Benchmark of success: women
First things first: If a Congolese young woman
tells you: “la plus belle femme ne peut offrir que ce qu’elle a” or in
English: “the most beautiful woman can only offer what she has”, it must not be
taken for a joke or as it may be understood ordinarily or elsewhere. It simply
means that, she is ready to offer herself to you. This is a country, where
moral values have no place. Rich, old and corrupt politicians, all belonging to
the ruling PCT party have not only destroyed women and they have also destroyed
the prostitution market. They have also created a culture whereby everything
can be bought. As the saying goes in Lingala: “Congo Oyo ebebi” or in English:
“Congo is destroyed”. As their male folks, Congolese women also have their own
success yardstick, which is different from that of most African women in
countries that I have visited and worked. While young women across Africa are
becoming more independent minded and going into professions that were usually
the preserves of men, in Congo it is the reverse.
fille
a success
A successful
girl or what is locally known as: fille a success, or in English:
successful girl is a girl who has several influential men as partners or
suitors. Those who have excelled in their studies are appreciated but feted.
And if she succeeds in having children out of wedlock with those powerful men,
she is feted. While girls are fighting against polygamy elsewhere on the
continent, a Congolese girl, born and bred in Congo Brazzaville has as ambition
to get married as third or fifth wife to any old man, provided he is rich. Behavioral
evaluation of Congolese girls region by region:-
Kouilou and Pointe Noire
Women from
the Kouilou and Pointe Noire regions are not only very lazy, their best
profession is prostitution. They also have a disgusting inferiority complex,
for they claim or consider themselves to be “white” Europeans or have strong
European cultural influence. Why? Because according to them, they were the ones
who first came into contact with Europeans.
To their discharge, they are not the only Africans who think that, the
simple fact that, they were the first to come into contact with Europeans gives
them an edge over those who came into contact with the colonizers at a later
stage. However, the claims of the people of Pointe Noire and Kouilou are not
exactly correct, because, the Tekes could also make the same claim, even though
they are not found on the coast. Another peculiarity of women from Kouilou and
Pointe Noire are that, besides being lazy, they are extraordinarily
materialistic. They also all want to get married to whites in other to whiten
their family and also generate respect within their family and community. This is so because, as far as the people of
the Kouilou and Pointe Noire are concern, having a mixed race child is
synonymous to prosperity and respect. You are either married to an old rich
person or to a Whiteman, no matter how poor he is, it will generate respect.
Pool region & the Greater South
Not all the
women and girls of Congo are classified as I have mentioned above: lazy and
venal. The Pool region that is by far the most educated and the hardest working
lot, have the best women in the country. They are
followed by the women and girls from the Lekoumou, Niari, Bouanza and Plateau
regions. In fact, Congolese women from the greater south of the country
excluding those from the Kouilou and Point noire regions are the best women.
They are the kind of women who are ambitious, intelligent, hardworking, in short,
women with whom you can have solid projects and also talk intelligently without
referring only to dresses, trips to France or Dubai or focusing only on sexual
matters.
Women from the Great North
My observations
of girls and women from this part of Congo have been focused at those from the
centre north or Cuvette and plateau regions. I have not known many girls and
women from other regions of the greater north such as Likouala and Sangha regions. However, I am of the opinion that, Women from
the latter could be hard working, for the simple reason that, they are closer
to Cameroon and Central Africa Republic and also because of the distance that
separates them from the epicentres of laziness and depravities of all sorts:
Brazzaville and Pointe Noire. However, the tarring of the road from the coastal
city of Pointe Noire to Ouesso in the north, may bring along with it not only
national integration but uniformity of culture. But the part that may be
shielded may be Likouala because of its dense forest and several rivers that make
road construction difficult and expensive. While the women from the Pointe
Noire, Brazzaville and Kouilou have been decried and classify as a basket cases
of all that is negative, but those of the Cuvette and Plateau are not
different. They too are lazy and also undereducated. They hate to work or go
to, school because their fathers, uncles and brothers hold political and
military power in Brazzaville. The only exceptions in the north are the women
from the Bacoucouya ethnic group, member of Greater Teke tribe. They are the hardest
working women in the north. Perhaps they are hard working because most of have
facial scarifications, which makes beautifying their faces a challenge. Hence
they are distinct in their ways of doing things as opposed to the Mbouchis and
others in the aforementioned regions.
Brazzaville
Brazzaville
is in the Greater pool region, but has been elevated into full-fledged
department just as Pointe Noire has. It is a melting pot of people from
different parts of Congo who have discarded the cultures and identities from
their regions of origin and don a new one, which is that of Brazzaville and
passes for that of the entire country.
However the administrative breakup or elevation has not changed anything
or brought any improvements in the behaviors of most girls from Brazzaville and
Point Noire. In fact, they are a world apart. The atypical good ones are those
from rigid Christian families, whose parents have been able to prevent them
from falling prey to the vagaries of old corrupt, powerful and lustful men
belonging to the ruling PCT party. As already mentioned, girls from Brazzaville
and Point Noire, are those who bears the brunt
of the perverse ways promoted by
the rich and powerful old men belonging to the ruling Congolese Workers Party,
PCT. These rich
and powerful are known in the Congolese parlance and also in the Lingala
language as: “Tonton a pesa a tala te” or the generous uncle. They have deep
pockets not because of hard work, but more because of the corruption that they
have created and which has eaten deep into the fabric of the society.
They have made the young girls from Congo’s
two largest cities to think that, they can only become important by having an
affair with old rich men. As a direct consequence, these girls don’t like to go
to school. Those who even dare, are not hard working, they are the ones most prune
to the phenomenon of “sex for marks” that is widespread in Congolese higher
institutions and in chief, at the Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville. The
ambition of most Congolese girls is to drive a RAV4 Toyota SUV, generally
referred to in Congo as: “Merci monsieur” or in English: “thank you Sir”. It is
the most common gift that, corrupt and unfaithful rich old men do offer to
their mistresses. The other dream or ambition of most Congolese young girls or
women, after laying hands on an old baron of the ruling party, is to travel
abroad, preferably to Paris or as it is the trend, to Dubai. Most political barons prefer to send their
teenage or young girl friends to Dubai
because when they go to Paris, most seldom come back and most often than
not, are picked up by other more powerful political barons who are based in the
French capital and waiting like hunting lions for girls from Brazzaville or
Point Noire.