My husband was born in Leopoldville, the Belgian Congo, later called Kinshasa, Zaire, from two Dutch parents. The world had gone through a world war, followed by a recession. Work was hard to find, but Frits’ father found work in the Belgian Congo as a supplier for the railroad that Africa was building from Capetown to Cairo. 

His African birth would later give problems when the company Frits worked for moved their headquarters from Canada to America and wanted Frits to move with them. No African-born person was welcome in the good old United States of America in the year 1967. Terrible, but true. He had to come in as my spouse.

While living in Africa, Frits was attended by “the boys,” as his mother called her servants. I am told that he could swim before he could walk. Air conditioning did not exist in those days, and the family apparently swam a lot to keep cool. His mother told me that they put Frits in a tire in the swimming pool. When he was a bit older, he had a tricycle. There is a picture of him playing underneath the palm trees on that tricycle. 

When he was three years old and now living in Aketi, his brother Jan was born. The family used to travel every other year for a vacation to the Netherlands. The other year, they spent their summer vacation in the mountains. 

He used to tell his children that one day in the Congo he met a monkey, who very much wanted to be a little boy. Well, Frits wanted to be a monkey and swing around in those trees. So, he told the innocent little children, “We changed places. I am actually a monkey.” I can still see the big eyes of my kids, not quite knowing what to think of that. 

More about Frits in the Congo will be in Unforgivable, which will be published late in 2023.