stan engelbrecht

elients, bruno and bonel mfoutou, maitland, cape town, south africa

since he could remember the last thing bruno mfoutou wanted to do was join the congolese army, pick up a gun and start killing. in 1997, when bruno was 24,

he was working as a waiter and his girlfriend elients was pregnant with their first boy. then that same year bruno’s father was brutally killed during a rebel attack. bruno knew that they had to get out of the congo. but with elients heavily pregnant bruno was forced to leave by himself. he had saved up some money and bought a plane ticket to johannesburg, south africa. he planned to find work in johannesburg and send for elients and his infant son as soon as possible.

but life in south africa was much harder than anticipated. the locals don’t take well to foreigners competing with them for employment and so began a cycle

of underpaid jobs and exploitation. by 2003 bruno had moved to cape town and was earning enough to pay for elients to join him. their first born had to stay behind with bruno’s eldest brother, with whom he still lives today (bruno has never met his eldest son). elients and bruno had another son, bonel, two-and-a-half years ago. they are very happy to live in south africa and would never want to return the congo, even though they have no south african friends and they constantly have to re-apply for their refugee permits.

when i first met bruno he introduced himself as a nigerian. when he admitted later that he was in fact from congo, i asked him why he had lied.

he said, “ha, ha! everyone is scared of the nigerians. foreigners will always introduce themselves as nigerian if they don’t want someone to mess with them!”