Congo Brazzaville : Behavioral evaluation of Congolese girls/women region by region

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. 

Christian Mounzeo: Profile of a Poineer corruption fighter

Christian Mounzeo: he is the coordinator of an organisation in Congo called: publish what you pay and he is  also a member of another organization called Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droit de L’homme abbreviated RPDH. While present all over the country, RDPH is headquartered in Pointe Noire, the commercial capital of Congo. He always works in tandem with Brice Mackosso. They both made headlines in 2004, when they angered the government with their campaign aimed at making mandatory for the marketing and the sales of Congolese crude oil to the international market, to become transparent. The aim of their campaign was to let the people know how many barrel of oil was produced in Congo and when sold, how much did it generate and what did the government use the funds for. Until they began their campaign, the sales of crude oil, the main source of income for the country, was wrapped in a thick veil. They have partly won. Because of their campaign, the government has been finally forced to adhere to the extractive mining initiative.

The Congolese oil sector is not free from corruption, but at least today, Congolese know that, their government is corrupt. And it is a constant recipe for national revolt. The action of Christian Mounzeo and Brice Mackosso was a classic example how and what an energetic and independent civil society organization can achieve in a country such as Congo. And the irony is that, the government creates its own civil society organisations in order not to have or see emerge another RPDH or OCDH in Congo. Christian Mounzeo is an easy going and affable man, who is ready to help the weak and the marginalized. The city of Pointe Noire has become the epicenter of all kinds of abuses carried out by the president, his children, family members and his friends. It partly explains why, RPDH, besides keeping a hawk eye on how Congolese oil wealth is sold, managed and spend, RPDH also offers legal assistance to people in Point Noire whose properties and lands are more often than not, expropriated  by the rich, powerful and politically well connected happy few ruling class.