Problems with money and people in the Congo

WE were on the way to Mokaria, an estate which was across the Itimbiri, which flowed into the Congo.

I noticed that the boat came on time, and the car was there on the other side. The plantations director, John Dodd, smiled slightly. He was a stickler for precision.

The estate manager, Citoyen Mbala Lufulu, had prepared for the visit. In the field, the rubber trees were outsized. For some years in the past, they were not being tapped when the rebels overran the place. Now with stability, Mbala could produce rubber again, processed to make ribbed smoke sheets.

In the cocoa areas, the trees had grown tall, but over time Mbala had pruned most of them. The pods that came out were easier to reach, and yield went up to half a tonne per hectare.

In the factory, I saw the oldest Buttner cocoa drier, which dried the beans with hot air through the tunnel that went to the height of the room and down again. I had not seen one like it. I did not know enough to comment, but it seemed to work well.

John did not comment either. He was ferreting in the stores and found hundreds of bicycle sprockets that had been lying on the shelves at the back, useless, and I had seen only one bicycle on the plantation. But he held his nerve.

“Some clerk in Kinshasa must have sent a boatload up the river years ago. I would like to get my hands on him.”

Mbala’s wife had organised lunch at their bungalow, of chicken, potatoes and fish. John was quiet because we usually did not talk shop when we ate. He hated small talk. Doreen carried on the conversation, while I tried to learn new words in Lingala.

This was the language spoken by the tribes along the Congo River. It was adopted for the country together with two other major languages, apart from French.

Mbala cheekily added more words when we had a moment alone.

“In Lingala, my name Mbala means potato. You will remember it better when I tell you that we call Englishmen mbala moko, which means hot potato. When the English speak, it is like they have a hot potato in their mouth.”

I had to grin. Mbala also knew I was pleased with the visit.

But there was no mention of new investments. He and John knew that the plantation had to buy equipment from its own profit, and it would be some time before Mokaria would find the money to get a new cocoa dryer.

The costs of production were high due to the low crop. Diesel had to be shipped a thousand miles upriver, and shipping products the other way did not leave much to spend.

Mbala joined us the next day and it was New Year’s Eve. The dinner was at the community hall where the managers arrived wearing bush jackets, and the wives were in flowing batik dresses of green and blue. I could see how batik had spread across Africa.

John had appeared in his kilt, celebrating Hogmanay, except he would sit at the bar observing the dancing and singing that went on.

The others who stayed in their chairs were the Belgian nuns, mostly in their mid-fifties and sixties, who chatted quietly among themselves, but they were very much part of the community as I found out later.

The other expatriate couples included Colin Bewick. He was the personnel manager, who had arrived with his pretty Irish wife and young daughter a few months before. The other was PTSK Nair, chief engineer, seconded from Hindustan Lever, who had arrived at about the same time with the Dodds. He and John got on very well.

The Congolese took their celebration very seriously, and on New Year’s Day, it was merriment again with workers running along the road waving palm leaves and shouting “bonne année”.

But at the New Year lunch at John’s house with senior managers present, I could sense there was trouble. John did not speak to Bewick except for the formal Happy New Year, although Doreen spoke to his wife together with Nair’s wife Parvathy.

I listened to Bewick for part of the time before we sat down, and he was telling me that he was working in personnel departments in some companies in London until he saw the advertisement for the job in Africa, and he had applied. Since his arrival, he had been able to draft new rules that could be followed.

I could sense that he needed someone whom he could talk to. I promised to spend some time with him when I got back from a visit to another estate.

The estate was called Ebonda, by the Congo River. It could be reached by car over rough mud roads. We passed some huts in a clearing where the women cooked over an open fire. The people looked underfed. Yet, the grasses were tall, brushing against the car in some stretches, and I thought that those could feed a lot of buffaloes.

John had explained.

“The women do the gardening. The men go out hunting. They would be ashamed to be seen doing any farming. Not much game left. There were years when they went very short of food.”

Ebonda estate had old palms and low crop, and the experienced manager, Pengele Kandakanda, looking his age, explained how it was hard going to collect the crop and guard the boundaries, which went close to the busy riverport town of Bumba.

We sat to lunch at the open hut by the mighty river, before we made our way home again on the same mud road. But this time it poured, turning the road into a stream, and in some parts, the car slid and the wheels sank.

It was nearly dark when we got back. I did not have time to see Colin Bewick.

The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com