[1] I have not been able to trace the name. It seems to be in Lingala, salisana meaning “to help each other.” Nor can I explain why Kanyemba brings up this group when I ask him about the Jamaa except by associating it with another religious group. The military uniform could point to the Salvation Army.

[2] Kanyemba says ashili, which could be his pronunciation of asili, beginning, principle – perhaps with the meaning of mark or trade mark.

[3] I usually translate muzungu as European (to avoid putting emphasis on race). When I first transcribed and translated part of this conversation in the seventies, I presented the person Kanyemba talks about as a white male. Later, in a paper on ethnographic misunderstanding, it turned out that this member of the Bapostolo was Bennetta Jules-Rosette, an African-American anthropologist who joined the movement when she did her PhD research on it (see Jules-Rosette 1975 and Fabian 1995, with an excerpt from this conversation.

[4] We were a little off here. The founder of the Bapostolo was John Maranke.

[5] Bwana is current enough in English to be left untranslated, especially in this context where Victor, our helper (boy in local parlance) addresses me. It is a different matter when the term is used by Kanyemba yo address me (see below). “Sir” would be the obvious gloss – except that I sense a shade of meaning somewhere in between merely formal and somewhat formal and respectful (but not ingratiating, for which I find no signs elsewhere in this conversation). As far as I remember without checking, other interlocutors rarely addressed me as bwana (or monsieur).

[6] With the ehm at the beginning Kanyemba signals that he is about to embark on a longer statement about religious matters, which was not what had come together to talk about. This explains, though does not excuse, the way I cut him off and returned, as it were, to the beginning by asking him for his full name.

[7] Here and later again (paragraph 5) Kanyemba seems to feel a need to thank me for information that came somehow unexpected.

[8] This is an attempt to translate banatutokana. Toka can mean to leave, come out or get out, but is not a transitive verb.

[9] He meant to say “Pascal.” Throughout this paragagraph there is some confusion between two prominent Franciscan missionaries,  Pascal Ceuterick (pastor at the main parish of Kolwezi) and Placide Tempels, the founder of the Jamaa movement.

[10] The terms kucheza (vb.) and muchezo (n.) have many meanings (a problem of translation that shows up in the remainder of this passage): Apart from to play, as opposed to work, the term can also signify to dance, to perform (theatrical plays of sketches), to play games, to play instruments (other than drums), and to engage in sexual play.

[11] According to other sources this could be Kanyemba’s pronunciation of Jeux coquets (sometimes written JéKoKé or Jécoké), a mixed form of comical entertainment (sketches, music, dance) that was popular in the years before Independence. As I recall, I first heard the term from Mufwankolo, famed founder of a troupe of popular actors (Fabian 1996). It also turned up in a conversation with Kisimba about Swahili in Katanga, see par. 8 of that text in Archives of Popular Swahili, http://www.lpca.socsci.uva.nl/aps/vol11/swahiliremembered2.html
According to him it is an acronym for Jeunes Comiques de Kenia (young comedians from Kenia township in Lubumbashi). When Kanyemba speculates above that Jeux coquets came from Zambia he may confuse this with malinga, an earlier fashion of (ball room) dancing that came from there (see about this the Vocabulaire in Archives of Popular Swahili: http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/lpca/aps/vol4/vocabulaireshabaswahili.html

[12] Here Kanyemba seems to approach the French pronunciation (or, at any rate, the one that was forming in my mind).

[13] The preceding exchange reflects the complexity of urban geography and the many changes over time in the terminology. Commune, was an administrative term (later replaced by zone) usually applied to what in colonial times were centres extra-coutumiers, government-controlled townships. The town itself, ville, was reserved to Non-Africans (and their African domestic personnel). At the time of our conversation, the central town, no longer off-limits to Africans who could afford to live there, was also called a commune.

[14] Two reasons explain this seemingly aimless back-and-forth. On the side of Kanyemba it was l/r alternance which is quite common in local Swahili, on my side it is unstated knowledge. Both, a Marcel Pire and a Rudy Pillen were prominent Belgian painters in Lubumbashi (they and examples of their work can easily be found on the Internet). At about the time of our conversation I met Pillen on several social occasions and assumed that he must be the one Kanyemba referred to as “Pille” (pronounce in two syllables).

[15]This was Marcel Pire (1913-1981), a well known Belgian painter.

[16] Also written Kabala; I opt for the orthography used in early publications.

[17] Kanyemba says kilole, finger, which I take as a slip of the tongue; he meant to say pinceau, brush.

[18] I was thinking of  thinking of Victor Turner, famous for his work among the Ndembu of Zambia.

[19] Kanyemba says présent, lit. present. This is the usual male response to being addressed by one’s name (as in a military or school roll-call; the female response is abé) as well as request to repeat a question.

[20] I say na nini, should have been na nani. In the following the directions Kanyemba gives (partly with gestures) are impossible to translate accurately. And, in this case, I cannot reconstruct our exchange from memory.

[21] At Kasumbalesa, the main border post between the Congo and Zambia, the Japanese-owned SODIMIZA mined copper and other metals between 1967 and 1987.

[22] I throw in sermali, the local Swahili term; it is seramala in ECS.

[23] Kanyemba says kaplosh, which must be the local version of French capelage, rigging, in this case of the roof-truss.

[24] There was a Swedish contingent among the UN troops in Katanga.

[25] I am repeating the Swahili term to myself either because I did not know the word at the time (which is not likely) or because I want to be sure of its exact meaning.

[26] He says mitumbo (the local French term is pirogue), mtumbwi in ECS.

[27] “Feel” is what I feel he means. Kanyemba says nasikia, which could equally well be translated as “I hear,” or “I sense.”

[28] Kanyemba use French terms, décoration and tableau décoré. In art-talk the latter would be “decorative” rather than decorated.

[29] Here and in the remainder of the paragraph I am teasing Kanyemba for his use of “academic” terminology. His chuckle shows that he is aware of that (and that the joke is not on him but on fancy words).

[30] Actually I had not meant “seeing” in the literal sense (and peinture can be both, the activity and the object). This literal meaning seems to be implied in Kanyemba’s question and in my answer but the following shows that he had caught my intention.

[31] Kanyemba says michezo, lit. plays, dances, but also “playing around.” German Spielerei would be perfect but I am unable to come up with a single term in English.

[32] The term I use is mubiti, uncooked (as of food stuff), which Kanyemba finds amusing.

[33] The term is nyama, animal(s), meat; the picture shows antelopes.

[34] I said yako, your – a mistake.

[35] The word I hear is something like cadre, frame.

[36] Kanyemba’s chuckle and the abrupt change of topic in my following question show we both realized that we had come to a dead end.

[37] Kanyemba had heard me say katana, cut each other, instead of kutana. meet each other.

[38] By mistake I said uzisha, sell, instead of uza, buy.

[39] That was the older (and at the time more current?) name for railroad workers’ settlement in Lubumbashi.

[40] Meaning, with cheating the artists.

[41] Could also be translated as payment in kind. The term current in Katanga is posho, probably from English portion. The mining company, for instance, paid their workers wages plus a posho, payment in kind (mostly groceries that were not available on the local market).

[42] The Cercle Manika was the social center in Kolwezi. It was sponsored by the mining company, originally for their expatriate personnel.

[43] Meaning, work like his own.

[44] In this case the term cité refers to a part of town formerly reserved for Africans who were not employed by the mining company.

[45] I say mustomari – no idea where I got this from, no such term exists. Perhaps I confused what I wanted to say, mistari, lines, with musomari, the local term for nail(s).

[46] Another confusion on my part between mbele, before, in front of, and mbali, far, from a distance.

[47] The term I use is nkisi, a Bantu word, widely employed by art historians and museologists, for all sorts of carved statues, “fetishes” in older parlance. The latter would be marked with a mi- plural prefix (the class of trees and of “magic” objects and spirits). Notice that Kanyemba says bankisi, making it statues of people, ancestor statues).

[48] I suspect that the chuckle here is a comment on his creative use of the abstract prefix (b)u in “buartiste...bulikuwako.”

[49] In this paragraph we started out with an important point, Kanyemba’s sense of continuity between contemporary work and traditional art. But then, sensing an interest in “old things” on my part, our exchange became somewhat embarrassing, as if we were about to work out a scheme for trafficking art. Nothing came of it nor have I made attempts earlier or later to collect objects.