Triumphing over Uncertainty: Masters Research in Lubumbashi, DRC

My feet were met by familiar red dirt when I finally left the Lubumbashi airport. French, Swahili and other languages fluttered through the air as Jérémie – my hosts’ chauffeur – greeted me in their white minivan. Despite nearly 24 hours of restless travel, driving through the south-eastern Congolese city injected me with a new energy, and I couldn’t help feeling giddy to have finally arrived at the place where I would do my masters dissertation research for the next 16 days.

Lubumbashi in July is quite mild – nearly everyday called for trousers and a jumper, though sitting in its direct sunlight was a comfort I enjoyed most mornings. In the midst of one of the world’s most devastating heatwaves, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was one of the coolest places to be. Situated in Central Africa, the country is bordered by South Sudan and the Central African Republic to the north, the Republic of the Congo and Angola to the west, Zambia to the south, and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania to the east. The DRC’s relation with its east-coast neighbours is where the story of my project began.

A history of languages in the region

“The scramble for Africa”, as it became known to the world, led to the partition of the continent to European colonisers and to a boom in commerce between what would eventually become nation states. Arab traders from Zanzibar, the archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, pioneered caravan routes inland to the former Belgian Congo in the late 1800s. Along with ivory and enslaved people, they brought their language – Swahili. Through prolonged contact with local people and the Belgian colonial administration, Swahili eventually became the lingua franca, or common language, in the south-east provinces of today’s DRC.

DRC Swahili varieties in the south-eastern provinces (2019). Use granted courtesy of Dr. Nico Nassenstein.

The high status associated with the colonial French language imposed by the Belgians, the indisputable need to know Swahili, and the ancestral pull to local tribal languages all gave birth to a unique language used today throughout Lubumbashi and its peripheries. The way people perceive and feel about this most basic means of communication – language attitudes – eventually became the focus of my inquiry.

Through research (albeit done mostly by white, male scholars), it became clear that holding a European language in high regard combined with an ambivalence towards one’s local tongue is a common theme across Africa – English and Swahili for example in Kenya, or Portuguese and Chokwe in Angola as well. It also became clear that not much is known about language attitudes in Lubumbashi which encouraged me to hone in on this topic, and book a flight to the DRC.

This broader theme of languages pushing and pulling each other was the foundation for the interview strategy I developed. After settling in, speaking to a few local professors, and to some newfound friends and connections in the city, I set off to find interested parties. Equipped with the iPhone voicenotes app and a sea of nerves, I was still excited to connect the dots between 70 year-old research and what locals think today.

I unexpectedly found great enthusiasm for my project, but also an equally debilitating sensation of being out of place, once more. After having mastered this uncomfortable feeling of having no control during my stay in Tanzania, I thought two and half weeks in the DRC would be a breeze.

The challenges of living in a foreign country

Moving to the UK last summer presented me with new opportunities – making new friends, going back to school, reconnecting with family – but I was soon met with the realisation that they were challenges in and of themselves. At the surface, you’re already faced with the sensory overload of navigating new streets, transport systems, and sometimes a language barrier (though British English has been a right joy to lean into). Combine that with the need to fulfil social or work commitments and it can become overwhelming without the right way to cope with this collision of interests.

From my own experience living in Tanzania, Ghana, and now the DRC for a brief stint, the challenges are similar. But they’re exasperated by the unpredictability of daily life in countries like these that are short on resources we take for granted in Europe and North America. When power cuts, inconsistent running water, or not being able to walk outside after dark are all met by the difficulty of integrating into a new culture, it takes its toll.

After a week in Lubumbashi, a professor asked me to meet earlier than I had anticipated – realistically the smallest inconvenience of my entire stay in the city – but it pushed me into panic. I wasn’t able to control the anxiety that began gripping me. After telling the professor we would have to reschedule, I sat on the veranda of my accommodation and allowed invasive and stressful thoughts flow in and out, fearful of how I would physically react if I tried to bury them.

Upon my return to Canada from Tanzania in 2019, I was eager to go back to East Africa and continue working in such an exhilarating environment. At the same time, a small part of me doubted my ability to undertake such a career in the long term. So, I buried this latter feeling ahead of pursuing my Masters in African Studies. Having previously begun the process of looking for a job in Uganda, my fieldwork in Lubumbashi doubled as a saving grace, a red light at another important crossroad.

Sitting in the same sun that bathed me in warmth during my breakfast routine, I journaled vigorously through the panic, pouring my thoughts onto paper in a combination of incoherent and illegible sentences. After phone calls to my girlfriend and my parents, I was able to catch my breath and re-centre on the reason I wanted to pursue my research in the DRC, and what I could conceivably control in the week I had left.

Triumphs of navigating cultural adaptation

Few people I met in Lubumbashi spoke English. Jérémie was keen to learn but we spent most of our time chatting in French. My knowledge of the language isn’t developed enough to verbalise to him becoming unhinged the day before, so we settled on focusing on the task at hand: finding people to interview. He’s a well connected and respected member of his church, so, naturally, we began there.

The first day of my interviews I spoke to six people for about 10 minutes each. The next day we met more of Jérémie’s peers and four people offered me their insights into their language use and attitudes. The stress of navigating daily life while also developing and re-developing an interview strategy drained me. I took a break the following day to collect myself and re-assess.

Over the next week I spoke to six more people. By the end of 16 interviews I felt like I was just getting started and could see myself sticking around for another month to deepen the validity of what I had found already which mostly confirmed my hypothesis: the necessity of French and the ambivalence yet utility of Swahili.

I was reminded towards the end of my short stay in Lubumbashi that relationships are paramount to success for any cross-cultural collaboration. If you can’t understand one another, there is no foundation to build up from. This became clearer after several of my interviews – it felt like there was much left to be desired in some conversations since I wasn’t familiar with most of the respondents. With the few I had developed a rapport with, the conversation flowed and the responses felt more enthusiastic and genuine.

Aftermath

The whirlwind two weeks in Lubumbashi made me all the more excited to return to Canada for a short vacation to see my family. My most recent stretch away is the longest time I’d ever spent apart from my home country – 7 months. I spent most of the two weeks in London (Ontario) decompressing, battling jet lag, and grappling with how to translate the intense experience of my fieldwork into a 10,000 word paper.

Ultimately, I won't return to Africa anytime soon. After my second interview for the position in Uganda, I withdrew my candidacy. It was a tough pill to swallow but feels like the right decision since I also just can’t afford to be a volunteer again. This, and having moved house every year since I was 18, pushed me to realise it's finally time to claim stability and perhaps even put down some roots.

So, writing this in my Brixton flat, having overcome the challenge of writing my dissertation, I feel content with where I am. No longer being a student yet living unemployed has never felt so peaceful – a privilege I’m trying not to take for granted. Still, the job hunt is underway, but there's no rush. London, England, you’ve got me for the foreseeable future.

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You can read my full dissertation here.

A few pics from Lubumbashi