Each morning a missionary advertise with neon sign.
He tells the native population that civilization is fine.
And three educated savages holler from a bamboo tree (Eeeh! Ah-loki-sah-ha-sa-ah-na!)
That civilization is a thing for me to see.
So bongo, bongo, bongo I don’t want to leave the Congo
Oh, no, no, no, no, no!
Bingle, bangle, bungle I’m so happy in the jungle I refuse to go!
Don’t want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords,
I make it clear…
That no matter how they coax him…
I’ll stay right here!
I looked through a magazine the missionary’s wife concealed.
(Magazine? What happens?)
I see how people who are civilized bang you with automobiles.
(You know you can get hurt that way, Daniel?)
At the movies they have got to pay many coconuts to see…
(What do they see Danny?)
Uncivilized pictures that the newsreel takes of me!
So bongo, bongo, bongo he don’t want to leave the Congo
Oh, no, no, no, no, no!
Bingle, bangle, bungle he’s so happy in the jungle he refuse to go!
Don’t want no penthouse, bathtub, streetcars, taxis,
Noise in my ear…
So no matter how they coax him…
I’ll stay right here!
They hurry like savages to get aboard an iron train (“The Tringa-limba-hula-humbala Express!”)
And though it’s smoky and crowded they’re too civilized to complain…
(Ah-no-ha-toh-ah-so-ah-haw-ee-sah-hee-nah!)
When they’ve got two weeks vacation they hurry to vacation grounds…
(What do they do Danny?)
They swin and they fish but that’s what I do all year ’round!
So bongo, bongo, bongo I don’t want to leave the Congo
Oh, no, no, no, no, no!
Bingle, bangle, bungle I’m so happy in the jungle I refuse to go!
Don’t want no jailhouse, shotguns, fish hooks, golf clubs,
I’ve got my spear!
So no matter how they coax him…
I’ll stay right here!
They have things like the atom bomb…
So I think I’ll stay where I “om!”
Civilization? I’ll stay right here!
– “Civilization,” Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters, 1947
Right around noon today, just as I was about to leave the office and respond to an invitation for lunch at Café Atlántico with an old friend, one of my clients popped his head in the door. It was none other than Phillipe Bâton d’Poisson Ouagadougou, chief international mineral economist at the Embassy of Gabon in Washington. The poor man was obviously frightened out of his wits.
“Please, Mr. Collins,” he nervously begged, “may I come in?”
“But of course, Phillipe,” I replied.
“Oh, thank you,” he effused as he hurriedly slipped into my office, closing and locking the door behind him. “Your secretary, Gretchen,” he explained, “told me you were not performing a consultation at the moment, and she said she did not think you would mind if I paid you a visit.”
“Mon plaisir,” I assured him. “Do have a seat. I must say, you’re clearly not yourself today.”
“As I most certainly would not be,” Phillipe moaned, mopping his brow with an elegant silk handkerchief. “What with all that has happened in the last forty-eight hours!”
“In Gabon?” I speculated. “Concerning your presidential elections, perhaps?”
“Oui, oui,” Phillipe agreed, pulling out a pack of Gauloises and quickly consoling himself with one, then politely gesturing toward me with them.
“No thanks,” I demurred. “I’m trying to cut down.”
“Me, too,” Phillipe confessed. “Would you believe that I picked yesterday to quit? Bad choice, there,” he observed between puffs.
“So,” I ventured, “from what I hear, things are pretty spicy over in Libreville at the moment.”
“Like soddy nuea pad prik Thai with extra green chilies,” Phillipe sadly sighed. “Everybody is walking around on sea shells.”
“I think you mean ‘walking around on egg shells,’” I interjected.
“Ah, yes,” he nodded with a fleeting smile, “eggs. You see, Mr. Collins, the elections in Gabon have only just concluded.”
“And what a fine example,” I praised, “Gabon is setting for the rest of Africa, Phillipe! You must be very proud.”
“Proud?” Phillipe scowled in surprise. “I should say not! Haven’t you heard what has happened? Not until Wednesday, at the earliest, could anybody know the outcome of the Gabon presidential race, but even now, each and every one of the candidates is claiming they are the winner!”
“And how many,” I inquired, “might that be?”
“Well,” Phillipe began, “first of all there’s the former president’s son, Ali Ben Bongo. He ran on an economic growth platform.”
“Based on Gabon’s oil reserves?” I surmised.
“No,” Phillipe informed me, “on a program to turn the Gabonese into a nation of entrepreneurs, like America.”
“So then,” I extrapolated, “in thirty or forty years, you can all be selling each other pizzas and cell phone ring tones?”
“Ah, yes,” he agreed, “something like that. To a man, his supporters all insist that he must have won.”
“They do?”
“Yes,” Phillipe declared, “they are absolutely certain he could not possibly have lost.”
“Why?”
“Because he spent the most money.”
“Well,” I averred, “it’s easy to see where Mr. Bongo’s supporters get their ideas.”
“You bet,” Phillipe concurred. “From watching elections in America.”
“Right,” I continued, “but what about the other guys?”
“Well,” Phillipe mused, as he torched up another Continental coffin nail, “there is…”
Gretchen rang my extension. “Mr. Collins?”
“Yes?”
“Is that African diplomat cooking a dead monkey on a hibachi or something in your office?”
“No, he’s smoking a popular brand of French cigarettes.”
“Well, the reason I’m asking is because that Brazilian who asked you to lunch is here, and she’s waiting, and she’s getting kind of green around the gills…”
“Okay,” I suggested, “why don’t you lock up the office and take her downstairs to the bar and you two have a drink and relax? Special Plenipotentiary for Mineral Resources Ouagadougou is in the throes of a major political crisis spawned by the societal turmoil of his troubled homeland and…”
“Yes, Mr. Collins, I’ll do that.”
“Anything wrong?” Phillipe stared at me in abject horror.
“Uh, why, no,” I whispered as I cradled the receiver.
“Nobody,” Phillipe shuddered, “looking for me?”
“Why, no, of course not,” I exhaled, aghast. “Why would anyone be…”
“Because I supported Pierre Mamboundou,” Phillipe anxiously confessed. “He is the only other candidate who isn’t a former official of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party. There’s Andre Mba Obame, for example – look at him! Former Interior Minister, no less, and he owns a television station, too!”
“Sounds like a Gabonese version of Silvio Berlusconi,” I offered.
“Very much so,” Phillipe ruefully vouched, “but not anywhere near as handsome, suave or fastidious in his personal hygiene. Then there’s Zacharie Myboto, another former crony of Bongo’s father. He ran on a platform that promises one hundred American dollars a month to any family in Gabon that can prove they are poor.”
“Whoa, Nelly,” I exclaimed, “even our Democratic Party has got nothing on that!”
“The big flaw with the idea, however,” Phillipe grumbled, “is that nine out of ten families would qualify, because nearly everybody in Gabon is as poor as a church mouse!”
“So, ultimately,” I mused, “it would be an essentially inflationary policy.”
“Exactly,” Phillipe confirmed. “As a matter of fact, I ran the econometrics on it, and found out it would be almost as bad as your TARP bailouts are going to be.”
“Wow,” I marveled, “that is pretty darned inflationary, by golly.”
“By golly-gosh-darned,” Phillipe insisted. “That Myboto is totally fruits!”
“Nuts,” I corrected. “Totally nuts.”
“Yes, yes, sure,” Phillipe smiled. “Nuts. Not fruits – he’s nuts. Fruits are different, right?”
“Right,” I confirmed. “Some nuts are fruits, but not all fruits are nuts. Take cashews for instance.”
Phillipe shot me a quizzical look. “What?”
“Cashews!”
“Bless you,” Phillipe deadpanned. I honestly couldn’t tell if he knew what he was saying.
“And that Casimir Oye Mba!” Phillipe fumed. “He was prime minister under Bongo’s father! Did you know, Bongo’s daddy ruled my country all the way from 1967 until he died in June of this year? And now, his son and his henchmen, they hold this sham election, and one man – Pierre Mamboundou – a man who had nothing to do with any of them, he alone had the courage to run against this, this… corrupt machine government…”
“We have a guy like that ourselves,” I interjected. “A fellow named Ralph Nader…”
“Yes, yes,” Phillipe excitedly acknowledged, “a brave and intrepid man of unimpeachable integrity, just like that! And you know what they tried to do to me for supporting him, Mr. Collins?”
“Ah, gee, I don’t know, uh, did they try to throw you out of the Gabonese Foreign Service?”
“Throw me out?” Phillipe stood up, lighting yet another nasty French butt, despite the fact that two already lay smoldering in a nearby ashtray. “Mr. Collins, they tried to kill me!”
“How?”
“They set my office at the embassy on fire! While I was in it!”
“No!”
“Yes!” Phillipe insisted. “Didn’t you read about it in the Washington Post?”
“Ah, well, seems to me I did read about a fire at the Embassy of Gabon, but…”
“Thousands of dollars in damage!” Phillipe shouted. “The District of Columbia Fire Department, they have already said this – that it was obviously an act of arson! But what the newspapers did not say was, the arson was committed in my office – in a blatant attempt to murder me!”
“Hmmm…” I murmured, deep in thought. “Tell me, Phillipe,” I queried, “who’s running Gabon at the moment?”
“That would be Rose Francine Rogombé,” he muttered in a dejected tone. “She has been leading the country since Bongo’s old man bit the bag.”
“That would be ‘bit the dust,’ Phillipe.”
“Okay, since he ‘bit the dust,’ then. Mr. Collins, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness…”
“You mean,” I suggested, “you are ‘at wit’s end,’ I presume?”
“Yes, yes,” Phillipe whimpered, “that is what I meant. I am at the end of my very wits about this terrible situation. Gabonese Army units are already in the capital and I fear a military coup may be coming any moment…”
“Tell me, Phillipe, ” I asked in my best diplomatic tone, “if this current election turns into a farce, with multiple candidates all claiming they have won and government troops surrounding the national legislature, would you consider keeping Madame Rogombé in office and holding another one?”
“What?” Phillipe demanded, indignantly inhaling another cloud of acrid tobacco smoke, “and take all the fun out of everything?”