The flight had left behind his home, their possessions and their lives. He started joining other Belgians who also sought to escape but were stopped by rebel troops, gunpoint and killed one of them. After that, dispersed each to their own. The streets were filled with military mutineers who beat up men of European origin and raped women, while in the ditches were the first bodies. The former colony took its revenge. The international airport of Leopoldville (hey Kinshasa) had fallen under control of the mutineers, perhaps not too late to reach N'djili a plane and get him out of the nightmare. Lodewijk thought the gun hidden under his shirt, drove the jeep as fast as he could and go after the most stormy kilometers of its existence reached the airfield N'djili. The Congo had only six days of independence, and was a turbulent and dangerous place.
The story is written in chapters with titles grandiloquent. Until that happens, the lives of anonymous slips silently and invisibly on their crooked lines, chisel away by events that their stock. One does not choose his chapter, only moves but sometimes it is he who shakes you and mark you end up. This is a story of life and overcoming, a tale of ordinary beings where happy endings do not fit. Lodewijk of a teenager who filled the stomach a winter afternoon in Antwerp with the orange peels to a Nazi officer hit the ground. It's about a girl, Irma, who survived the German bombings of World War II and lived with two families in a home more, the rubble of a devastated neighborhood. It is the chronicle of two people in a post-war Antwerp, beginning with an invitation to the movies together their lives and then emigrated to the Belgian Congo in search of a better life.
The growing independence sentiments in the heart of the black population at the same time elsewhere were drawn new borders and countries born fruit of complex processes of decolonization. The Brussels government for its part, acted as if the change of scenery would be alien. Began to take the early fifties of last century that measures were to improve the lives of the native population. It began construction of social housing, hospitals, improving working conditions and timidly tried to moderate the discrimination. Was needed skilled labor was encouraged by what the arrival of professionals from Belgium, If Lodewijk as a carpenter, offering good pay and grants of land after ten years of residence in the colony. In this scenario arrived Lodewijk and Irma arrived in 1951 marrying the 28 July in Leopoldville. In your marriage can still read that this model was exclusive to European population. Marriage De Winter was soon to be family and 1956 had four children born in Africa. Lowejick Shortly after he was hired by the colonial government to work in the construction of housing for blacks, working with a group of Congolese to which should be as carpenters.
It began construction of social housing, hospitals, improving working conditions and timidly tried to moderate the discrimination
Daily life passed quietly. While Lodewijck workday spent working with their subordinates, Irma was the care of the house and children. The colonial homes were usually single, of various plants and a garden where little kids play freely. The home service, dealing with the cleaning and maintenance. Irma was a driver until the commercial to the Westerners who came to shop, of which was commissioned and later left the driver went on to collect. I used to spend the evening on the porch of the house, talking on the day's events or enjoying reading some of the new bookstore downtown a matter for the Belgian population, all while the soft breeze caressed the Congo River faces and maybe a drink accompanied the tropical night. The Belgian colony met the weekend nights at the Palace Hotel where they enjoyed good Belgian beer, organized dance competitions and beauty, spoke of plans, of how the country was changing, said goodbye to those returning to the motherland and the newcomers were integrated into the community. A Belgian oasis in the heart of Africa. Inside the bubble in which migrants often live from the motherland in any colony seemed that everything was normal, the story wrote beautiful verses of which were part. The poem showed his lack of rhyme in thinking that all the servants were to be black or wages and lack of rights, observing working conditions in factories, workshops and mines, know the neighborhoods in which they became tortured odes, wondering why not admit them in restaurants or shops for white or maybe just looking at the eye of a distinguished only by the color of your skin, inside looking out and understanding the feelings and questions in their hearts nested. Being black in Congo, as a native in any colony, son was not feeling the land of your birth.
The Belgian policy was intended to provide shelter to the native population, to fill their bellies and nourish their minds scarcely, just enough to perform menial, without assuming the risk that higher education will provide them with dreams and ambitions. In trying to moderate the public discrimination sought to avoid disturbances. As years passed during the colonial authorities had to begin to yield before the growing pressures and demands of the black population, so few of them had access to higher education, some even higher positions within the administration. After a bloody riots occurred in Leopoldville in 1959 and that sparked the race to independence, were legalized all political parties and elections held. At the same time, the Belgian Congo was becoming prey to deep divisions, the province of Katanga, rich in diamonds and minerals accumulated nationalist ambitions. Winner of the elections, Lumumba was appointed Prime Minister of Congo and President Kasavubu.
The poem showed his lack of rhyme in thinking that all the servants were to be black or wages and lack of law
The white population felt increasingly insecure and threatened by the prospect of losing control of the country and even more when it announced the upcoming independence of the Congo to the 30 June 1960. Lodewijk Belgium decided to send four children Irma and fearing what might happen. Independence was so improvised that the newborn Congo agreed to assume all the debt that had generated Belgium and the population was so unprepared that the country had only 20 university graduates as Congolese and Belgian rule over the blacks could not become officers of the army, white knobs retained their positions of power in a country that was foreign to them. Irma was staying at his sister's house on the outskirts of Antwerp. The news came at that time a considerable delay from the Congo and many of them were skillfully leaked by the authorities according to their interests. Expected, without knowing the situation that would unfold in the next day Lodewijk.
The 5 July 1960, a senior Belgian harangued the troops reminding them that nothing had changed with independence, the officers were white and they black, continue to be soldiers and obeying. Provocation that served as a spark, Leopoldville troops mutinied and the fire broke. Lumumba dismissed the Belgian commanders and soldiers unprepared officers were promoted to, including the infamous Mobutu. That did not calm tempers inflamed showed that after decades of colonialism. The military took to the streets attacking European interests while hunting white practiced. Lodewijk realized that running was the only option, came home and raised the money available to. He paid the salaries of its employees and said goodbye to them, aware that probably never would. He joined other Belgian and began his race for life.
The last stop for this flight was the airfield N'dono. The news Lodewijk had indicated that the Belgian army troops were waiting at the airport in Brazzaville ready to intervene. To get there was to save the river Congo. This torrent has inspired storytellers and adventurers, evoked ambitions and tragedies, looked once more the fruit of darkness emanating from troubled hearts for years. On the court found a small plane with the access door open, went up to him and it turned out that the pilot was inside. Urged him to start the plane and take you to the airport in Brazzaville before the rebel troops arrived and his life was in serious danger. But the pilot was black, sympathized with the rebels and refused flatly. There were no options and no time, drew his revolver, I pointed and said that there would come both or neither. The propellers were started, the airplane headed the track and took direction Brazzaville, on the opposite bank of the River Congo and reach independence from France just a month after, in August 1960. Lodewijk was repatriated on 19 July 1960 a Bruselas, traveling in a military plane with a parachute battalion of the Belgian army. And total 100.000 Europeans left the country, 25.000 Belgian them. Belgium came as a foreign force in the fledgling Republic of Congo Central, the province of Katanga declared independence, and finally the UN began a mission that would last until 1964 and which killed more than 300 peacekeepers. The prime minister of independent Congo's history, Lumumba was executed in January 1961 collaboration with the CIA and Belgian secret services, outraged by the relationships that Lumumba had begun to establish with the Soviet Union. Mobutu also implicated in the death, staged a coup in 1965 to begin his particular dictatorship that lasted until 1997.
The 20 July 1960 Lodewijk walked up the street in a small village on the outskirts of Antwerp carrying two suitcases and all possessions to the reunion with his wife and children. A chapter was over but he managed to cling to the beginning of the next, unknown pending written passages and where should I live, still had marked in his soul the verses of an ode unfinished colonial give much to ponder. De Winter's family grew to consist of seven children. My grandfather Lodewijk looked at the turn of the century but died before returning to Africa, there were belongings and dreams. Irma, My grandmother recalled those days as inspired this story, part of his heart was in the black continent.
Through the veins of my family, either originate or latitudes where we planted our home, runs at least, Belgian blood, Congolese, German, Dutch, English and Spanish. But does matter? The blood serves as designations of origin, only means of life, that which gives to all without distinction. Today, thanks to the stories my grandmother tries to keep alive, I have a lot to understand that part of me is also African. Because once, our home was in Africa.
