Something of Gabonese Culture

"They say we are not civilized because we do not have the same lifestyle. They say we are savage because we do not do the same thing. They say we have no culture because they do not understand us. It is ok if tyhey don't because because they will never do anyway. They say we are wild because we speak other tongues and we do not think like them. They say we have no taste because we are different. They say that we are poor because we are not into materialism. They say we have never been a part of History of Humanity when in fact we did give a lot to the world. Africa gave a lot." Always remember where you come from. Always love where you come from and your culture.

A song in my native language. Michel Nzamata "Nfulbeng" The story in the song is about a child who is asking to his mom what are they going to eat. When people sing this song they beat two sticks of wood one on the other following the rythm. Hello Everyone! That was just my way to introduce this post today.

Welcome back in another post. It is something of the Gabonese culture. This is another post about my country for those who are curious to know more. I share with you some pieces of Gabonese culture. I recently went to the museum of arts and tradition of my country. it is situated in town center. below are pictures representing a scene of a family meeting in villages. People are often sitting around the fire, the dog ( the Angome Fang meaning friend is a species of dog that has no real breed. I mean we don't know where it really come from but they have been living with villagers for decades. people told me that they first came here with White missionaries when they arrived in Gabon to preach the gospel. When they returned home they left these dogs. since then, they have been living with people in village until today. they go hunting with villagers but they are always afraid of strangers. you saw them on my vlog in Donguila. I played with one of them. The other one did not want to get close to me. When I go to my village I always tried to catch them. But they run away so fast lol! My Mom would always say "Laetitia! Leave them alone!" Do you think that I stop doing that? No way! I always try to catch them. Lol! When I was going with my parents that was my thing. If a villager was stopping by our place to greet my parents, I would go playing with his Angome Fang and my parents did not like it because they didn't want me to catch a disease from those dogs.)

then you see some baskets made by the local population. these baskets are used for specific purposes. They can be used for fishing, keeping food and many other activities. Different tribes and ethnic backgrounds make their baskets. You have tribes like the Fang, the Punu, the Myene, the Kota, Eshira, Mitsogho many others

women usually do

The next picture shows something to put on the head for initiation. Only initiated people in Gabonese spiritualities can wear them. By the way do never try Gabonese spiritualities if you do not understand them.If you do not understand their purposes. I personally do not do it at all but I saw some foreigners who became mentally unstable after trying some stuffs here. I can tell you more about it because there are so many stories and things that I saw. These foreigners were living now in a parallel world. They were lost in a bubble. They could not dissociate the real world from the one of the initated. Maybe few of them got lucky but I doubt it. I saw some walking naked feet in town as if they were lost...Like their soul or mind was lost. I found that video interesting. It is a traditional dance from my country and you can see it is not anybody who can do it. You have to be spiritually initiated and anybody cannot get close to that entity. People used to say that a spirit was dancing inside. So do not get close at all or you will lose your mind. O! We were scared! yes, that are the mysteries of spirituality from Gabon. As you can see it wears a mask. People who are selling our masks in auction in Europe must understand that our masks are not for decoration or home design. They have an important meaning to us. We do not put or wear masks anyhow. The two guys with branches are teasing him (the spirit) to dance on purpose.

the way women do it in a traditional way

the corps de garde also known as the traditional court for the villagers. This is the place where only men come to discuss social issues and family related things. They can even spend good times there like listening to music or extraordinary stories like the Mvett. How can I describe the Mvett? It a series of tales which is more like the Marvel stories that you watched on TV. It is older than the Marvels of course but it is related to my people. You can see in the picture an instrument used to tell stories of Mvett hanging on the top of the wall. When they tell you stories of the Mvett it is about men with super power doing extraordianry things. It is very much cultural.Some people experienced it in the spiritual realm. In the corps de garde, men can also play traditional games like the Tsongo it is a very interesting game. You must be focused and smart.

Ok! Thank you for reading. I leave with a song from Gabon in my native tongue. Precisely from Lambarene. Lambarene is a little town of Gabon in the Moyen Ogooue. There are many rivers and fishes. It is a nice little town. It is well known for being the place where Dr. Albert Schweitzer lived and took care of the population suffering from leprosy in this little town. Maybe you do not know Dr. Schweitzer, you can read about him online or in books. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. Dr. Schweitzer was a musician, theologist, humanitarian and a physician. You can tell he was really talented and a very smart person. He was originally from Germany. (I mean from the German Alsace) His hospital still exist here in Lambarene and people are still getting their medical care. See you in my next post. Thank you (Bach and Rythms of Gabon)

You can also visit my other blog: www.poshenvogue.com

Donguila, 🙏 in My Father's Land

Hello everyone This a story of my land in my country Gabon. I want to share something more about Donguila. Some parts of Donguila. Some pieces of land that my father left us. They are in Donguila an urban area in the Estuaire of Gabon. There you will find the Komo river, the St Paul Catholic mission founded in 1878. The mission is classified a UNESCO heritage site. I told you in my previous posts that there were some Portuguese (that's why you see the name Gabon) then, the French, the British and the Dutch who went to explore the country especially on the coast side. I told you about the history of slavery in Gabon. But, You can see, judging by the pictures of the landscape that it was difficult for Caucasians who have never lived in Africa to go in the deep forest back in the days (so how can we understand that many Africans were deported that much? It is difficult to understand...Did they get help to do it?) They could easily die of malaria. You had to be a native son to know how to go through the trees etc. So maybe you heard about or read some books of the English explorer and writer named Mary Kingsley. She made a stop at Donguila while she was on her trip in Gabon. She went to that area of Estuaire where I am originally from. I read it a long time ago in my History book. I do not think it was common to see a woman explorer at that time...Maybe I am wrong. I don't know. Well, it took courage to go through the deep forest of Gabon even today. So if you watched the movie Tarzan the Legend then you saw the natural landscape of Gabon because they shot the movie there too. See how amazing it is!

I have already a post on Donguila in my blog and some vlogs (that i will post again below). I am sharing here pictures of my family's land. Like I once said, land is more than money. My father left us so much. It is one of the biggest heritage you can get. Just know how you are going to use it. The soil of Gabon is very rich trust me. My father fought a lot to get back those pieces of lands that were once taken by force by the colonial system from our ancestors back in the days. That area was also once owned by John Holt. If you want to know more about that name just know that the man was a powerful English merchant who had a shipping line operating in West Africa. So it took times and courage to revendicate our lands. It took long to get them back. The authorities were very difficult in order to give back what belonged to the native people. My father was among those who did everything to get back what belonged to us. You would hear words like "No, Sir. You can't because it belongs to John Holt!" knowing that the man was long gone. Wow Africa! after how many years !! Really? They still thought that we belonged to the colonial system. It was still his properties like how? Maybe someone can enlight me on that. I am glad we got everything back and the local population too. I found that video nice. Just to show you the old St Paul mission of Donguila.

My father never gave up on getting back everything and today I am happy we got back what was for us. When you go inside the land, in my family's forest ( 9 hectares of virgin nature) you will be impressed by the nature. Really, you will hear some specific kind of birds that live in the forest only. You feel calm like you are in another world away from the toxic town . You will see the big trees (the well known ones of west Equatorial Africa are the okoume trees unfortunately the Chinese are cutting so many of these trees in my country because I read somewhere that they need timbers for their businesses in China. Really it upsets me because those trees are important for us and the ecosystem as well. I wish the government could do something about it but you know...I guess it is a waste of time. Money is power. Well, You don't cut the trees anyhow and many at the time. You can do timber business but you have to be careful not to cut so many at the same time. Let the nature do its normal cycle and regenerate itself. It is like hunting baby animals or pregnant animals. I am so against those kind of behavior. If an animal is pregnant in the forest you have to let it go free. You do not kill pregnant animals. If it is a baby same thing! You must wait that it becomes older. You do not hunt anyhow. If the species are endangered then, you do not hunt them.period! But people still do whatever they want.) My Dad has been working really hard for the farming. Planting, livestock farming back in the days and I found some old pictures of his activities. He enjoyed doing it after his work life and his passion. We also have the side of where our village home is in something like 4 hectares. So! Now how does it feels to walk inside our forest? It is like being an explorer. You enter and when you look back it is like you do not remember where you entered first Everything is kind of closing in your back as if the path suddenly disappeared. You look back it seems like there is no more foot prints. It is like listening to Deep Forest "The Sound of Africa" in your earphones. You lay down on the grass, you look the sky and you cross your legs. It really takes you into another world Hakuna Matata . It is resting peaceful (Gosh! I am so proud to be African. I love Mother Africa. This is the best continent in the world seriously. The most colorful continent in the world. We just need to do more work and freedom) You will hear the voices of the ancestors. Look around see how rich is this continent. No need to go to Dubai to do porta potty to get money and luxury things. Here in Africa you have EVERYTHING. We Just need to think, write our project and start working.

You have to be good to know how to walk through the forest. You will see in the videos below one of the workers (I employed them for working the family's land) was showing us the limits of the land. The limit stops at the river. So if you remember in my previous post I showed you our village and the limits were also the river, the Komo river. So these are the pictures of our second land

I have to look everything by the time I am starting the farming project. Like you know I have already planted some fruits trees. I have a lot of work to do because as you can see it is big and the trees grew everywhere! The spaces where my father first worked are now somewhere hidden and it is going to be difficult to find the fruits trees that he left a long time ago (If they are still alive) But I am here to start over and start from the beginning again. It is ok... it is fine. I can do it even if some Elders here do not think that a woman can do this work. I am always glad to go out of town to live this beautiful adventure. This experience is wonderful.

O! Don't get me wrong I like going to pastries, cafe, restaurants, the beach but it is not like going to my village. Going there takes me back to my childhood thinking and remembering my late Dad. Thank you Dad for showing me the way. I am proud of where I come from. I love my land. I love Donguila. When I was in the U.S my last year of studies I promised myself that I would be back to walk in Donguila again. Just walking in the wild nature reminds me that I am a native daughter even if I don't know everything. But my land recognizes me. That ground knows me. It knows who I am. a native daughter of this land too. My memories seeing my parents working hard. My memories seeing the villagers stopping by and talking to my parents. My Dad liked to talk and visit people of the village neighborhood. He always taught us to go greet them once we arrived at the village. We would be walking with him and my Mom. When I was a child he would put me on his shoulders and walking on that road. My father was everything to me. My father never denied where he came from. He invited his friends from other countries to visit Donguila. I am so thankful and grateful I grew up with my father. The father figure was so important to me and I felt safe even if sometimes he was not perfect. Because some of his decisions were not always the best. Nobody is perfect but he was trying his best. My Dad liked to talk about his village to his friends and invited them often

Really Like I always say, having a land is everything. I took my son there in Donguila last month he enjoyed playing there. I want to teach him how important it is to protect his land. I hope with time when he will become a young man or an adult, he will remember that he has a place to go when the world around him is going crazy. He can go to stay few days in Donguila to rest and to change idea. Like his grandfather did. Staying there and breathe pure nature. He can be away from the noises of big cities, away from the TV drama and bad TV news and still stay safe in Donguila. He will love and appreciate the nature. The people around. He will love the peace and the quietness. The songs of the birds, the sounds of the river. He should always be proud of where he comes from. Proud of his culture and his roots. well, Thank you for reading my post. Here are some videos. The previous ones as well so you can remember the context of my love and respect for my land. You can also visit my other blog www.poshenvogue.com if you want to. The video will go from the oldest ones to the recent ones. This is how it all started. My return to Donguila, my land and my village. Donguila I dreamed about you. I dreamed that I was walking naked feet on the ground. Donguila I didn't forget you. No, I didn't forget you my beloved land. I saw you when I was a child. I saw you when I grew up. I saw you when my parents were working your soil. I will be back for you. I will be back for you Donguila. Then, later on my prayer came true.I made it back to Donguila in 2019. Do not be ashamed of where you come from. A person without his roots and origins is like a dead tree really. Rest in peace Daddy. I miss you my dear Dad. I love you forever Daddy...

How it is still going. I love the sounds of the river and the birds. That's my land! You can't take that away from me. I love it. It is full of memories and life. That video below is the 1rst land. Working with people is not easy at all. If you are not behind them, they can do whatever they want and still want to get paid. sigh...

Then this is the second which way bigger. It will require so MUCH WORK!!!!

Here that last video I speak in French. I read an well known African poem from Cameroon. The author talks about his love for his village and I used it to share my experience and my love for my village. It was My tribute to my land in Donguila.

Thank you for reading me again. I will have a post for Father's Day. We need to THANK OUR FATHERS. Our SUPERMEN. I leave you with a Gabonese artist singing about Love. The old school. Yep! I am a big fan of the old school. Enjoy! Francois Ngwa "Elombe"