LL-L "Travels" 2009.04.12 (03) [E]

Sun Apr 12 17:08:30 UTC 2009

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L O W L A N D S - L - 12 April 2009 - Volume 03
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L Travel

When you are in Brussels it is worthwile to spend some time at the
Royal-Museum for mid-Africa in Tervuren.

Tervuren got its name from Ter-Vure with Voer being a little river
discharging in the river Dijle.

Tervuren is adjacent to the Zonienwoud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonian_Forest

an old forest South of Brussels that miraculously survived agricultural and
urban development.

It had a residence castle of the dukes of Brabant since the end of the 12th
century.

A new castle was constructed for prince Willem-Hendrik of the Netherlands.

After the Belgien revolution Charlotte, the former empress of Mexico lived
here, till the castle burned down in 1879.

King Leopold II contructed at the turn of the 19e-20e century a "colonial
palace" at the site, and later a "colonial musem" in the park.

It is easy to reach:

- From within Brussels take the central *metro line nr 1* (direction
Stokkel) till the station called "*Montgommery*" Get an underground
connection with *Tram 44* (direction Tervuren)

*[Attention; there are 3 underground stations at Montgommery; one for Metro
line 1, a second for tram lines 23,24,25 North-South and a third for
tramlines 39 and **44 to the East**; further on street level there are stops
for trams 81 and 83, and for busses 22;27, 61 an 80]*

*[Attention: in the week-ends there are also running some very old trams on
line 44. They are serviced in 2 sections: Montgommery to the Trammuseum
midway and Trammuseum till Tervuren]*

The Terminus is at 300 m from the museum. Cross the road to Leuven, and
enter the museum at your left from within the park.

(The park is very large an one can walk for hours in it)

It is now called "*Middle Africa",* no longer "Colonial" nor
"Congolese-Zairese" for political reasons.

It has several sections with art, utensils, fauna, flora, and a complete
illustrated history.

One of the documents shown made me think of what happened in Manhattan: it
is a document transferring the territory to king Leopold II, singed by a
couple of chiefs who could not read nor write. I guess this was consistent
with legal requirements of that time.

History is always embellished: not very much of the abuse in Leopolds time
is shown, quite a lot is shown about the battles against Arab slave traders.

The museum has a little restaurant, that serves 8 different warm African
dishes.

I had a *Moambe* value meal, since it includes for 16.20 euro a *Mongozo *beer
(value 3.50 euro).

For Moambo you get 2 large pieces of chicken fried in palm oil, served with
*saka saka* (manioc leaf, looks like spinach when served), rice, some
peanuts and a sliced banana. The slices of banana are natural, (not
black-fried as in many African restaurants downtown). The sauce is served
separately, and that is very good, since it is extremely hot. It looks
like chips of very hot pepper swimming in palm oil.

For *saka saka* see: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_congolaise

One finds *Mongozo* as a Belgian? Beer on url
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_marques_de_biÃ¨res<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_marques_de_bi%C3%A8res>

it says "(biÃ¨re Fairtrade Max Havelaar) : banana, coconut, palmnut ou quinua
".

The bottle I had indicated it was brewed from palmnut. It looked like brown
trappist and tasted just a bit less sweet.

I heard a lot of German spoken in the canteen. Tervuren is adjacent to
Wezembeek-Oppen, with a significant German presence and with its German
school: http://www.dsbruessel.be/

Germans see their presence in Belgium as an opportunity for their kids to
learn French (in a Flemish municipality!!!). For Dutch there is very little
interest. They do not realise Dutch may give them some entry to North German
culture. But I guess that hardly interests them.

The museum has a little book shop; and I found some interesting things:

- Dirk Huylebrouck, *Afrika+Wiskunde** (Africa and Mathematics),* 2005,
Brussels, VUB-Press, ISBN 10-90-5487-380-9, 304 pp, euro 19.20

Some counting systems were with basis 5 as e.g; with the Yasayama:

1 = *omoko*

2 = bafe ..

5 = lioke

6 = lioke l*omoko*

others with 4 and 6 where 4x6 or 24 takes the role of our 10

Several use a 12 based system: 12 had the advantage that it has more
dividers than 10.

e.g.  with the Koro people:

1 = *alo*

2 = abe ..

12 = agowizu

13 - pl*alo*

Ron, the "*Ham*" people use apparently the same system, unfortunately the
book does not list their vocabulary.

The book also illustrates with photographs how one counted with one's
fingers in some of these systems.

I just selected some easy examples.

- (Jean-Luc Vellut and others) *Het geheugen van Congo, de koloniale tijd*,
Snoeck and Museum voor Midden-Afrika, 2005, ISBN 90-5349-540-1, 271 pp., 39
euro (large size, tick paper).

p 150-154 Michael Meeuwis deals with the distribution of the local
languages. There has been an intellectual war between Van Bulck and
Hulstaert. Both maps are from 1948 and they are both reproduced in a very
readable print.

Van Bulck needs 20 colors for Bantu languages and 13 for languages belonging
to other groups.

Hulstaert needs 29 colors for Bantu languages and 18 for languages belonging
to other groups.

It is interesting to add the map p 147 with population density.

Curious is also a multi-color card reproduced p 187, made by Broca,
1824-1880 for classifying the color of people's skin.

- *Natuur en cultuur in de Demokratische Republiek Congo*, 2004, Koninklijk
Museum voor Midden-Afrika, ISBN 90-75894-6-94, 160 pp, 20 euro (was
published for the occasion of an exhibition in the Unesco Building in Paris
in september 2004)

p; 89-107 deals with language issues

- the map p. 90 gives the distribution of the national languages:

-- *Lingala:* North - North-West (reaching Kinshasa)

-- *Kikongo*: South-West

-- *Tshiluba*: Center - Center-South

-- *Kiswahili:* East and South-East (Katanga)

the map p 91 lists the spoken languages, just names positioned on the map,
without an individual territorial border for each of them. The map gives:

*-- 212 Bantu languages*

*-- 21 Soedanese languages (North-East)*

*-- 13 Ubangese languages (North)*

AndrÃ© Motingea Mangulu of the Pedagogical Institute of Kinshasa writes p
92-99 about his study of languages in the Congo bassin (Center-North).

Problems he has include:

- people refusing to speak their language because they want an ethic
reclassfication

- languages to be be recomposed by extraction from languages that are
"mixed" nowadays.

Actually local history is essential in his study (internal migrations and
mixing)

Some URLs:

Municipality of Tervuren

http://www.tervuren.be

The museum

http://www.africamuseum.be/

Regards,

Roger

•

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