“The Last American”: A Diplomat in Zaire

And as in all other parts of the country, the Mobutu rule was harsh and self-serving. "Zairianization," the turning over of all foreign owned properties to Zairians, by the time of our arrival (I speak of myself and my wife, Etrennes), instead of having enriched the lives of the populace in ways that the Belgian rule never did, saw the near total collapse of the plantations, and all the businesses that flowed from it and supported it, including land and river transportation firms, wholesale and retail stores, warehouse facilities, railroads, river ports, even the road and telephone systems, you name it-including the hospital and all other health services. With few exceptions, the new Zairian owners, possessing no managerial skills, simply looted and sold what was still of value and walked away.

As a result, Kisangani, ex-Stanleyville-once a vibrant city of 250,000, a commercial hub of activity right through the rebellions of the '60s, serving the needs of an area nearly the size of Texas, the site of the world-renowned Yangambi tropical vegetation research center, a "Rest and Recreation" center for the entire Congo (symphony orchestras and ballet troupes were flown in direct from Europe)-imploded. By 1975, the majority of Europeans had left. There were weeks, sometimes months, of shortages of basics like cooking oil and flour.

Petrol was worth gold. When there was none to be had "officially," I can recall bartering bottles of whiskey and LP phonograph records for liters of gas on the black market so's I could get around town on my French-built Mobylette, keeping the "official" gas-guzzling Wagoneer on reserve for emergencies and the weekly trip to the airport to pick up mail. If there was a plane with mail to meet, given the erratic schedule of Air Zaire, also plagued by fuel shortages. Over a period of two years, the bi-weekly riverboat and barge supply visits, attended by thousands of merchants and travelers, became weekly, then monthly, and finally, nonexistent.

Amazingly, however, people adapted, and adapted quite well.

The Kisangani branch of the University of Zaire, the only institution in the country with programs in English and American Literature, and the teaching of teachers of English, functioned quite well, with some of the few foreign educated Zairians the country possessed as professors, along with a number of educators from around the world, including American Fulbright and Peace Corps Volunteer professors. Much of my work in Kisangani, by the way,

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