The author, Simão Kikamba, was born in Angola in Sacandica in 1966. When he was two, his father moved to work as a gardener at a Catholic Mission at Finkisi-Kisantu 120 km south of Kinshasa. Simão Kikamba was educated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.He was bright and completed his secondary education at Finkisi-Kisantu. He was then fortunate to be able to attend a university college and graduate in 1989 with a BA in Education. His main subjects were English and African Culture. Over the next three years, he taught English at a technical college in Finkisi-Kisantu. Then in 1992 he decided to return home to Angola. Until then his family had hid their origins as Bazombo. A peace accord had been signed between UNITA and MPLA and Simão Kikamba thought it was safe to return “home”.
Unfortunately, once there, he became caught in the struggle between the MPLA and UNITA. In 1994, he fled to South Africa. He now lives in Johannesburg and works in the publishing industry. This is his first novel. It is about Manuel Mpanda who returns to Angola and his trials and tribulations while trying to discover his homeland.
Mpanda’s story is a fictionalised version of Simão Kikamba’s tale. It is not an easy one. It begins with what amounts to a Prologue (it is called part one, chapter one). Mpanda has been caught in an operation against illegal aliens. Even though he has papers as an asylum seeker, the police officers are so hostile that they destroy his documents and ship him off to a detention centre.
At Lindela he meets Benedito who wants to know why he is there. He tells his new friend that he has a wife and daughter, but they are back in Luanda, because they couldn’t find a school for their daughter. Why doesn’t he go back to Angola? “What have you done?” This novel is the long story that followed.
“Going Home” is really told in just two more parts, “The Journey” and “Life and Times of a Black Migrant”. These are followed by what should have been called an Epilogue, “The Evidence” (here it is part four, chapter 25).
Mpanda left “home” in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May 1991, to return to the land of his birth, Angola. Though a peace accord had been signed, it did not remove the dangers associated with such a trip and the difficulties in crossing the many checking points and then the border. It was really a journey of discovery for Mpanda as he had been too young to remember the route when his family had fled north to the DRC in 1968. The author writes with an easy flowing style.
The route through Angola from Luvo to Mbanza-Kongo was still a risky one. Rumours arrived that an armed gang had attacked a truck and the passengers had been killed. Mpanda decided to continue his journey “going home”. Some of the friendships he makes on this journey become lasting ones, influencing his life from then on. In Luanda he hopes to find his cousin, Maria Joana. All that he knows is that she lives in a slum called “Nocal”. He discovered Angolan women who helped him, the most significant being Isabel. He also hears for the first time their music, such as “the spellbinding voice of Teta Lando, a tenor who sings modern Angolan music”. Mpanda cannot comprehend the tragedies still reverberating through Angola because of the prolonged conflict between the various forces left over from the liberation struggle against the Portuguese.
To travel overland to Luanda has become too dangerous. Eventually he is able to purchase space on a military plane. Once in Luanda, his problems escalate. He can find Nocal and where Maria Joana should be, but he cannot locate her. How do you survive in a city when you know no one else? By accident he is helped by a woman, who has a painting on the walls inside her house depicting themes of female liberation.
He found that Teresa or Ma Tete was in charge, a real woman on top. She says to him:“You are such an ungrateful person ... I have pulled you off the street, have washed you clean, have fed you, have bought you clothes and have sheltered you, and look how you treat me: like a piece of shit” (page 67).Mpanda wants to extricate himself from this situation, but does not know how. Then he hears of a language school, Imbonderio.
He is able to find it, but the owner, Mr Sakala, coming from Bié Province is tied up with Joseph Savimbi’s movement. A job teaching English is welcome, but the consequences of association with UNITA are not adequately anticipated, nor what having a membership card with his photo on it could lead to.
Mpanda becomes involved in politics and on what turns out to be the “wrong” side. Even to be in possession of a T-shirt of the opposition can lead to one’s death. Can peace be attained?
“Let me tell you what I understand by real peace. Peace is not merely the cessation of hostilities or the signing of a peace accord. This is peace on a piece of paper. For the sons and daughters of this great land ,real piece means we are free of guns, free of crime and free of crippling diseases ... real peace means free and unrestricted movement ... water and sanitation for all ... schools and education ... we can sleep in proper houses ... our streets are clean” (pages 82-83).
Mpanda first assumed responsibility for running Sakala’s school, but when Isabel found him, and they began living together, he gave up teaching to work with her in trading. He became known as “Papa Isabel” and “The Englishman”. Because of his command of English, Portuguese and a number of vernaculars, he eventually won a job working at the Namibian Embassy. Unfortunately, this did not insulate him from the renewed conflict between UNITA and MPLA. He is placed by the MPLA police in an impossible situation and learns that he is marked to be executed. He flees to Johannesburg before a deadline that has been imposed on him by the authorities.
The next part of this novel is more familiar to people in Southern Africa. Mpanda quickly discovers that, even though he is educated and qualified, South Africa is not the land of opportunity he had anticipated. It is a very gritty tale of being down and out in Yoeville and what people do to survive.
Years go by and he has never made the break through that he expected and would allow him, free of humiliation, to bring his wife and daughter to South Africa. Though he is legally in South Africa as an asylum seeker, many of his mates are “illegals”. There never seems to be any light at the end of the corridor. He wondered if he would ever belong in this his third home;
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