The World, the Lizard and Me by Gil Courtemanche

Author:Gil Courtemanche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd
Published: 2015-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Testimony of Aristide, one of Kabanga’s employees:

“When he came to Bunia after his studies, he only had his diploma and his fine way of speaking. He knew a lot of handsome words. He visited the merchants and the heads of the Hema community. ‘Don’t you see the Lendu are going to take control of the region? They’re united, while we’re divided. We need to unite the Hema of Ituri and retake control of our land, our gold, and our coltan.’ Until then the merchants were happy just to count their profits and pay off the judges when there was a conflict. Each had his own armed guards made up of unemployed, bored young men who waved around their pistols to impress the crowd. Kabanga said he would turn those little groups into a national militia, and train them, make real soldiers out of them, so the Ugandan occupiers would understand that he was the only man they needed to talk to, and that way they would stop playing the Hema against the Lendu. The Ugandans, you understand, sir, were in our country to keep the peace, but you can’t eat peace. They were out to take our wealth. Everybody has always wanted to steal our wealth and everybody has always succeeded. Look at how we live in this province of gold and diamonds. And the whole Congo is like that, a rich country whose riches leave on a long journey. Kabanga told the commander he could form an army that would serve Uganda. Kabanga was negotiating with both sides. He took money from the merchants and from the Ugandans. That’s how he started his dried bean business and his gold exchange, and then one day he announced in the newspaper that the Congolese Patriotic Union had been founded, it was going to form a regular army and demand autonomy for the province. Kabanga was enjoying himself immensely. When he came home a little drunk from his rounds in town, he would chortle and describe how everyone was eating out of his hand, and how he was manipulating all of them, the Ugandans and the Hema, especially the ones from the south who considered themselves superior. But he would have them licking his boots, it was only a matter of time. He pointed to a dead mosquito on the table. ‘Aristide, are you asleep or what? What’s that thing doing on my table? Come here. Lick it up!’ I washed the table with my tongue as he made jokes. ‘It doesn’t taste as good as a woman, but it’s better than nothing. Anyway, that’s what you are—nothing.’ Madame Kabanga tried to kill him because he humiliated her so badly, he made her do the job of a domestic. He told her to get naked and soap herself up and wash the floor with her breasts and her belly. He laughed and laughed as she rubbed the floor and he laughed even harder when the bullet missed him. ‘Can’t even shoot straight, a real woman.

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