Melvin Burgess

Writer

Kubangwa

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At the end of my visit to Kinshasa last year, I was taken to visit a friend of the director of Save the Children – Mr  Evarista Kalumuna. Everista, like me, is a lover of stories and those that follow were told by him, sitting in a conservatory in the suburbs of Kindhsasa while the rain fell around us. Very nice!

These stories are a little different from the ones I’ve posted here so far, all of which were told to me by street children – kids outside of family life. These stories are, as you’ll see, more complete – not so much in the tales themselves, but in the way they are told. More specifically, in the way they are ended.

They were told to Everista by his father and, and to his father by his grandfather – a true oral tradition. As you will see, they have a great deal in common with the Aesop, in that each one ends with a discussion of the morals to be gleaned from the narrative – although they are considerably more sophisticated than anything in Aesop, I think. I suspect that originally, many of the stories the street children told me would have ended with a similar discussion. Few of these Congolese stories have a “proper” ending as we might understand it in Europe – a satisfying tying up of loose ends and a clean finish. Perhaps that’s because they were never designed to be told like that in the first place. Instead, a place for discussion is left at the end, where the listeners can try to work out the morals to be gleaned from the tale.

I can’t help wondering if traditionally, all the stories would end up with a discussion of the action, without which each tale is often a little incomplete.

Evening in Kinshasa

The 1st story  is called …

Kubangwa.

There was a king who owned many dogs. He loved them all. Every day when he came to the table to eat, he called the his dogs to him so that he could give them tit bits and pet them and have them share his food. He loved all dogs, but there was one dog he loved more than all the others – Kubangwa.

Now the Queen, the favourite wife of the King, was nine months pregnant and likely to give birth any day. But she was feeling restless and wanted to be busy and useful, so she called a servant to her, and took him with her into the bush to collect firewood. She took the dog Kubangwa along with her as well.

They soon collected plenty of  wood, but of course the Queen was too heavy with child to carry the wood herself. Instead, she piled it all onto the backs of the servant and the dog. More and more wood … higher and higher she packed them up, until they both groaned under the weight. Kubangwa was a loyal dog, he wanted to please, he was big and strong …. But he was getting old. It was a a hot day, the Queen kept piling up more and more wood on his back. At last the weight was too much. With a groan, the dog collapsed.

The Queen and the servant knew exactly how furious the King would be if his favourite dog didn’t come running for tit bits from his plate that evening, so they both did everything they could do save him; but it was too late. Kubangwa was already dead.

So when the evening came and the King called his dogs to him, one of them did not come …

The King ordered the palace and all the grounds to be searched. The search went on half the night, but there was no sign of the dog. He was an old dog – but not that old, and in full health. The King quickly came to the conclusion that someone had killed his favourite.

He called all his people to a meeting and asked each one of them, who had killed his dog. No one admitted it.

The King was furious, certain that someone had killed his favourite dog. So he devised a test to make the culprit tell the truth and swore that every single person in the land would have to submit to that test, no matter how old or how young they were, or if they were strong or weak, well or sick, no matter if they had lived in his country only a few days or for a lifetime. Even if they were from his own family, every single person would have to go through with it.

This is the test he devised.

There was a river on his land, running fast and deep through a gorge. The King ordered a rope to be attached from one side of this river to the other, high above the water, high above the foaming, rock studded rapids below. He made each of his people cross from one side to the other, swinging by their arms. As they went, they had to call out aloud, “If I killed Kubangwa, I want to fall in the river and drown.”

Starting with the poorest and going up to the most important and wealthy, the King made every single one of his subjects cross the river in this way. When they had all passed the test, just to show how serious he was, he made his own family do it, one after the other. First his youngest children were forced across the water. They cried and wailed, and their mothers begged, but the King would not be moved. Then the elder children had to cross. After them, it was the turn of the wives to go, starting with the least of them and working up to the most important. Finally, because he had come this far and would not back down, he made his favourite wife perform the test, even though she was nine months pregnant. She begged to let off for the sake of their child, but the King was on a point of pride; No; she must go as well. As a concession though, he allowed her take a servant with her – the same servant who had been with her in the woods.

The two set off across the rope together. They held on as well as they could, calling out, “If I killed Kubangwa, I want to fall in the river and drown.” But at last it was too much, and one after the other, first the servant, then the queen, fell into the raging river below. The King was horrified – he had not expected this. But he had publicly said that whoever killed his dog should be left to die in the water. As the King he felt he had to be true to his word, and now he was going to loose his favourite wife as well as his favourite dog. All he had to die was issue the command, but he would not. He was the King – his word could not be bent. The servant hit the rocks and was killed at once, but the Queen landed in the water. As she was washed away towards the rocks, he shouted after her – “You will die!  You will Die!  You will die!” – until at last she disappeared under the water.

The water was fierce and deep, there were many jagged rocks in the torrent, so everyone assumed the Queen would die; but she did not. Instead, the water rushed her away, right out of her husband’s country and far away and into a forest of ouerje trees.   She almost drowned many times, but in the end she was able to grab hold of a small plant and pull herself to the water’s edge. She crawled out exhausted onto the bank, and fainted away among the trees that stood tall around, as if they were looking down at her and wondering who or what she was.

She had one been a Queen, but now she was alone in the bush, wet, hungry, with no help, and about to give birth.

“Oh, if only those oujere trees would people” she exclaimed.

Now the trees had never seen a person before, and they were fascinated. To her amazement the trees replied. “We will become people,” they said. “But you must never tell anyone would were once trees.”

The Queen made her promise. The trees became people. Very shortly after that, the pregnant Queen gave birth to a healthy boy. The boy grew up, and in time he became the king of the forest, and all the trees became his people.

One day, many years later, one of the tree people, who was unhappy with the rule of the boy king, when to see the old King in the neighbouring country. “Your wife survived; your son was born,” he told him. “He is now a king in his own right.”

The old king was angry at the news – firstly that his word had not been carried out, and second that a rival King should be ruling in a neighbouring country. He decided to kill his son. He sent people to commit the murder, but each time they arrived, the old queen greeted them with a song ..

“The King here is tall and beautiful

My son, your father’s friends have come to kill you,

but they will not succeed.”

When he young King heard this, he did not harm them in any way. Instead, he welcomed them and gave them gifts of goats, and cows, and asked them to settle in his land and stay with him. Seeing this, each assassin put away his spear and stayed to live under the young King.

The old King was astonished to discover that his people were staying with the young King, so he went to see for himself.

The old Queen greeted her husband in the same way …

“The King here is tall and beautiful.

My son, your father has come to kill you,

but he will not succeed.”

His son welcomed his father into the kingdom with goats and cows, just as his friends had been before him. The old Queen came forward and welcomed him herself, and told him how sorry she was that she had accidentally killed his favourite dog. The old King was deeply moved and shed tears to see his Queen again, all these years later. He admitted that over the years he had regretted his hasty actions. He stayed for several weeks, and as he watched his son, and saw how gentle, how beautiful and how shy he was, he reminded him of what he had been like when he was young. All his aggression melted away.

He thought to himself – “This kingdom belongs to my son – I can’t kill him. But I can unite our kingdoms.” So that is what he did. The old king became the high King, while his son ruled his own Kingdom, and became his heir to rule both when the older man died.

So all ended happily.

Now – what morals we can learn from the story? There are a great many, but here are 5 that Evariste gave me

1 When you are angry, please, that is not a good time to act.

2 Note that the old king made all his subjects cross the rope first and his own family only at the end when he had failed to find the perpetrator.  So Never think that your children are wiser than the children of your neighbour.

3 Always tell the truth – every time.

4 always pardon your neighbour.

5 never think that when you’ve decided to harm your neighbour that you will succeed.

I can think of a few more myself – like, people are more important than dogs. And notice how the Queen learned to keep her word after her initial lie – she never told anyone that all the people of that kingdom were really trees. I think a family could have a lot of fun trying to see how many morals they could squeeze from a story like this.

Any more?

I hope you enjoyed the story of Kunbangwa. You can see that in the Congo, there is a strong and really wonderful tradition of using stories to educate children – I think we could learn from it. Unfortunately, poverty and political upheaval make it a hard place for many to be children over there. A little money goes a long way – check out Save the Children and make a donation.

Next story – Four Brothers. Shades of Jacob and his coat of many colours ….

Three Dogs

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There’s been a bit of a break in my writing up the stories I collected in the Congo, when I was there with Save the Children last year. It’s been a busy summer and autumn, with a new book out and Andersen press Re-issuing The Cry of the Wolf. But I’m back at my desk now; so here’s another one, collected from the street children of Kinshasa. This story has witches, and a witch child right at the heart of it – which is poignant because many of the children I spoke had been accused of witchcraft themselves, and chased out of their homes and onto the street by their own families

Three Dogs is a classic folk tale of entrapment. It’s well known that witches love to eat human flesh, and that pregnant women love to eat the fruit of the safu tree. Put the two together – and the witches know they’re onto a good thing.

Safu fruit, by the way,is a purple-ish fruit that has to be carefully prepared  before it tastes good. Even so, it is said to be incredibly bitter to western tastes. But it must have something good in it, because pregnant women are known to often have cravings for it. Many thanks to Exhause, one of the children I men in the Sainte Famille open center for street children in Kinshasa, last year,
for telling me this great tale.

Three Dogs

A man a woman owned three dogs. One of these dogs was black – as strong as a wolf. Another one was white, a fierce, brave, loyal dog. They were obedient and loyal. But the last one was a weak dog, a dog the colour of mud, who never did anything good. He was lazy, disobedient and impossible to train. So they called their dogs black dog, white dog and weak dog.

Soon after the man and woman got married, the woman fell pregnant. As soon as her belly started swelling, like many other pregnant women before and since, she developed a sudden passion for safu fruits. She would hardly eat anything else – all she wanted was safu fruits, safu fruits – as many as she could get.

Fresh safu fruits.

Her husband wanted to do everything for his wife, so he went into the woods looking for safu trees. Pretty soon, as the weeks went by and the craving continued, he’d picked all the fruits near his village, and was having to go further and further afield to satisfy his wife’s craving. One day, in a part of the forest he had never been in before, he found a wood full of safu trees, all full of fruit. He picked all he could carry and went home with a big bag of fruit. But his wife was so greedy for the fruits, that she ate the lot within two days.

“Let’s go back to that woods together,” she said. “We can carry enough between us to last us for ages.”

Her husband agreed, and they went back to find the fruits.

Now, what that couple did not know was that these trees belonged to a witch. In all innocence they went there, climbed up the trees and started to pick.  There was one tree with the biggest, ripest, fattest safu fruits they had ever seen, and the wife climbed straight up that one and began to pick the best fruits she could reach.

It was at that moment that a witch child came along. This was the son of the most important witch, the chief of all the witches in the area. The husband and wife did not know that anyone else owned that tree, but even so, they were surprised to see someone from another village, so they kept very still.

The boy stopped beneath the tree with the wife in it.

“I feel someone is hiding in our tree,” he said out loud. Then he sniffed the air. “I can smell someone hiding in our tree!” he said. “And I’m sure it’s a pregnant woman.”

He looked up – and there she was.

“I want you to come down from our tree,” said the boy. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t run away. You are welcome to eat this lovely safu fruit. I want to introduce you to my father. He’s always happy to see visitors to our part of the forest.”

The husband and wife knew that they should ignore the boy and go home, but somehow, they didn’t seem able to do what they wanted. They climbed down from the trees and followed him through the woods to the village of the witches. The boy led them straight to the house of his father, the most senior witch. This man, whose importance was shown by his incredibly long nose, was, as the child had said, delighted to see the visitors.

“Well done, my son,” he said. “Thank you for bringing such delicious meat to me. Oh, I’m going to enjoy eating these two!”

The couple tried to run away, but it was already too late. They were held in a nearby house while the chief witch sent out a message to all the other witches in the area. “On this Saturday,” he told them, “We are going to have some good things to eat!”

A Congolese village house.

Saturday came. The senior witch called all the witches together for the feast. One of them, a huge, hungry witch, rolled out a huge cauldron from his house and filled with water. This was the witch cook. The witches built a fire and boiled the water. Then, the cook grabbed hold of the husband and prepared to throw him in.

The man had one last chance to save himself, his wife, and his unborn child. He shouted at the top of his lungs ….

“My black dog, my white dog, my weak dog – help me, please help me!”

Far away in the home village, the dogs heard his cry. They were tied up and locked in the house, but they pulled so hard that all three of them, even the weak dog, broke their leaches. But they were still trapped inside.

The man called out again. “My black dog, my white dog, my weak dog – help me! Come running quickly to me!”

“Shut him up – he makes too much noise,” said the senior witch crossly.

But the dogs had heard. The black dog broke jumped up and shook the door. The white dog jumped up and shook the door. They jumped up and banged against the door over and over, until at last until the door burst open …

And those three dogs came running, running, running through the woods!

The man heard them barking and he laughed.

“Why do you laugh?” asked the chief witch.

“Call this laughing?” said the man. “I’m not laughing. I’m just feeling sad that this is my last day on earth.” And he grinned at them

The witches looked at him as if he was mad. The chief witch jumped to his feet. “Enough!” he shouted. “Fling him in the pot. Let the feast begin!”

The witch cook grabbed hold of the man and dragged him to the pot of water, which was bubbling away. But just at that moment, the three dogs came bursting into the village. The witch cook wasted no time – he lifted up the man above his head and prepared to throw him in. The strong dogs, the black dog and the white dog, were held up by the crowd of witches who jumped to try and stop them. But the little weak dog, the dog the colour of mud, the dog who did nothing good, leaped forward and sank his stubby blunt teeth right into the cooks big toe.

“Agh!” yelled the cook. He dropped the man, who rolled across the ground out of the way. Then the three dogs really began their work.

The strong black dog grabbed hold of the chief witch by his ridiculous nose and began to drag him around the village. The strong white dog seized hold of the big witch chef and shook him until he died. And the little weak dog, the dog the colour of mud who did nothing good, chased and harried the witches round and round the village, snapping at their heels and barking at them when they hid, so that the other two, the strong black and the strong white dog, could come and finish them off.

When it was all over, the man and his wife walked around to have a look. All the witches were dead. There was  only one they couldn’t see, and that was the witch child that had trapped them in the first place. The husband, the wife and the three dogs went to hunt for him – and guess who found him. It was the weak dog, the dog the colour of mud who never did anything good who found him, hiding under his bed.

That was the end of him, and the end of the village witches, too. From that day, all the pregnant women in the village had all the safu fruit they wanted.

****

That’s it – Three Dogs. And that’s the last story from Kinshasa, and the street children – the child witches themselves, who didn’t get all that much to eat from what I could see – let alone meat. The next stories up will come from a different source, from Everista, a family man I was introduced to, who lived just in the suburbs of Kinshasa. You may find it interesting to see how different his stories were, how they were told and used in the context of a family – as they were always intended.

The street children, of course, had no such luxury. Tragically, many of them had been chased or scared away from their own families because they were feared as witches themselves, who might eat human flesh in the night-world. Accusations of this kind can come from almost anything – bed wetting, bad behavior, or just an odd appearance. Even more tragically, up to 80% of the families who had let them down so badly realise their mistake once it is simply pointed out to them what the real cause of their children’s behavior  is; often – as usual –  a break up in the family.

Save the Children do valuable work re-uniting children and their families in Kinshasa. You can help with a donation, no matter how small. Don’t let our current economic woes blind us to the nature of real poverty as it exists for so many millions of people in the third world. Make a donation now, and help a child find a family.

... wish it was true ...

Running Faster than the Wind

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Street children at the Santa Famille open center in Kinshasa, where children can come for food, sleep, medical care and play.

A few days after going to the Store House Foundation to meet the girls, Save the Children took me along to another place they funded – The Santa Famillie open center in Kinshasa, where children can come for food, medical care, get a bed for the night, and play safely.

While the children ate, the staff showed me round. Thee were classrooms, a medical room, and various dorms for different age children. I noticed how many beds there were for boys, and how few there were for girls. When I asked them about this, they replied that so fewer girls came for a bed each night. How come? Well, you can use your imagination to answer that. As you can see, some of the children were very small, although it was mainly the older girls who failed to turn up. I don’t think they always had much choice in the matter – another reason why the work funded by Save the Children in looking after these children and reuniting them with their families is so important.

After taking a look round, I met up with some of the children and did a story swap; I told them the stories of the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood, and they told me theirs. I had an absolute torrent of stories pouring down past me, and I had to scribble and scribble and scribble to get them all down. My poor translator was as exhausted as I was by the end of it – everyone had a story to tell.

I think I’ll be spending the next few weeks re-telling you this mine of stories. The first one is called, Running Faster than the Wind, told to me by Jonathon, one of the street children I spoke to that day.

Running Faster than the Wind

A man and a woman lived together; and soon enough, the woman became pregnant. But before the baby was born, the man decided that he didn’t want to stay.

“I’m going,” he said to the woman. “And there’s nothing you can say is going to change that. After I am gone, if you give birth to a son, I want you to call him by a special name – Running Faster than the Wind. That way, I can be sure he will remember me.

The woman begged him to stay, but his mind was made up. So he left, and in due course a baby boy came along. Although she had thought of a great many better names to call her child since then, the mother decided to do as the man had asked, and call her child Running Faster than the Wind, because it was the one and only thing the child would ever have from his father, as long as he lived.

The boy grew up, and there was nothing unusual about him except his name. His friends at school thought the name was hilarious and spent a lot of time teasing him about it. Many times he wished he was called something really ordinary, but he wasn’t; and that was all there was to it. He just had to live with it. Secretly, he hoped that there was some other, special reason for his father wanting him to be called that – but the years went by and nothing happened, and it looked as if it was just wishful thinking

Catching those stories! Writing Faster than the Wind ...

One day, Running Faster than the Wind was walking in a wood and he came across a hole in the ground. He walked around that hole and had a look at it. It was empty, and yet a curious rushing, whistling noise was coming from it.  He got closer and looked in – and discovered that this wasn’t just any hole. Because in that hole there lived the wind. Even at home the wind couldn’t keep still, and it was rushing round and round inside, and it was that making those curious sounds.

“So this is where all the wind lives!” thought the boy. It seemed to him that it could be no coincidence that he of all people, with his special name, had found that secret hole. If the wind was in that hole, he thought, maybe he ought to be in it as well.

So he climbed in.

The wind wasn’t having that. It came roaring straight at him. It buffeted and punched him and whirled him round like a leaf in that hole, and then – WHOOSH! it came rushing out and up, up, up, up higher and higher into the air, carrying that poor boy with it. It got so high, that the trees underneath him looked like moss growing on the ground. Then down, down down down down, until he crashed to the earth – right through the roof of his father’s house,knocking it to pieces.

His father came rushing out – “What have you done? Look – my house – it’s ruined!”

Poor Running Faster than the Wind crawled out, bruised and battered and exhausted. He could hardly walk, let alone run faster than the wind.

“Oh, so it’s you, Running Faster than the Wind,” said his father sternly. “What do you think you’re doing, wrecking my house?”

“Wrecking your house? It nearly wrecked by whole body,” he said. “It serves you right for giving me such a stupid name.”

Some time after this, Running Faster than the Wind met some old school friends of his – the same ones who always used to tease him and make his life a misery at school. Off they went, same as normal, teasing him away about his ridiculous name.  Well, he stood up to them, and a fight broke out. Of course there was no way he could win – there were just too many of them, and he got a sound beating. Afterwards, though, the friends suggested that they put their quarrels behind them and go off together on a trip across the Congo river from Kanshasa, to Brazzaville. Running Faster than the Wind agreed, so they all caught the ferry and went across.

When they arrived there, they went straight to the beach. Now, it was a hot day and everyone was thirsty. The friends had spent all their money getting across, so theyall banded together again, and went up to running Faster than the wind, and asked him to give them £100 to by some water.

“£100 for water? You must be joking,” he said. But they wanted it. They were sure he had it, and they insisted he give it to them.

Running Faster than the Wind could see another beating coming along.

“Very well,” he said. “I can get it for you, but you must do what I tell you. I want you to grab hold of my clothes.”

“Is that all? Well, we’ll happily do that,” they said. “Then you won’t be able to get away.” They all grabbed hold tight of him. “Now,” they said … “Give us the money!”

“As tight as you can?” shouted the boy.

“Too tight for you to get away1′ they sneered.

“Good. Wind!” shouted the boy. “I’m coming back in your house!”

When the wind heard him say that, it came rushing at him in a rage and blew him up in the air again, and of course all his fiends holding tight onto his clothes got blown up as well. Up, up, up, up, higher and higher, until the sea looked like  a blue field, and the clouds were scudding along underneath them and the even the biggest ships looked like little bits of stick floating far below.

“This is the deal,” said Running Faster than the Wind. “You wanted water – there it is! I’m going to let you go.”

The friends were terrified. “No, please, don’t do that, don’t let us go … please, no!” they begged.  But Running faster than the Wind did it anyway. He shucked off his clothes and down they fell .. down, down, down, down until, with a mighty splash, they hit the water and carried on all the way down through that, until they hit the bottom of the sea.

No one ever saw them again.

As for Running Faster than the Wind, the wind carried him away right around the world until it got tired of the game, and dropped him down – bang! – right where it had found him on the beach in Brazzaville.

And I don’t think anyone ever tried to bully him again.

And that’s the end of the story. I hope you liked it.  I’ll transcribe some more stories from the Sante Famille open center over the summer – there’s plenty more to come. Meanwhile, the children have done their part and told you a story. If you’ve read this far – fair’s fair – you can do something for them. Help these lovely kids – I met them and I promise you they were great – by making a small donation to help Save the Children keep places like this open.

These children are innocent of any wrong, have been thrown out of their homes, often by their own families and they need help. Save the Children funds organisation like this, to help street children and hopefully, to get them back with their own people so that they can resume a normal childhood. A little bit goes a long way in Kinshasa – I promise you, you will be making a difference. And I think you’ll agree that a few pounds is small price to pay for the chance to read these marvelous and unusual stories.

Please Donate here

Pippi Danga

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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

The Witch Pygmy

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A little girl peeks through the gate at the Mission Evangelique pour Christ church in Kinshasa

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, and the Man in White

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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.

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