusted my Datsun and my little motorcycle to Brother Mike Bennet,SJ,  the treasurer of the Catholic Secretariat, who promised me to sell these vehicles at a reasonable price. He took me to the international airport and asked me if I would be so kind as to take some cash with me and deliver it to the treasurer at the Jesuit Headquarters in Wimbledon, London. I threw the little brown parcel in my handbag and thought nothing of it.

I arrived in Nairobi rather early. As the plane to London only left at midnight, the Raptim agent took us through custom and immigration to the Stanley hotel for a bit of rest. That evening on my way back the custom officer insisted on searching through all my hand luggage and asked me to open Brother Bennett’s brown parcel. To my horror I noticed that it contained hundreds of twenty pound notes. I was sternly led away and accused of smuggling foreign money illegally out of Kenya.

“Where did all that money come from? “ the custom officer kept on asking. He did not believe that someone had given the money to me at Lusaka airport in Zambia and that it had nothing to do with Kenya. I argued and argued but had no proof whatsoever. Time passed and I heard the last call for my plane to London being announced. Finally I worked myself in a frenzy and talked to him in a mixture of Bemba and Nyanja. This made such an impression on the officer that he waived me on with a puzzled look. I hopped into the waiting plane minutes before the door closed.

In London the frantic flow of traffic had come to a standstill because of heavy snow and after the heat of the Kariba I shivered like a reed. I managed somehow to reach Wimbledon as I wanted to get rid of that huge amount of money as quickly as possible.

I must confess that in the Underground I was suddenly tempted out of revenge to hold on to the money and begin my studies in Great Britain with plenty of cash in my pocket. Honesty prevailed and I finally rung the bell of the Jesuit house in Wimbledon. A brother opened, left me standing outside in the snow and expected me to hand over the brown parcel with all that money without letting me in. I almost flew again into a rage, told him about all the trouble I had experienced in Nairobi and that I expected at least a cup of warm coffee for all the hassle. This was finally granted and I left the house with a sigh of relief

Later, much later in that year, Bro Mike Bennett arrived from Zambia and paid me a visit during which he apologized and invited me for a meal in one of London’s expensive restaurants.

 

After settling down in a newly acquired house of the White Fathers in Ealing I registered on the 16^th of January as a part time student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in view of an M.A Course that would start in September.

As major subject I chose African Religious Studies and for the two minor subjects I took African Linguistics and African History. Already then I intended to focus on the study of women rather than of men in Central and East Africa.

I was encouraged by Professor Richard Gray to attend and actively take part in all the seminars, to read as much as possible on the three subjects, and to apply to the University Senate for admittance. I was accepted on the strength of my experience in Zambia and of my post graduate diploma of the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

I had taken the first step and settled down for a period of steady research.

But why did I want to focus my studies on the women? Was I following the fashion of the day? Were there sufficient data available on women to obtain an M.A. and possibly a Doctorate in African Religion, History and Linguistics? These were the questions both the tutors and the participants asked me during their lively seminars.

The memories of Lumpa women, adherents of the prophetess Lenshina Mulenga, running into a hail of bullets with babies on their backs, returned to my mind. This was followed by the anxious faces of the hundreds of women in Lusaka who flocked to Archbishop Milingo to be delivered from their mashave/ngulu, their spirit possessions. If this was the result of our work as missionaries, the bringing of the Good News of the Gospels had certainly not had the desired effect. Had we, male expatriates, bashed into Central Africa like young bulls into the proverbial china shop?

I was aware that I, an expatriate and unmarried White Father would never be able to give conclusive answers. But by my studies and research I intended to make people dimly aware of the tensions the introduction of a patriarchal Christianity had caused into the culture of a mainly matri-focal society. Lenshina had been put almost permanently in detention, and  her surviving followers had marched into Zaire/Congo. Milingo was being ‘recalled to the Vatican’ and his healing rituals became a ritual of the past. Could we not so something more than hiding skeletons in the ecclesiastical cupboard, hoping that they would go away?  

 

The months of February, March and April passed in grey London without a ray of sunshine. After the almost dreamy sabbatical in sunny Siavonga the first adverse reactions set in. When I read and discussed the beautifully written position papers of the young M.A. students, I wondered whether I would be able to cope and to produce something of equal standard after so many years ‘in the bush’. I even had my doubts about the need of an M.A. degree for any future assignment in Zambia.

Fortunately in the White Fathers house in Ealing I met and befriended a 68 year-old White Father, James Brown, who at that time lectured at the Missionary Institute in North London (M.I.L.). He was not only an eminent teacher but also a person who kept himself up-to date by frequent visits to the libraries, theatres, cinema’s and exhibitions. When I expressed my hesitation about my studies he replied to, a bit sadly: “I wished  my superiors had given me a similar opportunity as you have now. The professors at the School of Oriental and African Studies will not only make you study but also will teach you how to write, to produce regular papers even books. I have been teaching theology all my life but never produced anything, never wrote much”.

I met and spoke with Professor Richard Grey. He was ready, even keen to supervise my studies and, already then encouraged me to go on for more research. “The Missionaries have done a marvellous job in Africa”, he said, “but on the whole there has been very little reflection and evaluation among them”. He also wholeheartedly agreed to my desire to specialise in the study of religious and cultural change among African women rather than among men.

 

Our initial conversations took place at a time when the papers reported on the news that archbishop, Emanuel Milingo, was whisked away from Lusaka and called to the Vatican for psychiatric observation. His ‘dealings’ with spirit possession, his healing ministry, especially as ‘regard women’, was called into serious question. His poor administration as an Archbishop had caused him a great deal of trouble and the loss of his reputation since 1974. Rumours about his moral behaviour had finally been the last straw. Archbishop Mutale of Kasama was called in to act as administrator for the time being.

‘Roma locuta, causa finita’. Rome had spoken and life went on. No opportunity was apparently given to the Archbishop and to those immediately concerned to explain matters or to defend themselves. Harsh decisions were taken on the instigation of a Nuncio who had little experience of African affairs. There had been a kind of inquiry by the Cardinal of Nairobi and the Archbishop of Mombasa but its findings were kept highly confidential.

 

The other tutor, Andrew Roberts, the well-known professor in African History, who had written a brilliant history of the Bemba, was less enthusiastic.  “Women in Africa have hardly any history”, he said. “The written, colonial history of Africa consists mostly of a narrative of young men about young men”.

Michael Mann, the expert in Bemba linguistics, did not mind accepting me as his student. I thought that his lessons would be very easy, as I spoke the language rather well. Little did I realise at that moment how beautiful and how complicated the linguistic structure of Bantu language, especially Bemba, could be. His patient lessons helped me to be able to analyse  the Bemba language and literature  more accurately.

 

Meanwhile little snippets of life in Zambia seeped through. Sister Jacqueline Rondeau, a Canadian White Sister had taken over the management of the Siavonga plots and did it very well. Archbishop Elias Mutale had a hard time in the metropolis of Lusaka and found it difficult to get control over the two regional councils of the Laity in Lusaka and Kabwe. He decided to disband both councils.

The national newspaper forged a letter in such a way that it seemed as if a number of expatriate priests were racists. The country wanted Milingo back and demanded an explanation from the Nuncio.

All this seemed to blur the real pastoral issues of  Milingo’s healing. The poor women in particular remained left behind, desolate and confused.

 

I accepted an offer of Bishop MacMahon of West London to assist parish priests in his part of Westminster Archdiocese.

“Are you sure about my doctrine”, I asked “Don’t I need some retraining to obtain jurisdiction?”

 “With your kindness and African patience you will do a great deal of good”, he replied simply.

He sent me to help a lonely parish priest in Hounslow, near Gatwick airport. When I told the priest that I had been in Zambia, he confided to me that before his ordination to the priesthood he had been one of the members of the Monckton commission of inquiry that had gone around the Federation of the Rhodesia’s and Nyasaland (Malawi) at the beginning of the 1960’s.

“Most of the Europeans in the Federation were living in a dream world”, he said, “It was clear to all of us, members, that the end of Federal Rule was in sight”.

It became spring in grey London with people being able to afford a smile. But I felt tired and listless. Fr Tom McKenna, who was then the superior in Ealing, suggested a quick visit to the tropical hospital, where I was fortunate enough to meet Dr Cook, who had worked in Zambia.

“Lake Kariba and Bilharzia are almost synonymous”, he said. His diagnosis proved to be exact. I had a schist somatic infection and was given a hand full of pills to swallow.

 “Can’t I buy a few tins of them for the people in Zambia?”, I asked.

“You just swallowed a sixty pounds worth of medicine”, he replied “I do not think poor people in Africa will be able to afford them”.

 

I also remember being taken aback at that time by the waves of nationalism that rolled over London when the pushy mother president, Margaret Thatcher, seemingly used the occupation of the Falkland islands by Argentine  forces as a welcome occasion to get more grip on the electorate.  Since the war I had regarded the British as tolerant, kind and understanding. Now the flag waiving, even the rhetoric, reminded me somehow of the exaggerated nationalism of my youth. Were the ideals of our generation of a united Europe too idealistic, and did they run against the deep-seated yearnings of the major powers in Europe?

There were also signs of progress, at least at that time they seemed to us like that. Anglican married clergymen converted to Roman Catholicism were allowed to continue as priests and to minister to the Catholic faithful.

 “A married clergy will come into the Catholic Church through the backdoor”, it was said. But this proved to be wishful thinking.

I met John and Mary  Hannah and their two children, David and Elizabeth, in their new home near Oxford. The Lumpa trauma seemed something of the past

“You are always very welcome over here”, they said” we have a free room for you to study, to write and do research in.

I also met Mona McMillan, the mother of  Professor Hugh McMillan, who lectured in history at the University of Zambia. She was writing an article, and would later publish a book, on the healing ministry of Archbishop Milingo. She organised a small meeting, together with Peter Hebblewaithe, his wife Margaret and their children. He had been a priest, she a nun, and made me think of the heady days at Corpus Christi College days in 1966. Where had its lecturers gone, Peter de Rosa, Hubert Richards and Fr. Davies. All of them ‘had left’ and so become rather marginal.

All the people I met encouraged me to continue with my studies and not to lose heart. I welcomed and needed their support, as I was still tempted to jump on the plane again and bury my head like an ostrich in the warm sand of a small Zambian parish.

 

After a new chapter meeting in Rome, the regional team of the White Fathers in Zambia had changed for the better. More forward looking men were in charge and my mulandu, as a ‘special case’ that kept up popping up during ‘matters arising’ in their meetings, came slowly to an end.

‘Hinfelaar has gone to England where he hopes to follow courses in Linguistics at the University of London. He is staying in a White Fathers Community and tells everyone that he will be taking over the running of the Ilondola language Centre. We hope that this will work out that was. He is enjoying his studies at SOAS, trying to get his hand on all that has been published about Zambia’[1].

       

Full summer came and London became cluttered with tourists from all over the world. The parish priest of Walthamstow in East London wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem and asked me to keep his parish going for a month or so. I was given a big and  peaceful presbytery for myself for study and reading. Many of the parishioners seemed of Irish descend and came to Sunday Mass ‘to fulfil their obligation’

 “The Mass and especially the sermon should not be too long”, Sidney, the sacristan told me before I started. “We must give people the chance to move out and in the car parking lot between each Mass”.

He stood at the back of the church during my sermon and gave a wave of his hand for me to stop if I went on too long. Besides acting as sacristan, ringing the bell and counting the collection, he also looked after the flowers in and around the church. One day I chatted to him and to  my surprise he told me that he had served as a soldier during the war and had ‘liberated Holland’. Had we ever done something to simple people like him to thank him for this?

The hot afternoons passed gently, very peacefully. At times I heard the tinkle of an ice-cream cart with the monotonous tune of ‘Three blind mice’. Little children came out of their homes and gardens and queued patiently, waiting for their ice cream.

I visited some of the families, all very kind, and interested in my work as a missionary in Africa.

I got a glimpse of shady dealings in and around the Vatican when the police in London found the body of Robert Calvi of  the Milan-based Ambrosiano bank dangling under the Black- friars bridge in London. This bank had collapsed in 1981 with losses of $1.3. billion. There was evidence that the Chicago-born Archbishop Paul Marcinkos of the Vatican had been involved[2].

Whom was I working for? Certainly not for shady people like him neither for a devious Vatican that had not come to terms with the Christian challenge, given impetus by the Second Vatican Council.

It was for the Kingdom of God’s kindness, especially for the hard working women in Africa, that I decided to continue.

One day I got a phone call and recognised the heavy voice of my friend and town mate Oscar Holleman with whom I had started the minor seminary in Sterksel in 1945. After he had been advised to discontinue during his theological studies, he had qualified and entered embassadorial service as an archivist. He had travelled all over the world, remaining a bachelor for a long time. But recently he had met a lovely lady in Indonesia and finally ventured into a marital adventure. Could I come for a visit to catch up from where we left off so long ago. We talked and talked while his wife listened and smiled, spoiling us wit all kind of dainties. He also was among those who encouraged me and gave me self-confidence by telling me that he had always admired my pluck and stamina. Later, at the end of my M.A. studies, there was another call during which he joyfully announced that his wife, Lucy, was pregnant. She gave him a beautiful son, called Walter.

 

The beginning of the new academic year was near and suddenly I panicked, got cold feet and wanted to chicken out. The standards, especially those of the written position papers, were so high at SOAS. The students had passed their first degree with honours, and for most of them English was their first language. Would I ever be able during one academic year to produce nine papers, discuss those of my fellow students and finally write a long dissertation at the end of it? Genuine stage fright gripped me. What was the use of it all? Why could I not, like so many of my confreres, keep to simple pastoral work for the poor people in the rural areas of Zambia?

Again, it was understanding and kind Fr.Tom McKenna who advised me to go for a counselling session in central London. The Archdiocese of West Minster had established a special service for the mental health of its priest, religious, brothers and sisters who often became burnt-out due to a heavy work-load. It was called the Dymphna Centre.

I made a first appointment very reluctantly. “Do I really need a ‘shrink’, psychiatric treatment?”, I wondered.

I arrived at the Centre on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. The monsignor in charge was not in the best of moods as I arrived too early and disturbed his siesta. He settled down after I told him that I feared to be not articulate enough to follow and to obtain a Master of Arts degree at SOAS. He replied that he had also experienced similar doubts when he was asked by his archbishop to study psychology. Then he let me talk for almost half an hour while he scribbled lazily some notes  on his pad board. At the end of it he remarked that  my articulation was not all that bad as I had been talking not-stop all the time in passable English. He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and told me to come for a next session if I wished.

A few days afterwards I received a bill of 70 pounds from him, which the White Fathers told me to pay with my own personal money. This and him telling me that I was articulate enough pushed me over the threshold. I started the M.A. studies at the end of September.

 

What can I write about these first three hectic months at the University of London? Most of the students were indeed of high quality. After years of employment, they had been offered a contract in Africa. Some were sent to one of the embassies as secretaries, others would work as journalists at the African desk of a newspaper or magazine. The parents of some of them had been in colonial service. I remember in particular William Pike whose father had been a D.C in Songea, Tanzania. After obtaining his degree and after the success of some well written in-depth articles on President Milton Obote, William became the editor of the national newspaper The New Vision, in Uganda.

All of them were dedicated people who wanted to get on with their careers and families. From the beginning of October until the Christmas recess I had not only to write three papers but also to attend, discuss and criticise the papers of my fellow students during the on-going seminar in the evening. There was hardly any formal teaching but the professors and tutors were always present.

My first paper on the History of the Hehe in German Tanganyika was almost torn to pieces by Prof Andrew Roberts. He forbade me to concentrate on the history of Zambia only.

 “Your interest must be wider than that”, he said.

His approach was tough, almost harsh. But he did teach me to write proper history, not just  “missionary conjectures” as he called it. Each sentence had to be true, backed up by all sources of evidence.

Prof Richard Gray was gentler but he also required a high standard from all of us. During the first seminars I was a bit tongue-tied and he challenged me to contribute all the time. Gradually I noticed that I possessed in genuine experience what the others possessed in academic pursuit. Africa, its joys, its pain, its misery but also its beauty was very real to me, not a product of research in a library or archive. My fellow students realised this and often they let me read through their papers with the question: “Does it really ring true what I have written?”

Somehow I reached mid December; time for a bit of rest. My friends, the Woolgars had decided to return to the U.K. from Botswana, mainly for the good of their children. These were now approaching the secondary level of their education and needed constant help and supervision. I celebrated Christmas with them and prepared myself for the next hurdle. 

In January 1983 I was asked to move from Ealing to the White Fathers community in North London, along Totteridge Common in a Victorian mansion called Oak Lodge.

It was there that I met Dan Eiffe, a young Irish missionary, with whom I would travel in life for some years to come. After his ordination as a missionary of the Sacred Heart he worked among the Venda in South Africa. He followed a course in mission studies at the nearby Missionary Institute, M.I.L..

 One rainy morning he confided to me that for the first time in his life he was very unhappy, almost near a depression. His superiors had sent him for this refresher course; he did his best but felt that he was wasting his time. Could I help him to be admitted for a degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies? I introduced him to Professor Gray who advised him to do what I had done a year before, namely to register as a part time student until the next academic year.

Dan was a lively and attractive man who brought some life in my studious routine. He had the gift of the gab and with his attractive smile made contacts very easily. After a month he became convinced that travelling all the way by Underground from Totteridge-Whetstone to central London was a waste of time and money Dan contacted and talked with the elderly Fr Jeremiah Ryan, the parish priest at Laxton Place in Euston and asked him for accommodation in his presbytery for both of us. Fr Ryan welcomed us in his home on the condition that we contributed to the day to day running of his simple household, helped him with pastoral work in his small city parish and were kind to his little Scotch terrier, called Laddie, who was  his constant companion. This was a stroke of sheer luck as now we could walk from Euston to the University via Tottenham Court Road. It meant many more hours in the excellent libraries and more time for discussions with fellow students.

The busiest time was not on Sundays but all during the week, at midday. Catholics, young and old, from all backgrounds emerged from the huge offices nearby, to celebrate the Eucharist. This was always a very moving half an hour as these men and women came with conviction, and were often in need of spiritual support. We were three priests and took turns. I do not know why but soon we became a mutually supporting group despite our difference of age. Fr Ryan was elderly, approaching retirement, I was 50, middle-aged and Dan was still young, at the beginning of his thirties. We talked, cleaned the house, and made our simple meals together. Fr Ryan took me to his family in Portsmouth where we visited the harbour and some military vessels. I remember that, by mistake, I boarded a ferry on its way to the Isle of Wight. The boat was still near enough for me to jump back on the quay.

The university was so near that we did not need any public transport but could walk and study there as often and as long as we wanted. We had a glorious time, and enjoyed being free from the constricting framework of our religious congregation with all its rules and regulations. At the same time the M.A. studies remained hard work, especially when having to beat the deadline of written papers for the seminars. I wrote papers on the Ngoni in South Africa, on Female circumcision in Kenya, on the education system in the south of the Sudan, and of course on the Lumpa movement in Zambia[3].

In April I turned fifty years old. My brother Jan and his wife Jeanne came for a visit and brought me a lovely bunch of flowers from Holland. I also made a point of attending our annual family camp. Each year, during the Pentecost-weekend, our ever-growing Hinfelaar clan came and still comes together and camps on a meadow in Helvoirt, somewhere in the middle of Brabant. Often temperatures are still low at that time in early spring and it can be bitterly cold sleeping in tents and caravans. The children and grandchildren look forward to this occasion for weeks ahead, and do not allow their parents to stay away. They meet and play with all their numerous cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts. The adults organise sporting events, night walks, ‘play back‘ competitions and let their off-spring play in the middle of the camping site to their hearts’ content.  Chris and Hugo Lampe, children of my sister Toos and her husband Chris changed in their clowning costume to keep the little children laughing for hours.

That time, in 1983, I was unlucky as the ferry from the U.K. to the Hook of Holland broke down and floated in the middle of the North Sea for hours. I missed my train connection that day. Next morning one of my brothers came to fetch me.

 

July finally came and after months of drizzle the sun appeared from behind the grey clouds. The superiors of Dan Eiffe called him back to South Africa to take the place of someone who was very ill. Fr Jeremiah Ryan accepted the offer of one of his brothers take  a holiday in the Canary Islands. Before his departure he told me to care for his little dog, Laddie.

“If something happened to him during my absence, Africa will be too small for you to hide away”, he said with a laugh.

I had always looked slightly down on Fr Ryan’s affection for his little terrier, sleeping in his room. But when I was all alone in that big presbytery, I came to appreciate the value of having a little dog, or another pet as companion. Laddie woke me up each morning, made sure he got his food, and came with his leash in his mouth to tell me he wanted a walk in nearby Regents Park. Before I had little contact with people in London but now people were ready for a chat and, especially children, stopped me to admire and stroke Laddie. I came to love the animal and even found myself talking to him.

Fr Ryan eventually returned, and was ecstatically greeted by his little dog. The former was very happy and gave me a generous remuneration. The little dog was far over 13 years of age and three weeks after Fr Ryan’s return Laddie suddenly died in his sleep. How lucky I had been!  Fr Ryan’s heart was broken; he never took another dog again and from that time began to look old and tired.

 

July was a memorable month as it was 25 years ago since my ordination. A great deal had happened and some years had been particularly difficult. But I was now again on the way up, ready to contribute my bit to Africa.  My parents came for a visit. My mother found it difficult to walk. She had diabetes and open sores on her legs, which did not heal. But she enjoyed sitting in the sun in Regent’s park and talking with me She had had a long and sometimes hard life trying to obey the Catholic Church teaching on parenthood. Now, with all her children ‘off the floor’ and properly married she was able to look back on many happy moments.

 

After writing all the nine papers the seminars came to an end and I begun with my dissertation That had to be completed before the 1 October. Things were easier because I was allowed to write about Zambia, about my experience in the north and in Lusaka.

Debbie, the wife of Julie Woolgar’s cousin Nigel, offered to type everything on a word processor. It was not easy for her, as so much was written in Bemba and Nyanja but together we managed somehow, sitting in that high office block in Bristol.

I submitted the final draft one week before the dead line, was quickly on my way to the Netherlands to celebrate my silver anniversary of my ordination on the 12^th of September.

It became a feast hat I will not forget.   Two of my younger brothers, Frans and Sjon, had died but for the rest everybody was still alive and full of life. I had invited my friends from the UK, and from the Netherlands. Dan Eiffe sang a moving song on Derry in  North Ireland and we danced until late in the night. Next day my brother Jan invited us for a bicycle ride through the woods of the Veluwe and Chris, who by then had become the town’s councillor, took us for a guided tour in The Hague

When it was all over I went by boat to the U.K. for a rest with the Woolgar family in the West country. They were ‘house hunting’ and finally agreed with one another on buying a small cottage with a thatched roof in a cluster of houses, called Lyes Green, in Corsley, between Warminster and Bath. Originally the listed cottage had been part of the wool trade, inhabited by labourers of the Longleat estate with its land owned by the Marquis of Bath until the mid 1940s. Traditionally  the first born child of every family that lived in one of the cottages got some money for his or her studies. I took long walks in the beautiful surroundings and enjoyed the fruits of autumn: brambles, black berries, rose hips and crab apples.

At the beginning of November I was back in London and had long talks with Dan Eiffe. After many years of hesitation he decided to leave the priesthood and to launch out into a new life.

 “I will always be working with people in Africa” were his last words before we parted[4].

 

I left for Lusaka on the 11^th November 1983. There I was told that I had been appointed back to the high North, to the Language Centre in Ilondola, 800 km from Lusaka. I was to return back again into the bush of the Diocese of Mbala.      

In Woodlands, Lusaka, a brand new Toyota Highlux was waiting for me. I went to visit my old parish of Bauleni along Leopards Hill road. Almost a year after my departure it had been  taken over by Fr. Renato Kizito of the Comboni-Verona Fathers. With the help of Italian volunteers he had built a huge church on the Leopards Hill plot. It looked very much like a hangar for planes and had little beauty except a fantastic painting on the wall behind the main altar. It was painted by an Italian artist with lovely scenes of villages life and right in the middle the figure of a brown person emanating light to everybody around him.

Fr Kizito told me that the brown figure was originally meant to be Jesus Christ, painted as an African. But Archbishop Adrian Munghandu, who had taken over from the administrator Archbishop Elias Mutale, had objected severely to this.

“Jesus was a white man, not a black man”, he had said after the solemn blessing of the church. “I want everything whitewashed”.

But happily, on the spur of the moment Fr Kizito had replied sweetly:

 “My Grace, the figure is not meant to be Jesus Christ but Matthias Mulumba, the Ugandan  martyr who is the patron saint of the parish!”

The archbishop was reassured and was able to admire the painting.

“But what about my little church we built together with the people inside the compound of Bauleni”?  I asked anxiously.   

I was told that it had become too small and that the church-council had sold it for a song to members of the United Church of Zambia. As good Protestants the elders had whitewashed all the paintings of Fr Boucher and removed the altar. The locally made stations of the cross were transferred to the new Catholic Church but the statue of Our Lady, carved by the Congolese prisoner, stood sadly in the dark corner of a broom cupboard.

The Leopards Hill plot, once divided in small plots for a housing settlement project, had been reclaimed by the Archdiocese of Lusaka and was now earmarked for ecclesiastical purposes. At the far side the Bishops had constructed a rather ‘ugly looking’ Spirituality Centre for young seminarians.

Again, a project that initially had been meant and financed for the development of the people, had been changed into a plot for church buildings and institutions.

I drove down to Siavonga near Lake Kariba to collect my personal belongings, which had not been touched since my departure in January 1982. From there I pointed the pick-up towards the north and drove all the way, more than a 1000 km, to Ilondola, to the Language centre of Fr Louis Oger.

I was back in the Chinsali district from where I had gone away in 1971.

The people were happy to see me, especially because of my brand new pick up.

 “You must give us lifts to Chinsali”, they said.

 I shivered when I sensed again that peculiar atmosphere of dependency that pervades old established mission posts. Missionaries were often not primarily appreciated for what they were, but rather for the goodies they brought. I was now back in rustic Ilondola after the busy and hectic life in the middle of London. 

Young boys carried my trunks inside the room that had been prepared for me.

“Who occupied the room before me?”, I asked them innocently. It was the Canadian Fr. Papineau who had been appointed as rector of Mpima major seminary a week before.

A pile of letters was waiting for me on the dusty  table. I was officially appointed to Ilondola but not as director of the language centre, a post that Fr. Louis Oger kept for himself after so many years. Better news was that I had obtained my M.A degree with good results, and had been recommended and accepted for an external, PhD, under the supervision of Professor Gray.

But I had to get used to bush mission life again. My return to rural Chinsali district felt as if I had made a step backwards into history. December came with the first heavy rains that rendered access to the mission almost impassable. I accepted the function of  bursar, took my turn for the Eucharist in the main church of Ilondola and visited a series of outstations. Christmas found me far away along the Chambeshi swamps , in an outstation called  Kalonga, where Livingstone had passed in the 1870s on his way to paramount chief Chitimukulu and the senior chief Mwamba.   

During the Xmas recess on 27^th of December  President Kaunda came to visit us by helicopter. He gave a speech in the Church, and encouraged people to work hard and to form cooperatives. By then he was not so popular any longer. One elderly woman, who possibly had been a member of the banned United Peoples Party U.P.P. shouted that Dr Kaunda had no right to govern the Bemba as he was only a son of the Angoni, a tribe with whom the Bemba had fought and beaten during pre-colonial days. She was ‘rewarded’ with the butt of a rifle in her stomach by one of the soldiers.

 

The Language Study Centre re-opened its doors at the beginning of the New Year, 1984.

As has been seen in an earlier chapter it had been originally established during the 1960s for young White Fathers missionaries. The course lasted a solid 6 months during which the students were taught the extensive grammar of the Bemba language. They received lessons on the cultural and social background of the country in general and that of the Bemba –speaking peoples in particular. The priests had to acquaint themselves with the pastoral methods of the apostolate as developed by the White Fathers in the North since the beginning of the century.

After Vatican II there had been tensions as the new arrivals rejected the outdated and paternalistic opinions and convictions of the then director. However since the arrival of the erudite and kind Father Louis Oger in 1969-70 the atmosphere had improved significantly. He had also broadened the intake of the Centre by allowing not only missionaries of other congregations and denominations but also expatriates who wanted to learn the language and the country’s background before starting their work.

By 1980 the Bemba language centre had trained students from 10 denominations or volunteer groups who came from 18 different countries. The Centre had acquired a very good reputation. The only considerable draw back was that the Ilondola mission was very isolated, as it was situated far in the bush, 900 km from Lusaka with no access to the main grid of the electricity supply. Oger, born and bred on a small French farm, who had spent all his life in the rural north, considered this to be an asset.

“They will be able to learn pure Bemba, be steeped in the culture and not be distracted from their studies by modernity” he said.

Within a few days a total of 18 students arrived, a couple of White Fathers, two protestant ministers and their wives, nuns from different congregations and a batch of lively volunteers.

Some intended to follow the long course of 5 months while others came only for the first basic course of 2 months.

I took to this motley group like a duck to water. They were young, brimming with modern ideas and interested in anything that concerned Zambia. My main task was to initiate them into the country’s culture and history, teach Bemba custom and lore and show them ‘the tricks of the trade’ so that they would make a successful contribution to the country. I hardly needed to prepare classes as the lectures quickly developed into a lively discussion on one or another subject. The Centre had a religious, missionary background but the broadminded Oger had admitted students from such different backgrounds, that its atmosphere could be quite secular from time to time. I enjoyed this tremendously and spent many extra hours talking with these adult students on all kinds of topics. The church in Rome might have been bent on retracing its steps back to pre-Vatican II times and might have been trying to become again more priest-centred, the Language Study Centre stood with two feet firmly in the soil of Zambia with its modern problems. I remember that some of these post-graduate students encouraged me to continue with my study and research,

“Help Zambia by helping its people record their own history, their own identity. Let us teach one another to help ourselves”, they said.

I made the first lay-out of my PhD thesis and started some research work in the villages around the mission. Together with my confrere Piet Verkley we paid a visit to Kasomo, the home village of Alice Lenshina Mulenga. Her beautiful Tempile had been bulldozed by the army in the middle of the 1970’s, and the Lumpa Church itself was still banned. After detention and house arrest in New Chilenje and Kaunda Square,  two compounds inLusaka, she had died in December 1978 without her case ever been brought to a court of law. Kasomo itself, the witness of so much bloodshed, was very still and eerie. Small trees had grown on the wide assembly place where, at the beginning of the 1960s, I had met Lenshina herself in all her glory. Only a wide concrete slab and a few small walls remained. A few women gazed at us, subdued and silent. After we called out to them in Bemba they came to greet us and guided us to the place where Lenshina was buried, on the very place where she had told the people about her vision and from where she had preached to the crowd. Then they took us to the burnt out house of the prophetess herself and some wrecks of old lorries, destroyed by the army.

The whole place had become a traditional shrine and the women were its keepers. They told us that it had become a place of pilgrimage and was visited regularly by people from all over the country and that, one day, a new temple would be built on the foundations of the old one[5].

 

It was during these first months of 1984 that I was brought into contact with the ravages of a deadly sickness, the Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome (A.I.D.S).

A daughter of Michael Longe, the headmaster in Mulilansolo who had helped me and Fr. K. Van Rijthoven so much in 1959-62, returned from the mines, covered with ugly sores.

“The doctor told me that there is no cure” she sighed “I have come back to my family home to die”

 Her father had died long before but her mother was still alive and looked after her until the day we buried her. During the funeral I  seemed to hear her beautiful voice, ringing out in the church of Mulilansolo and had that premonition that her death was only the beginning of a tremendous pandemic[6]. From the euphoria of Independence Zambia seemed to have slipped back into the quagmire of disease and poverty. I could not but remember the hymns of the Prophetess Lenshina who had warned the people almost three decades before.

The parishioners however were not aware of the looming disaster and were inclined to deny its existence among them. We made it a point during the weekly sermons and seminars to warn people, in particular the young. To Kaunda’s slogan “One Zambia, one Nation’’ we added   “One wife”, arguing that Aids did not come with the wind.

The mission parish of Ilondola had become a rather closed society, seemingly ruled by a few extended families around the mission. They were used to hear sermons on love, kindness and mutual support and were shocked by our more direct approach.I had become used to a more articulate way of expressing myself in urban Lusaka where tribes of all background jostled together on their way to a new cultural identity. Life in town had caused me to expect higher standards of work ethics. I found it extremely difficult to get used again to the slow pace of life in the rural area and demanded from the mission personnel better behaviour.

Whatever the case might have been, one day the daily workers downed tools and announced a ‘general strike’. My reaction was exactly the same as it had been in the past, that of indifference. It was as if the language students were waiting for it to happen. For the sisters it became a welcome invitation to clean the kitchen thoroughly and to change our rather monotonous diet. The male students worked in the garden and did odd jobs around the mission.

On the following Sunday morning after High Mass I was summoned by three members of the parish council and was told that I was discriminatory by accusing the congregation of immoral behaviour. They also accused me of being racist as I had made sure on the day of my arrival that no black person had lived in the room allotted to me.

 I was really taken aback and did not say much in reply as my only intention had been to warn about what was coming and to guard the people from the misery of AIDS.

For the remainder of that first course, things went fine. I loved the daily teaching  and the discussions with the students.

In April I travelled all the way to Siavonga in the far South to see how things were going in and around my holiday hostels.

Sister Jacqueline Rondeau had managed Siavonga very well but unfortunately she had met with a serious car accident and was sent home for good. The place was without management. During my stay in these peaceful hostels with all their sweet memories Archbishop Munghandu came to visit me. I had heard that he loved the place. When things became too hectic for him in Lusaka, he would often take his car and disappear for a bit of rest in Siavonga. While we sat together with a cold beer in our hands, watching the sun going down over the lake, the decision to hand over the place flashed through my mind. I suggested to the Archbishop to take over the management and even the ownership of the two plots. After all, it was only because the former treasurer had refused to purchase it, that the title deeds had been drawn up in my name. Archbishop Milingo had always meant it to be a rest house for the hard working church workers, and to be owned by the Archdiocese.

He agreed almost instantaneously and offered me some money as a recompense.  I waived this kind offer aside. If I accepted money, however little, the rumour would go around that I had sold it with a high profit. I preferred that a deed of gift would be drawn up. Within a short time the legal side of the transaction was completed and the Archdiocese became the owner of the hostels in Siavonga. The place was looked after extremely well and was booked almost every weekend.

In later years many of my friends, even my family, would regret this decision and were of the opinion that I should have kept this exquisite place in my personal possession. But for me, as a missionary, a phase had come to an end and it was time to move on. Anyway, how could I manage the place from such a great distance? Since the departure of Sister Jacqueline thieves had broken in one of the cottages and taken most of its contents, including the curtains and the beautiful chasuble that Julie Woolgar had sewed for me.

Back in Lusaka I found an excited Brother Gerry Weffers. A group of Austrian volunteers had arrived and stayed in Woodlands on their way to the diocese of Chipata.

“I discovered that they come from the village of Hitler”, he exclaimed, “Imagine the very man who caused me to suffer as a prisoner of war in a Russian concentration camp for so many years!!”. He had the good humour to laugh it off but it was clear that the wounds of  his horrific past still rankled deep in his heart.

On my way, between Mpika and Kanona I stopped at the beautiful site of the Kundalila falls. There was nobody about. Nailed on a tree I found a notice, written by the keeper of the falls

‘Sir/Madam, please excuse me. I am sick with fever and sores. I have gone to hospital and will not come back again’.

Was AIDS spreading its tentacles so quickly in the rural areas?

Back in Ilondola I looked forward to the next group. I used the few weeks in-between for research, went to Mwenge near Kabanda, but also to the villages in and around the Shiwa Ngandu estate. There I found some remaining adherents of the Emilio Movement, a sect that had been started by an ex seminarian, called Emilio Mulolani, and had broken away from the Catholic Church. During the 1950s he had denounced the puritan approach of the White fathers on sexuality and, as a reaction, seemed in favour of ‘free love’. When I mentioned this to them the adherents of this sect replied that they had ‘washed their brains and hoped that Aids would pass them by’. It never did and many of them would die in the years that followed.

In Chinsali people showed me the place where the 800 odd victims of the Lumpa upheavals had been buried. No sign of this mass grave was erected. The Zambia Electricity Supply Company had put a pylon on top of the huge burial mound. But later I heard that the place had become a kind of pilgrimage resort.

The new course started. This time a good number of the participants were nuns and after a few weeks it became painfully clear that some of them had come to Ilondola, sent by their superiors as part of a ‘healing sabbatical’ and not primarily to learn fluent Bemba.

As has been seen in the case of Corpus Christi in London, this happens only too often and at times gives a good Institution a bad name. The group was also not so homogeneous as the one before. There were simple volunteers who came for ‘a smatter of the lingo’ there were a couple of priests from Eastern Europe with, for us, outdated theology, but there were also a team of lively Polish Salesian sisters who were capable and keen to learn as much as possible in a short time.

One evening some of those who had come for a few simple lessons in Bemba and a workable introduction to the mores of the country, approached me and confided to me that they were daunted by the avalanche of grammar that the local teachers poured upon them each morning. Could I give some simple sentences that would be of use during their development work in the coming years?

With my urban background I wrote a series of lessons called ‘Bemba and Nyanja made easy’ and included sentences and greetings that would come in handy during their work as nurses, carpenters, bricklayers, etc. These lessons proved to be a success but the concept of simplification was not so well received by Fr Louis Oger and his teachers. They preferred the pure, rich language with all its 110 tenses as it was spoken by the elders in the rural areas. This caused a certain amount of tension.

At the end of the year Fr Oger became seriously ill with malaria. The disease had become resistant to traditional  treatment with chloroquine and other, more powerful, drugs were gradually brought on the market.

It had certainly not been an easy year for him. The tensions among the students, my new methods of teaching and the changes of time had worn him down. The attack of malaria developed into a cerebral delirium that caused him to re-live the trauma of his time in Algiers when he serve as a young soldier in the French army. Now, he was seen crouching behind his bed, with a stick in his hand, waiting for the enemy to attack.

I had been away for some days in order to map an old battlefield beyond Kalikiti School near Mulanga mission. A teacher had helped me and to my joy we had ‘discovered’ the place, where around 1880, not long before the coming of the agents of the B.S.A. Company, the Ngoni, coming from the eastern side of the Luangwa valley, had surrounded a fortified Bemba village during the night, attacked it in the early morning and massacred its entire population. The corpses had not been buried and we found a number of small bones and potshards. Even the surrounding area had not been touched since that horrible morning and look extremely beautiful, with huge trees near a small stream and all kinds of birds singing away. The traditional keeper in the village nearby gave us permission to look around and to take with us a few pieces of bones and potshards of the slain women who had gone down to the small stream with their pots to fetch water. To prove that I had found the place I put these remnants in a plastic bag.

When I returned to Ilondola I was unaware of Oger’s delirium. I entered his room and showed him triumphantly this little plastic bag. He flew out towards me from behind his bed, and with his big hand crushed the entire contents to pulp.

When the people around Ilondola heard about this, they were in uproar.

“Did you realise that you caused the remains of our ancestors to be desecrated?”, they shouted. Later, when I left the language Centre on my way back to an appointment in the Central Province, they begged me to take what remained of the bag with me and to deposit it in a museum or in the archives.

Father Oger slipped into a coma and we feared the worst. He was lovingly cared for by Sister Finny, an American nun from New York. Another participant happened to be a doctor, who diagnosed a transient global amnesia. He took Oger and the nursing sister in his car to Chainama, a mental hospital in Lusaka. After some weeks he regained consciousness thanks to the care of Sister Finny but was advised to go on leave to France for a prolonged rest.

I remained behind all alone, holding the baby. Fortunately Fr. Alf Harrison, a White father from Manchester came to my aid and offered to be the manager and the bursar of the Ilondola Language Centre. He arrived a few days before Christmas.

 

We entered the New Year 1985 with renewed hope. Brother Paul Kaiser joined us, sent by Bishop Fürstenberg to build a new convent for the sisters. He was artistically inclined, decorated the house to make it more attractive and was always ready for a good laugh. But he could also lose his temper. One day he was on top of the roof, trying to fix an asbestos roofing sheet to a poorly cured wooden span. When the sheet split he became so upset that he lifted it high above his head and smashed in down to smithereens.

“I am fed up”, he shouted to his startled workers. “Go home and come back tomorrow!”.

The men went home with great hilarity and told everybody that Brother Paul had smashed a roofing sheet ‘like Moses had done with the tablets when he saw his people dancing around the golden calf!’.

   

Father Oger came back and we decided never to mention his delirium. It became a good year. As we were now four of us, the elderly Oger was more relaxed and had time for study and  his hobbies. He was an excellent cook, knew how to make tasty jam from the wild fruits in the bush, like the mfungo,(prunes) or the masuku (figs). Often one saw him going around with a set of spanners in his hands to repair some leaking pipe or do some other plumbing. Oger was a born scholar with a pair of golden hands, something that is a rather rare combination.

I also was given more time for fieldwork and research for my doctoral thesis.

Groups of students followed one after the other. With them we went to Mbala to visit the museum, started by Father Jean Jacques Corbeil and also to the high Kalambo falls on the border with Tanzania. Many of them were young people at the beginning of their career. Not all of them stayed in Africa after their course. Some of the church workers were appointed to other continents almost immediately after they had finished a bit of Bemba!

I could not help wondering why they had been sent to learn Bemba in the first place and so waste their and our time and dedication. It made me think of the words of one of the professors at SOAS: “The Catholic Church gets the best personnel of the world but at times makes poor use of it”.

It was during one of these courses that I was confronted by the first wave of conservative  young clerics who did not belong any longer to our generation of the more liberal ‘Vatican II’ tenets. Until then we had taken the decrees and instructions from Rome since the election of Pope John Paul II with a grain of salt. What did the Roman Curia know about Africa anyway? Often we took our own decisions on the spot.

Some of the young participants protested  vehemently against some of my observations and suchlike remarks. Rome had to be followed strictly without any adaptation to local circumstances. A couple of them had done their theology in Germany under Professor Ratzinger and quoted him constantly as one of their important sources. I could not believe my ears. Here were some young priests fresh from the seminary who, during a course on initiation to Africa, were rejecting all forms of adaptation, let alone, what later would be called, inculturation, i.e. making the message of the Gospel part and parcel of the culture, the way of thinking of the people to whom it is addressed[7].

 

However with the onslaught if Aids raw reality soon took over. The country suffered terribly fromr a plague of witchcraft accusations and witch-hunters. Wicked people were believed to change themselves into lions or crocodiles and attack, even kill, innocent people. Coffins with corpses in them were allegedly pointing out persons who were the course of their deaths. As always it was the small, vulnerable and mostly old people who were accused and badly beaten, even killed. Near the mission an old woman was accused and as punishment a sharp reed was inserted in her vagina. I took her to hospital where she died in  agony.

I was invited to give courses on all kinds of topics on African religion especially in the field of witchcraft[8]. My first articles for Dutch and English magazines were published and I was called to national conferences.

In January I drove to the Meeting of the Association of Mission Studies in Harare, where the Jesuits gave me free accommodation. It felt like a wave of fresh air to meet and listen to well known scholars from all over the world. Professor Richard Gray was present together with Dr Frans Verstraelen and his wife Dr Gerdien Verstraelen-Gilhuis. After the conference we made some trips together in and around Harare. Already then we spoke about the need of Centres in Africa, in particular in Zambia, for more in depth  research. This would come to fruition when Marja, one of my nieces, would come to visit me and after her Phd doctorate decided to put up her tent in Lusaka.

In April I visited missions in the Archdiocese of Kasama, travelling from one outstation to the other in order to take evidence for my Thesis on Religious Change among Bemba-speaking Women in Zambia. I sent the first tentative chapters to London. Prof Gray received them with his usual kindness but asked me to be more accurate in my quotations. I realised that it would take some time before I could submit the final version for doctoral scrutiny.

In May Pope John Paul II visited The Netherlands. I remember being somewhat ashamed by the way he was received by some of my fellow compatriots. Not many of us did agree with the Vatican’s desire of coming back on some of what had been gained since Vatican II. But, the Pope did represent the major church of the world and was always received  by other countries with due respect and dignity. The increasing polarisation between the so called neo-conservatives and the neo-liberals in the Western world would not be of any help to the young churches in the South.

With the help of the women’s league, the Association of Women Lay Missionaries  (ALM) and two sisters congregations I drew up a list of almost 70 questions on the cultural religious status of the women in the Church. At first I was a bit apprehensive about such a major exercise but once this extensive inquiry was sent to hundreds of groups all over the country, the answers started to come in. It was as if the women had been waiting for such an occasion.  I made it a point to be present at some of the meetings and listen unobtrusively to their discussions. After having been introduced I listened from the side. The women seemed to forget that I was present and talked freely about their concerns.

I remember that time as favourable. The struggle of having to row against the current seemed finally something of the past. I received recommendations from the new team of White Fathers Regionals who agreed that much more church-related research and reflection was needed.

The Church in Zambia woke up slowly  when the bishops, supported by Jean-Loup Calmettes at the Catholic Secretariat, began to publish well-founded pastoral letters primarily dealing with social-economic issues in the field of Justice and Peace.

During the second part of 1985 I visited Mansa diocese and from there I crossed through the Pedicle of the Congo (Zaire) to meet with women’s groups in the towns of the Copperbelt. By then the price of copper had plummeted horribly. The ghosts of poverty and disease stalked through the once prosperous and well-kept towns. Under pressure of the International Monetary Authorities the Kwacha devalued 120 % and wiped out all people’s savings and pension funds.

 In September I was in Mindolo, the Ecumenical Institute near Kitwe for a conference. There I met the well- known Brian Hearne teaching church leaders of all denominations. He appeared to be a bit depressed at that time but encouraged me to continue with my research, never to give up.

In November I went back to Ilondola to get my findings and inquiries sorted out and to enjoy a bit of rest. Since its foundation in the 1930’s people had been cutting trees for their cooking and the surroundings looked bleak and bare. It was then that I started a project by which the people in Ilondola would mainly remember me. Each afternoon I went out and planted rows of little trees in and around the mission.

A few weeks before Christmas I received a telegram from Dan Eiffe now back in Venda land to say goodbye to the people. Could we meet in Kariba, talk and stay a few days in Siavonga? I took my car, collected my confrere Dan Sherry in Chilonga and drove to the south as quickly as possible. In Kariba (Zimbabwe) I saw him sitting alone in a restaurant with a glass of beer in front of him. We talked and talked. He had finally decided to leave the priesthood and try another way of service in Africa.  

 

At the beginning of 1986 I travelled back to Ilondola, ready for the next course. This time a good number of the participants consisted of missionaries from the Southern hemisphere, the so-called Third World countries. They were ready to take over the baton from the thousands of men and women missionaries who had come from the Western Europe and North America. One group came from the Philippines and belonged to the Congregation of Our Lady Immaculate (C.I.C.M.) founded originally in Belgium. They proved to be very capable men who insisted on living with the people as close as possible and eventually spoke Bemba fluently. 

In Lusaka I met Fr Jean Jacques Corbeil on his final way back to Canada. I had known him since 1959 and learned so much from him. He had never been  ‘the traditional White Father’ of the parishes and outstations in the rural areas. As a matter of fact I had never seen him going on safari. But through his interest in the material culture of the people he had gathered a fine collection of mostly Bemba-Bisa artefacts, and had founded a beautiful museum in Mbala, now unfortunately in the possession of the Government, as has been seen.

In Woodlands he donated his last documents and drawings to the WF archives and said to me sadly: “We missionaries are like balloons, we tend to drift apart”. It were the last words I heard from a man who despite, or possibly because of his idiosyncrasies had taught me so much[9].     

Through all kinds of circumstance I found myself to be alone at the beginning of the new course. My only companion was Brother Paul Kaiser happily building the new convent for the sisters. I became in charge of the material running and the pastoral care of the mission besides being acting director of the Language Centre. I was busy all day and tried to write the drafts of the Thesis during the night.

When in March I was relieved by the return of my confreres, Frs. Louis Oger and Alf Harrison, I was sick and exhausted. In Chilonga hospital the young expatriate doctor diagnosed an infection of the bladder and the beginning of a prostate cancer. There was blood in my urine, a sign, he said, of bilharzias.

I realised that I was not so young any longer.

When in April another missionary arrived, the amiable Frenchman Michel Genelot, I was granted a few months of leave from the Centre in order to have some time for writing and continue with my fieldwork and more research. Father Marois, a French Canadian, invited me to his mission besides Lubushi seminary near Kasama as he was alone at that moment.

I spent four glorious months over there, during which time I wrote one chapter after the other. A small light began to appear at the end of the tunnel. I helped Marois as much as possible with the parish. After some time the Frenchman Fr Alain Guegueniat, followed by the Candian Fr Melvin Doucette came to relieve us. I remember that short period as a glorious time, spent with good, understanding company, who let me have plenty of peace and quiet.

I went around on tour and combined it with more fieldwork near chief Kabwibwi, and in an area called Musowa where I stayed for a week in a village called Chilufya Kabosha. Long ago the area had been part of a slave trade route that ran from the Luangwa valley to Kazembe on the shores of the Luapula river.

From the letters I received from the Netherlands I learned that my mother was becoming very weak and ill. She had had a hard life, giving birth and educating so many children. Now that most of them were happily married and had given her a great number of grandchildren, she seemed ready to let things go and leave them in the hands of my father. He was still alive and well. In June he cycled a nearby monastery and booked its chapel for the celebration of the Eucharist on the occasion of his 80^th birthday. He kept on encouraging me to continue and not to lose heart despite all ups and downs.

 

After my successful stay in Lubushi I went to the central mission post of Chilubula where I collected and summarized all the inquiries, which were sent to the women groups. The Council of the White Fathers asked me if I was ready to become a member of their Centenary team.

In 1991 it would be hundred years since the Missionaries arrived in Mambwe Mwela, a small settlement on the border of Tanzania and Zambia. I replied in the affirmative, suggested that the theme be that of Justice and Peace and proposed the formation of a think-tank composed of White Fathers, independent of the local Bishops Conference.

The Bishops reacted almost immediately: The Centenary was not so much that of the White Fathers as well of the local church and that the theme of Justice and Peace could not be singled out as the main theme. They added that the White Fathers would not be the only ones to be involved but also the Jesuits and the Franciscans[10].

The WF Council tried to make a clear distinction between the centenary celebrations of their own group and those of the local church. They established a commission with Fr A. Simonart as co-ordinator[11]. Not much came of it. Most of the White Fathers in Zambia were at that time inclined to consider themselves as part and parcel and seemed to have lost their specific identity. 

That year another Chapter took place  in Rome but it now became clear that the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, the White Fathers, had somehow lost its momentum and vision for the future.

“It did nothing to increase my love for the Society or its inner workings” one of the participants remarked later on. “There were so many confreres who arrived with their hobby horses that we had to fight to get something of pastoral concern tabled”[12].

In the Netherlands the trunk road from Den Bosch to Eindhoven  had to be widened. The old St Charles, built in 1892 betwwn Den Bosch and Boxtel, was in the way and  had to be pulled down. The community of retired missionaries moved from there to Heythuysen, a religious house in Limburg. Gradually the well known society of the White Fathers, Missionaries of Africa, began to melt away like snow in the hot sun of secularism. 

At the end of the course that year, the Ilondola Language Centre had to be closed for some time. The manager, Fr Alf Harrsion, had a heart attack and had to be repatriated to his home country, the U.K.[13].

I made use of the occasion to visit outstations in and around my old mission of Mulilansolo, where I had started in 1959. I went down memory lane and visited the parents of Sr. Ancilla Kaputi who had died of cancer in Tanzania. The parents had also lost a son who had been beaten to death by thugs in the Copperbelt and a daughter who died in childbirth. Despite all this misery they kept their heads high and enjoyed the few grandchildren in their care.

 

I had been ‘in the field’ for three years and had to return to the UK to try and present my Thesis. I left Lusaka with the French airline UTA on the 25^th of November and arrived in the Netherlands via Paris the next day. My mother had aged considerably, could hardly move and was now in constant pain. When I left her for London, just before Christmas she kissed me and said: “Keep going. You belong to me” were the last words I heard  from her lips.

In London I bought an Armstad computer and a small printer. I heard from Fr Jeremiah Ryan that Dan Eiffe was now stationed in Southern Sudan and worked for some Aid Organisation. I met Andre Simonart, who was asked to co-ordinate the centenary celebrations of the White Fathers in Zambia. He seemed in favour of my Ph.D. studies and research and added:  “People at the missionary Institute and St Edwards need you. Why don’t you settle down in the U.K. for a long haul?”.

I wondered whether he was genuine or whether he and others wanted me to be away from Zambia for a considerable time!!

 

Right from its beginning 1987 was be a difficult year.  When I arrived at Laxton place near Euston to rent a room from Fr Jeremiah Ryan most of the space was taken by a priest from Iraq. The Catholics of that country, who belonged to the Chaldean rite, were fleeing away from the cruel reign of Saddam Hussein. They were not poor, seem to arrive with lots of petrol dollars and had no difficulty settling down in the metropolis of London.

They were also very generous. The collection of one of their services on Sunday afternoon was as much as Fr Ryan received from his own congregation during the entire month. The Chaldean chaplain had installed himself rather luxuriously in two big rooms with Persian carpets on the floor.

Now that Dan Eiffe had gone, things were not the same as it had been in 1983.  I managed to rent a small room and settled down in order to start writing the final version of the Thesis on the Armstrad as quickly as possible. Perhaps I should have taken some lessons on how to use a word processor efficiently as I lost a great deal of time with it. The kind Fr Ryan even bought me a small typewriter convinced as he was that all these computers were just a nuisance. I helped him as much as possible with the services as he was getting old and frail. Until then there was no priest available in the Archdiocese of Westminster to replace him.

As arranged with Professor Gray, I assisted him with the M.A. seminars in lieu of payment for his supervision. It was an excellent arrangement and I enjoyed helping his students and taking part in the discussions. I also submitted my chapters one after the other for scrutiny by the group of professors and students. They gave me worthwhile suggestions in particular as regards the footnotes and the style.

I was not to be left at peace for long. I had not informed the British Province properly about my position and my intentions. The new Provincial wondered what I was doing at the African department of the university. Was I ‘on my way out’ and if not, why did I not live in one of the White Father’s houses?

At home in the Netherlands the health of my mother deteriorated rather rapidly. Towards the middle of February the doctors decided to try and cure her open sores on her legs by reversing the arteries but the operation was not a success and she slowly went into a coma in the Westeinde (Westend) hospital. I got myself a cheap air ticket and talked to her, hoping she would hear my words. She held my arm and pressed her fingers around it to show that she was not entirely unconscious. Together with my father and some members of my family we celebrated the Eucharist near her bed and gave her the Communion on her tongue. We took turns in staying with her day and night.

During these long waking hours I looked at her pale face for hours and prayed. Here she was on her final journey after such a long and arduous life. I thought of her as a young girl, member of the Grail, visiting all the churches in The Hague, as a young women in service and then as a young idealistic mother singing in a new house, intent on following the directives of the Catholic Church as well as possible. As a small child, I had found her very old when she told me that she was 31. She had borne and nursed a row of children in that little house in the Kokosnootstraat 58.  Eleven of her children were still alive, two had died and how many miscarriages had she had suffered? Had it all been worthwhile?

Recently she had turned somehow away from the catholic clergy and their teachings like so many Catholic women in The Netherlands. But her original vision had remained unshaken: to move forward all the time, never to set one step backwards’.

My cheap ticket reached its expiry date. The doctors told me that she could stay like that for weeks, even months. I returned back to my small room at Laxton Place in rainy London to continue with the seminars.      

In the evening of the 4^th of March I received a phone call from my sister-in-law Nel, the wife of my brother Stef. My mother was dying, could I come as quickly as possible?

I managed to catch a plane early morning and found her bed empty, made up for the next patient. She had died in the night and was now laid out in the mortuary, down in the cellar. The warden told me that it was against the rules to go and see her but when I told that I had just arrived from abroad, he let me through.

There she was, in the semi darkness of a cold storage room her face now pale and rigid, not any more the one of my mother. I kissed her forehead and prayed for some time. Was it the end of a period?

My father looked like a scared rabbit, sitting with sad eyes on the settee, surrounded by his children. He did not want to see her, either in the mortuary or, later, in the coffin.

“I want to remember her as she was in the full vigour of her life”, he said.

The preparations for the burial and the writing of the memorial card were done swiftly and kindly. Finally, I celebrated the Requiem Mass attended by all her children, most of her grand and great-grand children. Two of her grandchildren, Tommes and Marcel Krullaars, sons of  Carla, played the trumpet and the organ.

It was a fresh, almost icy day. My elder sister Toos and my younger brother Jan had reserved a family grave on the St Joseph cemetery, near the place of the famous abbey of the Cistercian nuns in Loosduinen. Was my mother not a bit like the strong Machteld of Brabant, wife of the Earl of Holland?

I went back to London, subdued and at the same time very peaceful. In my room at Laxton place I found letters from dear White Fathers.

‘Many condolences on the death of your mother but why do you insist on living out side community? We have been told that you want to leave the priesthood and lecture at the University of London. Make up your mind. You are welcome to join the provincial group of Great Britain in Stormont Road. They have a free room and will be happy to have you’.

I walked for hours in the beautiful Regents Park on the brink of spring. It seemed to me that the White Fathers were not able to cope with an ‘in-between’ person living on the margin, away from the centre. One was either ‘out’ or ‘in’ and some one between became suspect. It reminded me somewhat of life in a rural village of Northern Zambia.

 

After a short stay in Corsley with the Woolgar family I moved my few belonging to the provincial house in Stormont Road, near Highgate It was mid April and the smell of spring was everywhere. The house was situated in a very ‘posh’ area of London, near Hampstead Heath. It was an absolute joy to walk around in the wide park overlooking Central London. I went to visit the grave of Marx in High Gate cemetery. The flow of visitors consisted mostly of severe looking men and women from China. With Margaret Thatcher from nearby Finchley firmly in charge of the nation, socialism seemed to have become a fad from the past.

‘Marxism is like putting leeches on a patient who is suffering from leukaemia’, she was reported to have said.

The walks around the provincial house were something never to forget. Living inside the mansion with a group of elderly men was another matter. It seems that after a period in Africa, life had been drained out of them; some were ill, others were like extinguished volcanoes. Fr Macquire, offered to help me with my English but he was inclined also to comment on and criticise the text, something I did not need after all the scrutiny by the MA-seminar at the University.

I knew it was not going to work, but I plodded on like a bird in a golden cage. I felt in a monotonous routine of the long haul by underground to the university in central London, assisting with the seminars, and reading rare books on Africa and Zambia in particular. I also agreed to give initiation lessons in London Conley to young members of the Voluntary Mission Movement, (V.M.M.) on their way to Africa. I worked in the garden, trying to get rid of its pernicious ground elder

The authorities in Lusaka were content: ‘He now resides at the Provincial House and hopes he will be of use to the work of inculturation and dialogue with traditional religious values’ wrote the secretary of the Regional Council[14]. The atmosphere had become more understanding. “We want to renew ceaselessly the scientific value of our work and shall give this an important place in our research “was written in the Petit Echo, the magazine of the White Fathers society [15]. 

But we were still divided into two separate camps? One that wanted to continue the day-to-day pastoral work in the parishes at all costs and the other that appreciated the in-put of pastoral concern but also wanted to give themselves more time for reflection and study? From some of this last group I received encouraging letters:

‘With a bit of patience and tact you will be able to convince others of the benefits of church research’, wrote one of them

I heard that my friend, the simple Swiss brother Joseph Mächler had died in Kasama after a heavy attack of cerebral malaria at the age of 67. He made me think of the days in Mulanga during the Lumpa upheavals when he kept us sane with his funny stories about home, high in the Swiss mountains.

I was also told that Fr Paul Connor, who had come to Mbala in Zambia  all the way from America in a small plane, was diagnosed with a strange disease, called amyo-tropic lateral sclerosis  for which there was no known cure. He never lost his smile, nor his wit and zest for life.

 ‘We are afraid of a more critical approach’ he wrote in one of his letters, ‘we should admit we have made mistakes and are inclined to sweep it all under the carpet. We would benefit much more by talking about it genuinely and try to solve things. But the turkeys in the Vatican will never allow that’[16].

The academic recess came in August-September. Slowly I became almost desperate. Later I realised that this was also part of writing an important thesis: The supervisors try to keep the candidate ‘hanging on the hook’ as long as possible during which time the future doctor is forced to sharpen his data as much as possible and so produce something that is really worthwhile for science.

I had important material but a great deal had still to be refined, especially the first three chapters.

In summer I attended a work shop on Prayer, conducted by the Grail.  It was quite intense and one learned the background of the participants within a few days. I remember vividly that one of the more ‘alternative’ ladies said that she recognised Jesus Christ as the gardener, working near the tomb. During her holidays she joined the local council and worked in the parks ‘to meet Jesus’ They were rare people, who gave me a lot of support.. I also made it a point of visiting Patrick Harrity, one of my confreres who now worked among the ‘down and out’ near London bridge. When I finally met him, I did not at first, recognise him amidst a group of beggars, tinkers and possible drug addicts. He looked exactly like them in his tacky clothing.

“Your group can send me more priests like him”, said the parish priest near Guys’Hospital. “He is doing an excellent job”. But later he was asked by our society to return to Africa. He should have stayed on, according to me.

When the university opened its gates again in October I was told that I would certainly be too late to submit the thesis in 1988 and that more research in the field was needed. In the middle of October the father of David Woolgar died. I was asked to assist at the burial in Worthing. During the night before the funeral Mass and the burial, Great Britain experienced one of the biggest storms in history. The house of David’s parents was in Woking very near the shore. During my sleep I heard the terrific noise but I though it was a normal sea storm. Next morning we woke up in utter darkness. All the trees around the house had been uprooted and covered the entire house   We could hardly get out, and be in time for the Requiem Mass. Together with the neighbours, council workers and ourselves we hacked ourselves a way to the church so that the bier could pass. Only a few members of the family found their way into the village. David’s brother and family, who lived far away, were not there. The parish priest, who had worked as a Fidei Donum priest in Zambia, in the diocese of Monze, suggested to wait but David’s mother, tired of all the tension and preparations wanted us to proceed.

It was a small and downcast group that huddled into the church and waited for things to happen. I have that strange habit of testing the altar, the tabernacle and the surroundings just before conducting a religious service. There was a settee near the steps with a wide cushion on top of it. ‘Let me it try out’, I said to myself and sat down, well at the back. Before I knew I felt myself falling backwards, somersaulting down the steep steps, towards the front of the coffin. The downcast people, including David’s mother, could not control their giggles and laughed. The ice was broken and the burial, in pleasant sunshine after the storm, became a relaxed affair.           

In November I received a letter from Archbishop Mutale in Kasama. Could I help him with the preparation of the Centenary? I referred him to the WF authorities. They were not in favour of a  full time co-ordinator and did not ‘want to be trapped in this kind of work’[17]. I replied that I intended to come back to Zambia all the same and was ready to be part of the Centenary Celebrations Committee. 

I spent Christmas in Corsley wit the Woolgars. When I returned to Stormont Road, the entire community left me to look after the house during the recess. I felt terribly lonely in that posh house and decided to go back to Zambia via the Netherlands. I phoned Prof Richard Gray, and told him that the completion of the Thesis was put on hold for the time being. He was very disappointed as I had been an asset during his seminars. He was convinced that I had something very important to contribute with my thesis and hoped that I would not abandon it entirely.

A few weeks after New Year 1988  my brother Jan kindly crossed the North Sea by car ferry, to collect my belongings. I said goodbye to the provincial team in Stormont Road and was very happy to be on my way  back to Zambia.

In Amsterdam  I purchased  a very cheap, one year return ticket on a cargo flight with Aeroflot. I left the Netherlands on the 7^th of February. The flight to Moscow was excellent as it was on a cloudless day with a clear view all the way. From Moscow we landed in Budapest just before midnight and went on to Luanda in Angola. There most of the passengers, ‘Russian technical personnel’, left.

The struggle against Portugal for the Independence of Angola had reached its peak. Hundreds of Angolan soldiers were boarding military planes, with their wives, children and bundles of luggage. The airfield was in terrible disorder and we had to wait several hours in the plane before the sign of a take off was given. I reached Lusaka on the 8^th of February. The house had been made larger with two rather ugly extensions. This was in view of making Woodlands more important, part of the WFs headquarters. I was dismayed as the original purpose of the house had been to cater for visitors and for residential pastoral workers. Why did they not buy or build an entire new house if they wanted to shift the headquarters from Kasama to Lusaka?

Zambia was in great trouble. The independence of Zimbabwe, and the opening of the border to the south had not given the country any respite. On the contrary the country became marginalized and was left behind with an ever growing burden of debt. The sudden removal of price control on mealie (maize) meal had caused riots in 1986 with 20 people dead.

Dr Kaunda decided to suspend the strict and ruthless programme of the IMF and replaced it by an indigenous programme. That was the beginning of the end of the Second Republic. The UNIP Party and its Government lost total credibility when it was announced that the nation was near bankruptcy and that there would be only one candidate for the local and national elections. To keep the resemblance of some measure of control the government put endless military and police checks on the roads and harassed the innocent and poor people for no reason whatsoever.

I was told that the mission post of Isoka, near the Tanzanian border, needed a replacement very urgently as Fr Leopold Lalonde was not well and needed a check up and rest at home in Canada. I had always been very fond of Leopold and agreed to relieve him for the time being. I reached Isoka towards the end of the month.

The mission post was built near the hills, slightly out of the boma. It had a huge tree plantation, a good water supply and recently constructed buildings. Lalonde always combined his pastoral work with plenty of hobbies. He was technically inclined and brought to perfection anything he could lay his hands on. In the past he had constructed an amateur radio connection that gave him the change to send messages not only to people in Zambia but even to his family in Canada. He kept chickens, and rabbits the sale of which paid for the expenses of the mission. At the time of my arrival his great interest was bee-keeping.

He wanted to collect all the honey before his leave and asked me to help him. I refused politely but firmly. I had been stung by the aggressive African bees long ago, in Mulilansolo, and knew what agonising pain they caused. To my horror I saw him lifting the hives with hardly any protection so that the bees were all over him. Later he told me that he had been stung so often that he had became immune and only felt a pleasant tingling at the end of it. We had honey on our bread, in the tea, on pancakes, even in the vegetables.

He left a week after my arrival and promised to come back as soon as possible.

I was not alone for the parish. There was Felix Hofmann from Germany and Jude Coyle from Ireland. Felix loved to go on tour, far out into the high hills near the Tanzania-Malawi border. Jude taught Religious education to the secondary school pupils nearby. He did not know any local language and was very aware of being the odd person out among the White Fathers. But he was an excellent teacher who loved his students and gave them all his free time and attention.

The place was rural and peaceful enough for me to have a good think and decide to take up the cudgel and undertake the last race towards the completion of the Thesis. I re-wrote most of the chapters and send them to my sister Fiet in the Netherlands who put them properly on the computer. From then things went smoothly and without any mishap[18].

That year I travelled a couple of times all the way to Lusaka as a member of the National Commission for the Celebration of the Centenary. We even planned to invite Pope John Paul II to this occasion and hoped that he would visit the North and the East. It became evident that the impetus for this celebration was now in the hands of the local clergy, men like the capable Peter Lwaminda and Oswald Chansa. The fact that 1991 was also a centenary of the White Fathers’ arrival in Zambia seemed almost forgotten.

My WF superiors were pleased with my return and my willingness to replace Fr Lalonde. They welcomed me back to the fold and made no mention of any doctoral studies[19]. However I became increasingly convinced that that our missionary work needed more reflection, evaluation and church related research. Our duty was not just ‘to hand over’ but should include the writing of our history.

I devised a special project, which I called with the syncronym NSIMA (National Service of Information, Missionaries of Africa), the name for the daily meal of maize porridge It included proper archives, documentation, inculturation, research and on going formation. The scheme was politely welcomed and then gently laid aside.

On my 55^th birthday, the 3^rd of April, I received a phone call from my father. He seemed to have overcome his bereavement and had taken up life again. After the death of my mother, in March 1987, we all thought that my father would not be able to cope and lose any zest for life. The contrary was true. He picked up extremely well. He travelled by train to Budapest and to other places. He also befriended an old and lonely lady nearby and visited her almost each evening.

In April the Dutch Ambassador and his wife, Baron and Baroness Van Heemskerk came to visit Isoka, primarily to see the two families of the Dutch doctors, working in the hospital of Isoka. They stayed in our guesthouse near the church and in the evening we had long talks together. The ‘donors’ seemed slowly to loose confidence in the economic acumen of Dr Kaunda and his party government. The ambassador wondered how the country would ever get out of the financial mess.

The months passed by peacefully.  In Mpika I facilitated a course on traditional healing, followed by a seminar in Nakonde, a little town on the border with Tanzania. The house of Dr. Trant, whom I had met during the Lumpa troubles, lay in ruins, her garden neglected and overgrown. I crossed for a day into Tunduma in Tanzania to visit my confreres and I came away impressed by the strong presence of Islam, something rather rare in Zambia at that time.

In Isoka I gave a retreat to the members of the Catholic Women League. They loved to stay away from their homes for a few days, behind the mission’s plantation, to the dismay of their puzzled husbands who wanted their wives back to cook for them.

On one of my visits to Lusaka as member of the Centenary Committee I heard that the Combonian missionary, Renato Kizito, had left Zambia for Kenya and that ‘my’ Bauleni parish had been taken over by the Salesians, sons of Don Bosco. The lively Fr. Casimir Cichecki, brother of Fr. Vincent Cichecki S.J. was in charge[20].

I was delighted as the Salesians were known for their work among the youth, especially the young men, who needed our attention more than ever. But to my regret the first groups did not seem to focus on their charisma but commenced to change the ‘project’ into a formation centre for their own candidates to the congregation. Fortunately they were stopped in their tracks by Archbishop Munghandu, who told them that he had not given the parish and the centre for that purpose but for service to the local church.

The Salesians fathers agreed gracefully, and changed their formation buildings into rooms for a diocesan pastoral centre. The end result was different of what I had envisaged when I put the first spade in the ground in the mid 1970s but the place was now well used, always lively and still very attractive.

In July  my younger brother, Jan, came to visit me on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of my priestly ordination. He was an easy guest as he loved to walk around, and talk with the people in the villages. On our way back to Lusaka we took a rest in Siavonga, by then well managed by the Archdiocese of Lusaka and gratefully used by all and sundry.

Leopold Lalonde came back in August, healthy, refreshed and with his usual zest for life. He asked me to stay on for another couple of months, as it was the turn of Felix Hofmann to go on leave. The latter was sick and needed medical treatment.

By then the thesis was in its final stages and finally the university of London agreed for its submission. I packed and drove down to Lusaka for its defence at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Everything seemed to go smoothly and I was convinced that the last stages would just be plain sailing.

It was not to be. In Lusaka the White Fathers  did not understand and the secretary of the local council  wondered  why I had to leave again for the UK. Was I ever  to settle down  to normal parish work[21].

 

I left Zambia in October, and made use of the cheap return ticket of Aeroflot. In Luanda we met with the same pandemonium. Only half of the plane was reserved for passengers, the rest was destined for cargo. It took hours to load it, whatever it was. We were given permission to stretch out legs and walk around. I wanted to make use of the toilets but was driven away by a terrible stench and dirt. Every where I  saw weapons, and  military equipment.

‘Once the civil war in Angola becomes something of the past, most of these arms will end up in the hands of criminals’, I thought. Why was Africa always  the playground of outdated ideals, second hand products and shady types of people?

We left finally after midnight, flew away from Africa in the velvet darkness of the night. The plane landed in Malta. The few passengers, most of them Russians, were left standing in a cold room with nothing to eat or drink. After a few hours we flew towards Budapest and were again told to wait a couple of hours. In the waiting room I saw a couple of clergymen in Roman collar and a dark suit. I could not believe my eyes. They were Salesian missionaries from Poland on their way to Zambia.

When we finally reached Moscow, almost a day later than planned, I was coolly told that the Aeroflot plane to Amsterdam had left that morning and that I had to wait a week for the next one. As a passenger in transit with no visa, I ended up caged in a hotel with simple food but spotlessly clean.

It became a hilarious week. I was not the only one who was stranded like that. The hotel seemed filled with young people from the Third World who were trying to get into Western Europe. One of them even spoke Bemba and came originally from Mporokoso in North Zambia. He said that he had a brother who worked at the Zambia embassy in London.

 “Once I get there” he confided to me “I will find work and never return“

 It was the first time I was witness to the pressure exerted on Western Europe by hundreds of mainly young men from poor nations on their way to a better future.

The food was reasonable but monotonous. It was doled out by a set of stocky Russian women with grim faces and a bored countenance. They slapped a portion of rice or mashed potatoes on your plate like bricklayers do with mortar. There were middle-aged women who cleaned your room, and women at the door in charge of keeping us inside. For the young men it became a sport to try and draw their attention and slip away into a few hours of freedom.

 

To relieve our boredom the hotel management announced an outing. We had to put our names on a paper and hand over our passport after we boarded a bus, which we were told not to leave. The driver and the lady- guide took us to the Kremlin and let us admire its beauty. Somehow the buildings reminded me of the Vatican in Rome.

“Are there any beautiful buildings constructed by the communist regime?” the ‘tourists’, asked innocently.

The young woman took us finally to a set of ugly high-rise office blocks and admitted that there was not much to admire about them.

The downfall of the Soviet Union was not far away. Even the Vatican was said to be involved because of an ever convergence of interest between President Reagan and the Polish Pope, John Paul II[22]. But would the emergence of one American Super Power benefit the poor nations in the South?

I thought I would never get out of that hotel but one day, suddenly I was called and ushered into the waiting hall. The immigration officer looked at my passport for a long time in which it was written that I was a missionary but then waived me on.  For one awful moment I feared that he would send me into exile to Siberia.

I climbed again in a cargo plane this time meant for Amsterdam. At Schiphol the weather was awfully windy and the creaking plane staggered and jolted like an old horse. But finally I landed, one week later than expected.

My fathers, brothers and sisters had become extremely anxious as nobody knew what had happened. I never had a chance to phone from that hotel.

I vowed never to fly Aeroflot again.

 

Once safe and sound in The Hague I was ready to sprint into the last lap on the long road to a Doctorate. With my sister Fiet we made the last version. André helped me to find a traditional bookbinder in the centre of the town. Armed with a few copies I made my way to London. I delivered the copies to the Registrar and expected to have to defend the thesis after a couple of weeks.

It was not going to be that simple. I was told that the supervisors and examiners wanted plenty of time to go through it. I was to come back in June 1989.

This time it were the White Fathers themselves who advised me to return to Zambia until June and assist the Bishops with preparing the visit of Pope John Paul II. The commission had hoped that his visit would coincide with the celebration of the Centenary in 1991, but as usual Rome had its own plans. In January the Bishops were told that the Pope would come to Zambia at the beginning of May 1989 and from there continue to Malawi and Mauritius. This pogrom had come so suddenly that the Bishops Conference and its Secretariat were in a panic.

Within a week after my return two flamboyant clerics, representatives of the Vatican, arrived in Lusaka. They claimed to have all the experience, and tended to take the original initiative out of local hands. However the capable Fr. Peter Lwaminda, the general secretary of the Zambia Episcopal Conference was not to be deterred so easily. He had studied in Rome, spoke Italian and seem to know how to handle the two bureaucrats. Within a short time he established various commissions, and gave a great deal of responsibility to a group of lay-men and women.

Things were soon going smoothly. For me it was the first time that I saw the local church taking things in hand and dealing with an emergency extremely well.

When I met Archbishop Mutale of Kasama in February he told me to lie low for the time being.

“There will be plenty of work for you after the pope has left”, he said and added: “We want a follow-up in preparation for the centenary”.

Chipata compound in the north of Lusaka was without priest. Could I take charge for the time being?

I enjoyed being back in pastoral work. There was a feeling of expectancy among the people. Many were convinced that the pope would come to show Kaunda how to govern the people as, by now, his ‘Party and its Government’ were in great trouble, not so popular anylonger. After the disaster of the country’s ‘indigenous’ economy Dr Kaunda had to return humbly to the I.M.F and follow its harsh demands. All subsidies on essential commodities were taken away. The poor people had to pay back the debts, made by the extravagant well-to-do in the past. The future looked bleak with only the Churches ready to assist.

Somewhere in the Copperbelt there seemed to be a glimmer of hope with the emergence of a born again union leader, called Frederick Chiluba, who was ready to take up the political gauntlet against the benign dictatorship of  ‘the Old Man’.

 

Together with Matthew Sichula, a hardworking catechist on the Chipata Compound, we prepared the people for the festivities by organising regular seminars, according to the directives from above. Many adults waited eagerly to be instructed and receive the sacrament of  baptism on Easter night. Scores of couples wanted their marriages blessed.

It was a busy and lovely time and I almost forgot about having still to defend my thesis in far-away London.

It must have been in March when the young Bishop of Mbala, Telefor Mpundu, came to visit me. He was then in charge of the seminaries and needed someone very urgently in the major seminary in Mpima, near Kabwe. Would I be ready to teach the subjects of social sciences and anthropology? I told him that I would think about it and inform him after I had defended my Thesis.

I worked steadily in Chipata compound but as regards my NSIMA project I remained dangling at a loose end. The plans for more documentation and research were politely welcomed but nobody was ready to sponsor them.

I addressed the Conference of Religious Superiors and spoke about the necessity of writing the Church’s history. They replied that their kitty was empty. I was going around in circles and slowly came to the conclusion that the time was not ripe for such an enterprise.

.

John Paul II arrived at the beginning of May. It was a very joyful, but also an intense occasion. He did not go to the North or to the East but visited Lusaka and Kitwe in the Copperbelt. People came from far away, braved the cold wind and camped wherever they found a free spot. The City Council had reserved a big plot near the Media complex of Longacres for the celebration of the Eucharist. Later the place was called ‘The Pope’s Square’[23].

Despite all Curial regulations women took some of the readings and danced before the altar. The Pope seemed to enjoy all this. After the celebration of the Eucharist he came down from the wooden platform to greet the multitude. I thought he would go directly to the jostling young people in the middle but he made a bee-line for us, missionaries, standing at the side. He shook hands and thanked us for all the work we had done in the past.

The entire parish of Chipata waved him goodbye on his way back to the airport, where he flew on in the direction of Malawi and Mauritius.

Later the Nuncio told us that his visit to the three countries was one of the most relaxing and joyful visits he had made. It was certainly more dignified than the one he made to my home country, The Netherlands.

We went back to the Compounds and continued preparing the parishioners for the Sacraments. As a ‘locum’ supply priest, I allowed myself more freedom in the keeping the many laws and regulations of the Church. The people, in particular the long-suffering women loved it and we had a glorious time.

I went back to London in June. There I learned that Professors Adrian Hastings and Andrew Roberts would be my final examiners. To make me feel relaxed and in order to enhance the discussion Adrian told me beforehand that the thesis was wonderful and that I had passed. We spent almost all day together while I explained and defended its contents. Some of the references were faulty, there were still a good number of spelling mistakes but on the whole it was a good piece of work, they said. When it was over we went together for a drink and talked about Africa. It was the last time I saw Adrian Hastings.

When I walked down the steps of the university on that evening I felt a bit  lonely as, until then,  there had been very little interest from my confreres. But outside, in the bleak sun of the City of London, stood the elderly Fr Rein Geerdes, ready to take a photograph[24].

“Tomorrow I will go fly to Rome”, he said “I will take a copy of the Thesis with me to the Generalate”

Next day I flew to The Hague in Holland where my sisters Fiet and Nel had prepared a solemn reception in the parish hall of my ‘home’ parish St Paul in The Hague.

It was during that reception that Jan and Jeanne told me that Marja, their youngest and only daughter had read history at the university of Leiden and focused her mind and studies specifically on Africa.

On the 3^rd of July I went back to Lusaka, this time with the more comfortable Air France, via Paris and Libreville. The parishioners of Chipata Compound were happy to see me again and we continued where we had left off. Fr Jean-Pierre Sauge the Regional of the White Fathers in that time came with me one day to see if the White Fathers could take over the permanent responsibility of that parish. This was not accepted by his Council on the grounds that the White Fathers, were getting too old and had no successors in sight. It was not the last time I heard this sentence.

We were only in our fifties at that time but this deadening refrain of ‘we-are-too-old’, had wormed itself like a virus in our blood and would not go away. The Editor of Our Region, a local publication of the White Fathers, predicted mournfully that “by the year 2000 the number of White Fathers in the Region would be down to 56”. So what?

A few weeks later I heard that the more dynamic group of Kiltegan missionaries of St Patrick were ready to take over the parish and I had to move on again.

During my short stay in Holland my sister Nel had asked me if they could come and visit me in Zambia. She and her husband Cor would not be alone. John and Ada, friends of theirs, teachers at the school where she worked, wanted to join them. I was a bit apprehensive about the number: four of them at the same time. Would there always be room in the mission posts?

They arrived at the end of July and right from the word ‘go’ their visit became a huge success. They formed a good team, and were very inquisitive, always open for the hidden beauty of Zambia and its people.

We took the Great Northern Road via Serenje to Ilondola. It was Saturday afternoon when they arrived in that mission. The choir was practising in the church and sang so powerfully and so melodiously that all four of them ran into the church with their recorders. They fell in love with the music and never forgot it. My sister Nelty would play it later in life, when tremendous suffering hit her entire family. In Chifuta, near Mulilansolo, the people received them  in royal fashion and entertained them until late in the night. They danced and ate with the people, could not get away from them. There were moments nobody would forget.

We went down to Siavonga. I had borrowed the big pick-up of Leo Venhuizen, my confrere and contemporary with  ample place for three in front and two behind in the covered ‘bakkie’ I forgot to tell Nelty that there was a steep descent along a winding lane into the Gwembe valley. She was almost sick when we finally reached the place near the shimmering lake of Kariba.

During their stay they helped me with the construction of an open air chapel and some retaining walls. Ida planted cacti, creepers and succulents in a new bed, soon called ‘Aida’s garden’ by George, the faithful keeper.

From there we went all the way to Livingstone to see the grandiose falls, Musi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders. John and Ida, wanted some more luxury than Zambia could offer at that time. We crossed into Zimbabwe and allowed us a few days of indolent rest in a small hotel. The service was slow and not too good. Cor had to raise his voice in order to be served properly. I also noticed that the ‘Rhodies’ were not helpful when they saw our Zambian registration number on the car. According to them we, ‘the Whites of Northern Rhodesia’ had left them in the lurch during their Universal Declaration of Independence.

The visitors returned to The Netherlands on the 22^nd of August. Everything had gone extremely well.

When I finally received the certificate of my doctorate, the only person who congratulated me was Piet de Bekker, the Dutch provincial.

The thesis was poorly reviewed by someone in the Generalate but I got some support from the then Superior General who wrote that he was pleased to notice that some confreres were still ready for ‘intellectual investment’.

‘We need them more than ever in today’s Africa’, he wrote. Things were falling into place.

But the local White Fathers did not move.

I finally decided to accept to teach Social Science and Anthropology in Mpima major seminary. It would give me some rest, access to books and time to reflect on the next step in life.

‘Another loss to Lusaka will be the departure of Hugo Hinfelaar, who was recently awarded a doctorate by the University of London. We wish him well in his new appointment to Mpima seminary and will miss his quiet and very helpful presence’ was written in Our Region[25].

 

I was asked to share some of my knowledge for publication and prepare a simplified version of the thesis[26].

For me a greater loss was the departure of another capable confrere, Fr Gerry van Erp, who, after years of stress and anxiety, decided to leave and return to The Netherlands. He could not accept the sometimes so harsh regulations of the church, in particular as regards the sacrament of marriage.

 He bade us farewell with the words:

‘I would like to thank all those

 I have lived and worked with,

 prayed and played with,

 all those with whom I shared a chat

 and a drink a bite and a fight,

 and problems real and imaginary’.

In the Netherlands more WF houses were being closed  like the procure in Rotterdam along the Heemraadsingel.

But the Church in Zambia grew. When Mpima major seminary opened its doors for the next academic year, the number of students was 135.

 

  

 

[1]              Our Region, February 1982, and M.R.C. 1/82 and June 1982.

[2]              Cornwell, J. 2006,  ‘Marcinkos, the man I knew’ in The Tablet, 25 February 2006. p 4.

[3]              The seminar was conducted by Andrew Roberts. One of his best books is The History of the Bemba, regarded by B.J. Phiri as one of the best books ever to come out of Zambia.  29 March 2003, on the occasion of the official launch of the Network of Historical research in Zambia.

[4]              I did not meet him for a long time. He entered service for various aid organisations and worked mainly in and around the Sudan. He finally married in Nairobi, when he told me that he had married  and had twins, two boys.

[5]              See also: Becker, H.J. ‘The mother of Cancele’ in Journal of Religion in Africa Vol. XIII, (3) 1982, p.189. Places of pilgrimage for healing, blessings and hope for the future.

[6]              Of the 6 children of  the Longe family 5 would eventually die of  ‘this sickness’.

[7]              Little did I expect that Prof. Ratzinger would be elected Pope and become Benedict XVI a twenty years later.

[8]              One course I remember vividly was organised by Frank Carey and Sr. Vincent McDonald , in charge of the Pastoral Centre in Mpika.

[9]              Fr Jean Jacques Corbeil died in Canada When ?)

[10]            In 2005 and 2006 both the Jesuits and the Franciscans were allowed to celebrate their jubilees and even had a series of stamps published on these occasions.

[11]            R.C.M. 15/86.

[12]              Interview W.W. 2002.

[13]            He died there in October 1997.

[14]            R.C.M, Special Cases April 78.

[15]            Petit Echo, no 783, 87/88 p 450.

[16]            He died in the U.S.A in September 1989.

[17]            RCM. Ndola, November 87.

[18]            Her husband ‘Koos’ had died of lung cancer.

[19]            RCM, March 1988.

[20]            Fr Casimir died in when ?

[21]            “R.C.M 1988, 17.6 and 1/88 2.2.

[22]            Alten. R. in The Tablet 17 November 2004.

[23]            In 2006 the Archdiocese of Lusaka  built a cathedral and its offices on that plot.

[24]            He was the brother of Joop Geerdes who taught me philosophy in St Charles and also the brother of Henk Geerdes who died in a car accident near Isoka.

[25]            No 2 of 1989. Also RCM 89/7.

[26]            RCM 89, 28,2.

 

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