This is the third story told to me by the girls of the Store House Foundation in Kinshasa, and it’s one of my favorites. It’s so charming and clever, I think everyone who hears it will fall in love with Pippi at once.

What I can’t do is show you the wonderful singing and dancing that accompanied the chorus. Everyone joined in – all the girls and their carer as well. Oliver, the photographer who took the photos you see in these pages, did shoot some footage of the dance and the song, but so far he’s not sent it on to me. If he does, I’ll post it up. I hope so, because it really adds a lot to this lovely little tale.

Pippi Danga

Once, a mother lived on her own with her child, called Pippi Danga. Pippi was very curious little girl who tried to be good but found it very, very hard. One other thing you should know about her – she had the most beautiful voice.

One day, the mother had to go out to fields and leave Pippi at home on her own all day.

“Now, Pippi, you must NOT leave the house while I’m gone,” she told her. “It’s very important. The world is full of danger for young girl on her own. Now, do you promise, Pippi?”

Pippi promised her mother she would not go out all day, but would wait for her at home like a good girl.

Pippi really did want to be a good girl, but while she was waiting, a friend came calling. This friend wanted Pippi to go swimming in the river with her.  Now, it was a hot day, and the little house was very stuffy. Still, Pippi didn’t want to disobey her mother.

“I can’t go out,”she said. “I promised my mother.

But her friend scoffed at her. “Don’t be such a baby.  Your mother will never know. What harm can come to us by the river?”
But still Pippi refused to go.  Then her friend got angry and started to throw stones onto the roof of the house. And that was enough.  Pippi decided that the house might get damaged, so she rally ought to go out swimming for the sake of the house.  So she left after all, despite everything her mother had said, and went to the river to swim.

So the two girls went to the river, took off their clothes, which they hid under a bush, and went off swimming. But that friend Pippi had couldn’t have been very good friend, because while Pippi was swimming about and playing on a log, that friend sneaked off and stole Pippi’s clothes.  By the time Pippi noticed that her friend was gone, both her and the clothes were faraway. Poor Pippi was a mile from home with nothing to wear!  What a mess.

Of course, she was not going to go home with nothing on, so instead, she picked some big leaves that were growing nearby, and tried to cover herself up with those. She hadn’t gone very far when a man came along, carrying a drum under his arm.
“What’s this?” he said. “A girl walking about covered in leaves like a vegetable garden? What’s happening here?”
So Pippi told him, like this;

I’m Pippi Danga, I’m Pippi Danga,
Oh, Pippi, poor Pippi, bad Pippi Danga.
My mummy told me
stay home alone all day
But my friend took me out
and stole my clothes away!
I’m Pippi, poor Pippi, bare Pippi Danga
Poor Pippi Danga, walking home alone

The man’s eyebrows shot up his head when he heard her sing. He liked that noise.
“Poor Pippi Danga,” he said. “But I have a plan. Why don’t you hide in my drum? No one will see you then, and I can carry you home to your mummy, and no one will know how silly you’ve been, or see you walking around looking like a bag of salad.’

Pippi thought was a good idea, poor thing. She crept into the drum – but as soon as she had done so, the man quickly put a skin on it and nailed it firmly down. Now he had her – trapped in the drum!
Off he went as fast as he could before any found out what a wicked thing he had done. When he got  to the next village, he went straight to the middle of the village where everyone gathered, and started to boast about how he owned a magic singing drum. Of course, everyone was curious about that, so they gathered around. When there was a big enough crowd, the man lifted up his hands and began beat the drum. And inside, poor Pippi began to sing …

I’m Pippi Danga, Oh Pippi Danga,
Oh, Pippi, poor Pippi, sorry Pippi Danga.
My mummy told me
stay home alone all day
But my friend took me out
and stole my clothes away.
Oh, Pippi, poor Pippi, bare Pippi Danga
Poor Pippi Danga, singing in a drum.

Everyone was amazed at the wonderful singing drum, and never guessed there was really a little girl trapped inside it. They gave that wicked man plenty of money for his trick.  Off he went on his way, whistling a tune to himself, happy as the day is long and not caring one little jot about poor Pippi, trapped in that drum.

Stroy telling in the Store House Foundation

From then on, that man had no worries in his life. Whenever he wanted food or money, all he did was just play the drum and make poor Pippi sing out. People came from far and wide to hear the wonderful drum, and they were all wiling to pay good money for the pleasure of listening to it.  What a life he lived, wandering from village to village playing his drum.

But one day it so happened, he came back without realising to the village where Pippi herself came from. He played his drum there, just as before, and just as before everyone came running round and gave him money for the pleasure of hearing his wonderful singing  drum. But among that crowd was Pippi;s mother. When she heard that drum sing out she thought to herself …
“I know that voice! That’s no drum singing, and that man is no musician either.’

That night she crept out and went to the place where the man was staying. She found where he kept his drum – he had drunk too much palm wine and he was fast asleep and didn’t hear a thing. With a blunt little knife she levered out the nails holding that skin down one by one .. and sure enough, out crept her sorry little daughter, Pippi Danga.

Mother and daughter kissed each other and hugged. Then the mother sent her daughter back home while she dealt with the drum.  She had a bundle with her, and in that bundle, she had a little rooster. Now she tucked that rooster inside the drum. Then she nailed it up tightly and crept away.

The next morning, the man awoke and first thing he wanted his breakfast.  So he did what he always did when he was hungry. He took his drum out into the centre of the village and shouted out as loud as he could …
“Everybody listen to me!  I am going to play my wonderful magic singing drum – the only one in the world.  Wait till you hear what a beautiful voice i t has and how cleverly it sings!  Come quickly, or you shall miss my marvellous performance.”
Everyone came out to listen. The man lifted up his hands and beat the drum …
“Cock a doodle-dooo!  Cickeerikeeeeee!” crowed the rooster inside
“What’s this? What’s that dreadful noise? That’s no singing!” everyone cried. The man tried to explain, but the louder he tried, the louder the rooster crowed.  In the end everyone was so fed up with them, they chased him out the village, and he was never seen again.

I’m Pippi Danga, oh, Pippi Danga,
Oh, Pippi, lucky Pippi, good Pippi Danga.
A bad man took me
And hid me in his drum
But then my mummy found me and took me home again.
I’m Pippi, poor Pippi, glad Pippi Danga
Good Pippi Danga, happy back at home

I’ve been a bit neglectful with my collection of stories from the Congo – stuck in the middle of a nasty deadline. But here I am with the second story, told to me by a girl, a street child, who had been taken in and looked after in the Store House Foundation transit and rehabilitation centre for street children in Kinshasa.  The centre receives support from Save the Children through technical training and funding for its reunification activities.

There were only about six or seven girls there, looked after by a woman old enough to be their grandmother, who told me that she told them stories and sang them songs every night.

It was a lovely visit.  The girls all insisted on putting on their best clothes and sat there in a row, some of them in western clothes, some of them in those lovely bright, clean African cotton print dresses that suit black skin so well.  I told them the story of the Wolf and the Three Little Pigs – they weren’t sure what a wolf was –  I guess they have plenty fiercer creatures in their own country to tell stories about – but they loved the story.  In return, they told me three stories, which I hope to tell back to you over the next week or so.  This is the first one.

I’m not sure how PC it this story is.  The pygmy people have been oppressed by the Bantu people for a great many years, and in a poor country, it is the pygmies who are always the poorest.  But this is how it was told to me. It also reflects the tradition that the pygmies are hunters, and often used to fetch meat for the Bantu people.
The weak of stomach should be aware that, like the one preceeding it, and like many of our own traditional stories before they were adapted for the nursery, this story ends on a rather grusome note.

The children who told me this story had been rescued from the streets by an organisation funded by Save the Children – many of them were on the streets becaue they had been accused of witchcraft themselves.  Only a very little money can save the bnright, lively children from a lilfe of disease and misery – and in the case of the young girls I met that day, of prostitution, from an age as young as 10.  If you want to help kep them off the streets, please make a a donation here.

THE PYGMY WITCH
Once, there was a woman, one of two wives of the same man.  They a lived in a town where no one ate any meat.  The woman, though, hungered for meat, which she was used to eating when she was a girl.  So, every now and then, she went to a neighbouring city to buy some.

On one of her trips there, she forgot the passage of time and it grew dark. It looked as if she would have to sleep out for the night – something which she hated.  As she wandered away from the market, loking for a quiet place, she meet a pygmy man, and got talking to him.  He offered to put her up for the night.
“Tomorrow I will go into the bush to get some meat.  You can go with other woman and get some fish and cassava, and we will have  fine feast,” he told her.  The pygmy was friendly and seemed nice, so she agreed.

The next day, the pygmy went off to catch the, while she went off with the pygmy women to fetch cassava and catch fish.  She caught some fish quite quickly, and wandered off a little on her own into the forest, and a little voice called to her from a bush. It was a small bird, begging her for water.

“If you do,” it said.  “I will tll you something important.”

The woman was curious what on earth a bird might tell her, so she bent down and cupped a little water in her hands, and she held it out for the bird, who hoped onto her hand and took a sip.

The bird thanked her.  “So what were you going to tell me?” she asked.

The bird cocked his tiny head at her and said,” The pygmy is coming to eat you.”

The woman was terrified, but the bird told her how she might save herself.

“Go into the house, and you will find two bells hidden by the back wall.  You must hide a fish in the big bell.  The, you may take the small bell with you.  This will save you from the pygmy.”

Listening to a story at the Store House Foundation transit and rehabilitation centre for street children in Kinshasa. The centre receives support from Save the Children through technical training and funding for its reunification activities.

The woman hurried to get back before the pygmy. Sure enough, there were the bells hidden by the back wall.  They were both beautiful objects, made of bronze and beautifully carved; the big one in particular was worth a fortune.

Already, the pygmy was coming up the path.  The woman did as she as told – put the fish in the big bell and took away the little one.  She slipped away just as the pygmy was coming back into the house.

The pygmy came into the house and he found no fish and no woman. He ran outside to look for her. As he ran, he opened his mouth to call for her, but all that came out was – “Ding dong!  Ding dong!”  So the woman could hear him al the time as he ran, and was able to escape.

Back at home, her rival, the other wife, who was pregnant, was jealous of her adventure and of the beautiful bell, which pleased their husband so much. So, she went to do the same thing.  She went to the same town and lingered at the market, and sure enough, as it got dark, the pygmy came along and offered to put her up for the night.

“Tomorrow, I’ll get some meat, you can go and catch some fish – and we’ll have a splendid feast.”

Smiling, the woman agreed.  Sure enough, she spent a pleasant night and the next morning, she went off with the other women to collect cassava and catch some fish; and sure enough, when she went into the woods on her own, a little voice from a bush called out to her …
“Give me some water to drink, and I’ll tell you something important!”

The little bird told the woman the same story.  But when she got back to the pygmy’s house and saw how beautiful, how heavy and how wonderfully carved the big bell was, she decided instead of putting fish in it, to steal it.  Instead, she put the fish in the little bell, and slipped out of the house just as the pygmy was coming into the village.

She ran off, but as she ran, the big big bell called out – “Ding dong! Ding dong!”  The pygmy could hear where she was. Terrified, she tried to drop the bell, but she was unable to.  So the pygmy found her, and caught her, and took her back home.

In the village, all the other pygmies were waiting for them.  They had dug a big hole and lit fire in it.  The pygmies pushed the woman into the hole.  She fell, and her belly burst open, and a head poked through her belly. The pygmies all danced around, shouting …    “I’m going to eat your legs!  I’m going to eat your head!  I’m gong to eat your legs!  I’m going to eat your head.”

And so they did.

Thanks to Save the Children for making my trip to the Congo possible.

Ntimadieu, whose name means Heart of God, is twelve years old. He lives at the Banya a Povenda in Kinshasa, a residential hme for street children.

He has neither mother nor father, but for several years he lived at his uncle’s compound. This uncle was relatively well of, and his compound had several houses, so his uncle was able to rent out the ones he does not use himself. To give you a picture of the kind of house we’re talking about – they would be single story places, built of blocks or mud, each one about half the size of the sitting room in the average semi. There would have been three or four houses in total.

Ntimadieu had a good life there, but it all went wrong when his uncle’s wife accused him of witchcraft. She was so convinced of his guilt and how dangerous he was, that she tried to convince everyone else living in the compound of it. Of course, the landlord’s wife carried a lot of weight but even so, not everyone believed it – but many did and as a result, refused to let him do any jobs for them afterwards. This was a serious matter, because this was how Ntimadieu paid his way in the world.

The uncle’s wife, being a devout woman, did what most Kinshasans would do in this situation; she took him to church. There, at the end of the service, the pastor talked about the great evil of witchcraft and ordered anyone who was a witch to come forward. Ntimadieu, knowing he was not a witch, stood still. But his step mother was not having that. She dragged him up to the front of the church and said, “This child is a witch.”

The pastor took Ntimadieu away to cure him of witchcraft. The first thing he did was to pour melted candle wax on his back to destroy his witch’s wings. I should explain at this point, that the people in this part of the world nearly all believe in the supernatural. They are a religious people, and since they believe in God, it seems natural to them to believe in a dark world as well as one full of light. At night, even the most ordinary and weak individuals, including small children, can become powerful witches. This is the night world, invisible to most of us. It was in this night world that the pastor believed Ntimadieu had wings, and the fact that no one could see these wings during the day did not trouble him in the least.

After burning off his wings with hot wax, the pastor locked Ntimadieu up in a dark room for days with no food and no water. Several days passed by – Ntimadieu was not sure how long; he thought ten, but surely, with no water for so long, he would have been dead. Perhaps, suffering from such hunger and thirst, the time slowed down to a crawl. Even so so, he became very, very weak. He was let out only once, when they took him into the daylight and prayed over him, and threw peppers at him to drive away the devil. This struck Ntimadieu as particularly unfair, since he was not even allowed to eat the peppers.

Then he was locked up again. After ten days, his uncle came to see what was going on, and when he found Ntimadieu in such a weakened state, he took him away to hospital. He stayed there for several days until he was recovered.

His uncle took him back to the compound, but by now the wife had turned everyone against him. The end came when he heard his own older brother coming to find him carrying a knife, shouting that he was going to kill him. That was enough for Ntimadieu – he ran away from home and had no more thoughts of going back.

For along time, Ntimadieu lived in the street market. One of the market traders ran a restaurant and a small shop, and he got some work with this woman, washing some dishes and doing the laundry. He used the money he earned to buy medicines and food. Now, this woman sometimes let him sleep in the shop.

One day he was in there having a shower and hung his clothes over the door with some money in a pocket. After the shower, the clothes were still there – but the money was gone … For some reason, this really spooked him. In his time on the streets he’d been beaten, stolen from, mistreated in more ways than he could remember – but this time, he’d had enough. He grabbed his clothes and ran. And ran and ran and ran.

He ran so fast, he bumped into a man,who grabbed him and asked him where he was going. “I’m running away,” insisted Ntimadieu. The man saw how distressed Ntimadieu was and told him that it was OK, he could stay with him.

“Be my child,” he said. “I’ll look after you.” But Ntimadieu wasn’t fooled. He told the man, no, but this made the man so angry, he began to beat him. Ntimadieu shook himself free and ran and ran and ran on and on, until he came to a catholic church. The church called the Banya Povenda centre.  They agreed to look after him. they took him in, fed him, clothe him and educate him, whilst trying to negotiate with his family to get him back into his rightful home.

Things are better for Ntimadieu now. His uncle comes round to see him once a week. He is continuing his studies. Hew would like to go back home.

I asked Ntimadieu why his aunt accused him off witchcraft and he replied it was because he talks in his sleep and has dark eyes. This later is true – when I looked into his eyes, the whites were a reddish brown. How dreadful that this charming boy should be deprived of his right to a home, because of the colour of his eyes.

The Banya a Povenda center in Kinshasa is one of a number of places funded by the Save Children, who aim to try and re-unite cast-out children with their families. I was told that on average, eighty per cent of the street children in Kinshasa have been accused of witchcraft – usually with no more evidence than Ntimadieu – because of the colour of his eyes, and because this motherless child was having bad dreams.

I told Ntimadieu two stories. which everyone reading this will be familiar with – the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs, which he just adored (everyone I told this story to in Congo loved it) and Red Riding Hood. In exchange, he told me this story. It’s the first story I heard in the Congo. It’s called, The Man in White

The Man in White

There was man who used to dress in white.  He was a doctor, and he liked to eat people.

One day a woman was having a baby, and she came to the hospital where the man in white worked for the delivery. There she gave birth to a baby that was very beautiful, and very pale – so pale it was almost pure white. The baby looked so delicious that the doctor took it away at once and ate it. It tasted very, very good – so good, that he made up his mind to eat the mother as well. He went back and told the mother that her baby had been taken away, but that he knew where it was and he could take her to it.

Together they left the hospital and he led her far, far away, on foot. But after many hours of walking, the woman suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“Why have you stopped?” asked the man in white.

“Because people are staring at us,” said the woman. And at that moment she saw what they were staring at. The man in white had eyes going all around his head, and two long,sharp horns rising from the sides of his head.

The woman ran! – she ran with all her might, with the man in white right on her heels. She dodged into the traffic, and by good luck, a car go int between them. While he waited for it to pass she took her chance and ran off into the crowds. When she looked back, he was no where to be seen.

The woman was a long away away from the city where the hospital was, and even further away from her own village. She set off on the long walk back, feeling so very sad.

It was such a long journey, she became tired and started to wave done cars in the hope of getting a lift. At last one of them stopped, going her way. She climbed in, feeling it was the first bit of luck she’d had for ages. She began to chat away,but the driver didn’t say a word, so she soon became nervous. After a while she said, “This is far enough, you can drop me here, thank you.” For the first time, the man in the car turned around and she saw what a dreadful mistake she had made – it was the man in white.

“I have been looking for you for ages. Today, I shall eat you!” The doctor took out a long sharp blade.

“Where is my baby?” demanded the woman. “What have you done to it.”

“I have eaten your baby. And now, I am going to kill and eat you.”

With that, the doctor slit her down the middle. He drove to a quiet place, lit a fire, cooked her and ate her.

When he had finished, the doctor left hid the car, which was stolen, deep in the woods, and began to walk back. But as he walked his stomach began to hurt. He thought he had just eaten too much and tried to walk it off. But the more he walked, the more it hurt. Eventually, it hurt so much he opened up the buttons on his shirt over his belly to see what was going on – and out popped the woman’s head.

“What’s this? I’ve already eaten you!” he exclaimed. “Why are you bothering me?”

The woman frowned angrily. “If you keep me and my daughter inside you, I will destroy you before you get very far.” But the man in white refused to let them go. “If you do not do as I say, you will meet a child that will be the death of you and will die, bit by bit.”

But the man in white wasn’t frightened of someone he’d already eaten, or of any child. He just did up his shirt and carried on his way.

After a while he came to a place where the road branched into two, and he did not know which way to follow. There were some people walking past and he asked them which way he should go to back to the hospital. One of them, a girl, showed him which way to go. He did as she said,. but he had taken only a few steps when he was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. He felt so tired he fell down to the ground, hardly able to move.

The girl followed him.  “You are lying down, but you are not dead yet. Now you will eat yourself,” she tol dhim.  Unable to stop himself, the doctor cut off his own hand and ate it.

“You have eaten your hand, but you’re not dead yet,” said the child. “You will eat more.”

The doctor tore out his own tongue and ate it. Then, he died.

And that is the end of the story.

A fearsome tale, I think you’ll agree! Many of the Congolese stories involve eating people, and they do make me wonder if before the nursery got hold of such tales as the Three Little Pigs, if maybe it wasn’t pigs that the wolf was eating. Maybe, it wasn’t even a wolf …

The Banya a Povenda takes in many children like Ntimadieu, who have run away from their own families in fear and live on the street, where they face many dangers far more real than the Man in White. Please, support the work they do. Donating will directly help children like Ntimadieu, make them safe, give them a future, and in many cases, actually save their lives. Go to Save the Children now, and make a difference.