Bongo Bongo Bongo, I Don’t Wanna Leave the Congo author Veronica Cecil talks to Imke van Heerden about the writing and publishing process, her love of literature and her experiences in the Congo that inspired her book:
Veronica, your debut, Bongo Bongo Bongo, I Don’t Wanna Leave the Congo, is a literary autobiography based on your experiences in the Congo of the early 1960s. Why (and when) did you decide to share this story?
I’ve been sharing the story of the Congo with dinner party guests for years, and my son Charles has been urging me to write it for a long time. Part of my reluctance has been the fact that such truly frightful things have been happening in that benighted country that the story of a white woman’s escape, however dramatic, seemed indulgent. But recently it has seemed to me that our presence there is part of the complex history of that country and that I am old enough to have a perspective on it.
Hierdie vyfde bundel oor die wel en wee van Stoffel Mathysen – veldkenner, bewaringskundige en safarileier – bied ’n nuwe invalshoek en nuwe ervarings. Hoewel hy reeds dekades lank in Suider-Afrika werk, neem sy ekspedisies na Midde-Afrika hom tot in die hart van die ware, ongetemde Afrika. Om skatryk kliënte op die gesogte gorillasafari’s in Uganda en Rwanda te begelei, is nie altyd so glansryk soos dit klink nie, maar met sy kenmerkende humor, fyn mensekennis en ironiese kyk maak Stoffel telkens daarvan ’n andersoortige avontuur. Deur dit alles en oor alles heen strek sy gedagtes en gesprekke in ’n durende poging om Afrika te deurgrond.
Stoffel in Afrika se 27 verhale volg opnuut ’n kronkelpad deur Stoffel se kleurryke lewe: sy vroeë jare as wildbewaarder en sy werk as soldaat en teenstroper-veldwagter, sy tyd as WWF-beampte in die Kaokoveld, en sy huidige betrokkenheid in Damaraland by die bewaring van swartrenosters. Die leser leer ook die heel persoonlike Stoffel ken, saam met sy geliefde Nina en hulle troeteldiere – wat altyd sorg vir ’n krisis of twee!
Oor die outeur
Christiaan Mathys Bakkes is in 3 Augustus 1965 op Vredenburg aan die Weskus gebore. Hy matrikuleer in 1983 aan die Pro Arte-kunsskool in Pretoria. Christiaan was ’n staptoerveldwagter in die Krugerwildtuin toe hy in Februarie 1994 sy linkerarm verloor het nadat twee krokodille hom aangeval het terwyl hy in ’n dam geswem het. Nadat hy herstel het, het hy vir vyf maande deur Afrika gereis, vir drie jaar vir die WWF in die Kaokoveld in Namibië gewerk, en daarna by ’n safari-maatskapphy wat ekotoere op die Skedelkus aanbied. Tans is hy gids en areabestuurder by Wilderness Safaris in Namibië. Hy en sy vrou Emsie woon in ’n tent in Damaraland in die noordweste van Namibië.
Wanneer hy in die Johannesburgse verkeer vasgevang sit, besef Deon Maas dit is nie wié of wáár hy wil wees nie. Daarom het hy koers gekies na die hartjie van Afrika.
En nou het dié musiekvervaardiger en omstrede rubriekskrywer ook ‘n boek oor sy reiservaringe, Witboy in Afrika, geskryf. “Ek glo ‘n mens moet jouself voordurend uitdaag om nuwe vlakke te bereik,” het Maas gisteraand by die bekendstelling van die boek by die luukse 15 on Orange hotel in Kaapstad gesê. “Anders word jy oud en ek het ‘n kroniese vrees vir oudword.”
In Rwanda het Maas twee straatkinders genooi om saam met hom in die hotel te eet. “Dit was ‘n politieke stelling,” het hy gesê. “Ek het gesien hoe die ander gaste elke dag prostitute na die hotel nooi, so hoekom kon ek nie vir die kinders ‘n ete gee nie?”
In Nigerië is Maas se higiëne tot die uiterste beproef deur die gebrek aan ‘n badprop in die hotel se bad. “Jy kry ‘n emmer en dan moet jy dit vol tap en bo-oor jou uitgooi.” Hier het hy ook gesien hoe mense olie steel. “Ek wil dit duidelik stel dat ek nie self gesteel het nie. Ek het net gekyk en dit het buite die grense van Suid-Afrika gebeur!”
Maas meen wit mense het ‘n vrees vir reis in Afrika, maar hy sê: “As ek dit kan doen kan enigeen”.
Maas beplan om nog ‘n paar reisboeke te skryf. Eerstens wil hy Witboy in die stad aandurf en oor stede soos New York, Londen, Praag, Kaapstad en Port Elizabeth skryf. In 2011 beplan hy om vir 4 tot 6 maande in Oos-Europa te reis en ‘n boek daaroor neer te pen.
Witboy in Skandinawië is ook in die pyplyn, want “enige plek waar jy ‘n vodka shooter vir ontbyt kan drink, kan nie sleg wees nie”. En aangesien dit besig is om ‘n reuse wêreldmag te word, kan Maas nie Witboy in China uitlaat nie.
Kyk ook die video waarin Maas verduidelik wat Witboy in Afrika anders maak as ander reisverhale.
In Witboy in Africa, city boy Deon Maas flees the suburbs in search of adventure. Africa is where he reckons he will find it. Over a period of 15 years he embarks on several journeys, once with his whole family in tow, to discover what it means to be African.
He ends up ducking pirates in Madagascar, spending a night with oil thieves in Nigeria and narrowly escaping death at a roadblock in the Congo. Interwoven with his travel stories is his search for local music and the musical legends of the countries he visits. His stories are spiced with fascinating characters, strange sightings and… his cocky attitude! Anything but the typical tourist, Deon sets out to meet the locals and experience the underbelly of every new city. This means that he often ventures to places where he isn’t meant to be and he ends up in a tight spot more than once.
Impudent and blatantly honest, even ordering a hotel breakfast can become an adventure when Deon Maas is involved. His self-deprecating humour and off-beat take on most situations make for an unforgettable reading experience.
As columnist, music producer, radio presenter and television host Deon Maas wears many hats. A former General Manager of Gallo, Deon has been involved in the music industry for fifteen years. As a columnist he has become known for his outspoken and often controversial views on a range of issues.
Maas has a media consultancy company called Meerkat Media which, among others, has produced the “Jozi, my Jozi” television campaign for the Joburg Metro and a documentary, My Big Fat Afrikaner Wedding. He was a judge on the Afrikaans Idols and had his own talk show on kykNet. He currently presents a radio show on South African protest music on Radio Sonder Grense.
Sue Segar talks to Veronica Cecil about her Congo memoir – but also about the chaotic situation in the DRC today, which Cecil believes is the making of “big business” and “world powers”:
Author Veronica Cecil becomes more and more angry as she watches events unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I am angry because I think what has happened there and what continues to happen is directly our fault,” she says.
Cecil was in Cape Town to promote her book, Bongo Bongo Bongo, I Don’t Wanna Leave the Congo, a memoir of her life as a young wife and mother in the Belgian Congo during the sixties. The book takes the reader on a journey with Cecil, aged 25, with her husband who took up a position with a large multinational company, and her baby son.
As previously noted, Italian publisher El Piemme has bought the translation rights to Aher Arop Bol‘s The Lost Boy, which is the story of the author’s 15-year journey through Africa after fleeing civil war in Sudan. The story caught the eye of Times journalist Karen van Rooyen, who reports that Bol has big plans for the future:
Bol, who recalls sharing one pencil with two other boys and begging to attend schools in various countries, values education and aims to build a school one day — hopefully in Sudan.
He sells sweets, biscuits and cigarettes outside a railway station in Pretoria North. But Aher Arop Bol is not just another vendor — he is a published author who has secured a lucrative deal with an Italian publisher.
Bol’s book, The Lost Boy, captures his remarkable 15-year journey from the age of three when he was forced to flee the horror of civil war in Sudan.
The Lost Boy, which has already been published in South Africa, tells how Bol — carried on the shoulders of an uncle — arrived in an Ethiopian refugee camp in 1987. By bus and sometimes on foot, Bol later trekked through countries including Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania, before leaving Zimbabwe for South Africa on Freedom Day in 2002.
Kwela Books, an imprint of NB Publishers, has just sold the translation rights of the internationally celebrated book, The Lost Boy by Aher Arop Bol, to the well-known Italian publisher, El Piemme. El Piemme is part of the Mondadori group, which is the Italian publisher of renowned authors like Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner) and Michael Connelly, and is the foremost publisher of memoirs in Italy.
Since an interview with Bol appeared in The Observer in the UK on 5 July 2009, Kwela Books has been overwhelmed by requests for foreign, translation, film and tv rights. In a fierce bidding among three major Italian publishers, El Piemme came out on top and Kwela Books sold the rights for a six-figure sum. The negotiations were handled by Kwela’s subagent, Sibylle Kirchbach, from the Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale in Milan.
The Lost Boy (published in April 2009) is Bol’s remarkable account of how he fled the civil war in Sudan as a boy of three or four. Today Bol lives in Pretoria. He runs a spaza shop which enables him to pay his UNISA fees for his law studies as well as maintain his two brothers, with whom he has been reunited, at a boarding school in Uganda.
Bol is delighted about the deal with the Italians: “It is such great news! It is a real breakthrough! Now Italians will be able to read what is going on in my country, Sudan, and in Africa.” (more…)
Think Africa Press interviews Veronica Cecil, whose book Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I Don’t Want to Leave the Congo was launched overseas under the title, Drums on the Night Air. Cecil talks about her experience of living in the Congo at the time of Patrice Lumumba’s assassination:
