To Be A Man Is Not Easy ~ The Conference Participant. Interview With Osei Takyi

• by: Ineke Bosman

I was invited to a conference and that is how I arrived one early morning at the airport of Frankfort. Forty three years old, first time overseas, big airport and sleepless night. I tried not to show my anxiety and then I saw my friends Rudi and Susan and they hugged me ‘Welcome to Germany’. At once I felt good. But also cold and strange. I saw no leaves on the trees. They said you are lucky it is spring now, look at the first green leaves. But whereever I looked the trees looked bare and dead to me. I was in a dream. We drove to their house and then the sun came through, I brought it with me they said! After dinner it was still light outside.

Here in Ghana sun-up 6, sun-down 6, but not over there. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep but sleep would not come because of the light and all the strangeness.
Next morning was Sunday and we went to Church. It was a huge building so I thought there will be thousands of people worshipping there but I saw only twenty-five or so grey haired people. Then we saw another church which they had turned it into a restaurant which I did not want to believe. But I saw it.
In the afternoon we drove to a restaurant with all the participants of the conference and we had pizza. My first time pizza and I had to chose between mushroom, fish, spinach, I don’t know how many choices and so finally we tasted them all and overate! That I enjoyed and that night I slept.
Next day the program started with a visit to a special school for mentally handicapped children. I was amazed to see all their equipment. The atmosphere was good, not much discipline like here in Ghana, no, a lot of liberty for the kids, I even saw some children smoking, the bigger ones, they would go out and have a smoke. In Ghana, never!

They were friendly and asked me so many questions that I was amazed how very free they were and how much they wanted to know about Ghana. They had made paintings and we were to unveil them. The week was wonderful, every day another program, discussions in small groups about development, a forum on globalization, more visits to schools and mostly meeting each other and the German people and looking around seeing the town. We were catching the European spirit. Their town was so serene and quiet, not at all like Ghana where we make noise playing our speakers and so on. I really liked that quiet, it marveled me. Even the train is quiet, straight and swift and well oiled. Two different worlds which I kept comparing. Hospitality is higher in Ghana but the noise level too. In Germany at times they are friendly and at times they just walk away from you when you ask a question. Sunday we closed the conference with a party and we all sang and danced and had fun. Then we left. I took the train to Austria to visit my in-laws there. The next ten days were like a visit to another Ghana, the Ghanaian society in Graz in Austria. The train ride was a new experience. It was cold in the train and at each station there was police who asked me for my passport and ticket. They take your passport and after some time, fifteen minutes or so, bring it back. I understand they look for illegal immigrants but I became very tired with it for I wanted to sleep and at least six times they woke me up because of papers. Then we reached Vienna and it was early morning of the next day. I asked for the train to Graz. The police came with dogs to inspect my bags and they took twenty minutes searching everything, even flipped my bible to see if nothing was hidden in it. Then I took a taxi to another station and found the train to Graz. I admired the landscape, high mountains capped with snow, so beautiful that all the way to Graz I made pictures instead of catching up with sleep. Three hours later I was in Graz and called Samuel’s wife to pick me up. She had to work so in a rush she showed me the kitchen and was gone and I was alone! I slept at once and in the evening I heard Samuel open the door and heaven broke loose! We made so much happy noises that even the neighbors came out to see if all was well. We are happy, we said. I was so happy to be united with Ghanaians again and on top of it they are my real family! While the parents worked their boy showed me all of Graz. He is twelve. He is the one who had time so after school he showed his town to his uncle! I was there for ten days and visited all the Ghanaians from Nkoranza who I all know well. Lunch, dinner, talking, dancing, music, catching up! It was small Nkoranza! In Graz we went to church with the Ghanaians, Samuel’s church, and that was great, that was real worship, a full church like here in Ghana! Like being home. The church is underground so the noise does not disturb other people. Read more

Bamanya: Un Livre Dans La Forêt

• by: Auke van der Berg

Honoré Vinck
Portrait by Ingrid Bouws

Si tu tires une croix diagonale sur une carte moderne du monde, tu verras que Mbandaka se trouve au centre. Stanley érigeait ici en 1883, un “outpost of progress” sous le nom d“Equator Station”. Maintenant, Mbandaka (Coquilhatville jusqu’en 1966) est une des plus grandes villes du Congo, avec entre l00.000 et 150.000 habitants. Le bourg à la rive de cette grande rivière, le Congo, est pauvre; il y a peu ou pas d’industrie.

Dans le centre, les traces de l’époque coloniale sont encore visibles. Le long des larges rues, on trouve les ruines, ou les restes des pillages successifs, des jolies maisons au style colonial.
Plus de quarante ans de déclin n’ont laissé rien d’entier.

La ville est la capitale de la Province de l’Equateur. Le territoire, deux, trois fois les Pays-Bas, évoque dans le reste du Congo un sentiment compatissant: c’est le pays des chasseurs et des pêcheurs.
Dix kilomètres de Mbandaka se trouve le village de la mission de Bamanya. La piste de sable qui y mène est caractérisée par les légendaires nids de poules qui mettent homme et véhicule à dure épreuve.

Le premier matin de mon séjour, je suis éveillé par des chansons. Une centaine de voix jubilantes d’enfants fait fonction de réveil. Ce sont les enfants de l’école de la Mission qui en guise de gymnastique marchent en galop vers la bourgade voisine. Il est sept heures et demi. Je prends une douche froide, et pendant que je m’habille, la sueur gicle de ma tête.

Les cent cinquante abonnées des Annales Aequatoria doivent patienter: Les plaques d’aluminium pour l’imprimerie à Kinshasa se trouvent depuis des mois à Matadi, la ville portuaire du Congo et attendent le dédouanement. C’est un des multiples problèmes contre lesquelles on a à se battre dans ce pays quand on veut entreprendre quelques chose. “C’est l’Afrique” est l’argument sans réplique.
L’annuaire est publié par le Centre Aequataria, Centre de recherches Culturelles Africanistes. Le Centre possède une bibliothèque avec environ 8.000 livres et 300 titres de périodiques. Des archives linguistiques et historiques (locales) complètent cette documentation spécialisée. Read more

Tiny Bouts Of Contentment. Rare Film Footage Of Graham Greene In The Belgian Congo, March 1959

• by: Michael Meeuwis
• enclosure: http://rozenbergquarterly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GG_titles_08092013_25MB.mp4 22801408 video/mp4

Graham Greene in the Belgian Congo

My purpose in this contribution is to present and contextualize the only film footage ever recorded of the novelist Graham Greene (1904-1991) in the Belgian Congo in 1959. The footage was filmed with an 8mm camera, which did not record sound. It belongs to Mrs. Édith Lechat (née Dasnoy;1932-) and her husband, the leprosy specialist Doctor (later Professor) Michel Lechat (1927-2014).

From 1953 through 1960, Dr. Lechat was head of the leper hospital and colony of Iyonda, a village and mission station some 15 kms south of the city of Coquilhatville (now, Mbandaka) in central-western Congo. Greene stayed a number of weeks in Iyonda and other mission stations in the region in search of inspiration, a setting, and material for a new novel. The novel, A Burnt-Out Case, appeared in 1960, and was dedicated to Dr. Lechat. Greene occupied a room in the house of the missionary fathers in Iyonda, but spent long parts of his days with the doctor and his family. The film reached me through the hands of Édith Lechat, who had it transposed to a DVD-playable format, and via my friend Hendrik (a.k.a., “Henri” or “Rik”) Vanderslaghmolen (1921-), who was a missionary in the region at the time. As he was one of the only Belgian missionaries there with some knowledge of English, he often accompanied Graham Greene during his trips from one mission station to another. Rik Vanderslaghmolen and the Lechats are still close friends today.

Much of the information I offer below stems from conversations I had with both Rik Vanderslaghmolen and Édith Lechat in July and August 2013. Regrettably, Dr. Michel Lechat’s poor health condition did not allow me to probe his memory, but an interview he gave for the Brussels-based weekly The Bulletin on the occasion of Greene’s death in 1991 is available (Lechat 1991), as well as a closely similar talk he gave at the 2006 Graham Greene Festival in Berkhamsted, published in the London Review of Books in August 2007 (Lechat 2007). Édith Lechat has given me the kind permission to share the film with the readership of Rozenberg Quarterly and to add the necessary contextual information on both the historical situation and the contents of the film.

Read more

From The Web – Enduring Voices

Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population speaks only one percent of its languages. When the last speaker of a language dies, the world loses the knowledge that was contained in that language. The goal of the Enduring Voices Project is to document endangered languages and prevent language extinction by identifying the most crucial areas where languages are endangered and embarking on expeditions to:
Understand the geographic dimensions of language distribution
Determine how linguistic diversity is linked to biodiversity
Bring wide attention to the issue of language loss

When invited, the Enduring Voices Project assists indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize and maintain their threatened languages.

The Language Hotspots model was conceived and developed by Greg Anderson and David Harrison at the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. It is a new way to view the distribution of global linguistic diversity, to assess the threat of language extinction, and to prioritize research. Hotspots are those regions of the world having the greatest linguistic diversity, the greatest language endangerment, and the least-studied languages.

Read more: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/enduring-voices/

Diversity Education: Lessons For A Just World

• by: Sonia Nieto

Multicultural education, intercultural education, nonracial education, antiracist education, culturally responsive pedagogy, ethnic studies, peace studies, global education, social justice education, bilingual education, mother tongue education, integration – these and more are the terms used to describe different aspects of diversity education around the world. Although it may go by different names and speak to stunningly different conditions in a variety of sociopolitical contexts, diversity education attempts to address such issues as racial and social class segregation, the disproportionate achievement of students of various backgrounds, and the structural inequality in both schools and society. In this paper, I consider the state of diversity education, in broad strokes, in order to draw some lessons from its conception and implementation in various countries, including South Africa. To do so, I consider such issues as the role of asymmetrical power relations and the influence of neoliberal and neoconservative educational agendas, among others, on diversity education. I also suggest a number of lessons learned from our experiences in this field in order to think about how we might proceed in the future, and I conclude with observations on the role of teachers in the current socio-political context.
Read more

NTR ~ Caribisch Nederland, 3 jaar later ~ Bonaire

19 oktober 2013. Toen Bonaire een bijzondere gemeente van Nederland werd, onstonden er 2 eilanden. Er was het kleine pittoreske Bonaire waar iedereen elkaar kent, en een nieuw snel Bonaire van Nederlandse migranten.

Zie: http://www.uitzendinggemist.net/Caribisch_Nederland