Your Cow Ate My Chicken

Six weeks ago I arrived back in Congo knowing that I was likely to face some obstacles on my way to delivering the relief supplies we have procured. I never imagined that six weeks later I would still be waiting for paperwork to exempt my relief supplies (read that: “free stuff given to needy people”) from custom’s taxes. Working in Congo has never been easy, mostly because of the ludicrous demands of the various government departments that happen to be in whichever location you end up. For example, in 1998 when my family made a short trip to Congo, my dad was required to buy Congolese insurance for our vehicle a kilometer from leaving the country. In essence, every government official is looking for some way to fill his/her pocket.
This kind of free-for-all by government officials originated after independence when Africa’s quintessential dictatorial “big-man”, Mobutu, declared, “Motu na motu abungisa”, which literally means, “Each person should build” or, “Each person should work to fix”. While I believe this phrase was meant to be more like JFK’s famous, “Ask not what your country can do for you” speech, it was taken more along the lines of, “The government isn’t going to do anything for you, so take what you can while you can.” It has been more than ten years since Mobutu was removed from power but this mindset is more prevalent in Congo today than ever before.
While my situation at the border has been discouraging in many ways for me, it is the Congolese who face these obstacles each and every day and lose the most from the corrupt governance that surrounds them. A common sentiment among Congolese I work with is, “Inshi yetu hawezi simama” or, “Our country will never stand up”. It is mind boggling to my friends why their own government would make delivering aid to its people so difficult.
There are too many stories of corruption and extortion to tell them all, but one of the most comical and my favorite so far is the “your cow ate my chicken” story I heard several weeks ago. My friends and I were driving along a dusty, rutted out road when we came to a bridge that had a military contingent to “guard” it. As we crossed the bridge one of the people in the car asked if it was the “ngombe yako alikula kuku yangu (your cow ate my chicken)” bridge. This question of course sparked my interest so I asked why the bridge would be given such a name. My friends explained that one of the soldiers at the bridge had several chickens and one day one of them went missing. The soldier was quite upset about his missing chicken and when a cow herder came by the soldier stopped him and demanded that he pay for the missing chicken. The herder was taken back by this demand and said he knew nothing about the missing chicken and didn’t know why he should pay for someone else’s chicken. The soldier then demanded that the herder pay because, “your cow ate my chicken”. I never heard if the cow herder ended up paying or not but the story struck me as both comical and sad because in all likelihood the herder did pay; afterall, he wasn’t the one with a gun.
I have been told that my paperwork is on its way and that I should be able to begin my distributions soon. In faith, I have arranged for an airplane to arrive this next week to begin the work. Please intercede on my behalf and on the behalf of those suffering from this conflict, that this paperwork will, in fact, arrive quickly. Ask also that the enemy’s plans and frustrations would be thwarted and that we would be instruments of hope and peace where fear and despair are so commonplace.