Elephants Have Right of Way

A youth aged 18, his sister (20) and brother (17) are left by their father at the end of an African jungle track, nearly 1,000 miles from home, and sixty miles from the nearest town. They have no vehicle, no telephone not even a radio. They have instructions on how to start a coffee plantation and to build a camp, and even instructions on how to conduct themselves with their Belgian neighbors - both of them. Their father leaves, promising to return in three weeks. When he comes back in six weeks, work has started on the plantation, a camp has been built, and, not at all surprising to him, even though it was not explicit in the instructions, the three are alive and still sane.

This is a true story. It is related in the first person by a member of the second generation of this European family born in Africa. It covers the mess that the family then took for chaos, the move and the starting of a plantation. It ends shortly after Congo's independence two years later, in real chaos.

Their experiences are unique. Nobody will again live through the last few years of colonialism and the turbulent start of a new era.