Congolese storytelling debuts at children's festival

In the tiny village of Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazza-Ville, the baobab tree is a fountain of knowledge. A social focal point, villagers gather around its thick trunk and leafless branches to retell ancestral stories filled with kernels of wisdom.

It was as Jean Pierre Makosso says, “My first school.” And on May 26 to 30, the Congolese storyteller passes on those folktales at one of the International Children’s Festival’s most vivid shows Under the Baobab Tree.

Makosso explains the baobab tree was believed to be a listening post for deceased ancestors. “Those who are gone are not really gone. They are still listening when we tell stories.”

In Makosso’s village, women held the sacred role of storytelling and were charged with remembering family genealogy and childhood anecdotes. He still recalls his mother regaling the family with folk tales while cassava slowly cooked for supper.

“My mother always told me that every morning when I wake up to look at my fingers. Try to look at the fingers and see what role they play. Each has a different role and when we understand the fingers, you will understand everyone has a role in the world.”

Makosso’s sister was groomed to carry on the generations-long role. But when she died, the family lineage was broken. Makosso, a French teacher at Pointe Noire, requested permission to teach storytelling at schools and soon became the official raconteur for his family and tribe.

Shortly afterwards, the French Cultural Ministry urged him to teach storytelling abroad throughout Africa, Europe and North America. He aborted his mission when war broke out in the Congo and returned to build an orphanage. During a brief ceasefire, he and the children were invited on a diplomatic mission to China to perform.

After witnessing Congolese politicians’ greed and corruption, Makosso returned home writing a controversial play. Once it debuted, his collaborator was assassinated, and Makosso fled to Canada as a political refugee leaving his family behind.

That was nearly nine years ago and a great deal has happened. One way he coped with the distance between himself and his daughter was to stay in touch with children. “They help me a lot. I left my daughter when she was nine. This way, I teach children what I would teach my child.”

But always with a light-hearted spirit enhanced with drums, djembe, balafon, shakers, sansa (a small, piano-like instrument) and dancing.

Makosso is committed to passing his legacies to children. “Only children and women can make the world a better place. Men ruling — it is not working. Take my example. We have to work on this generation to make a better place.”