Description
Mr. Terry explains the tribal environment in the Congo.
Bob Terry
Bob Terry was born on May 30, 1936 in London, England. He remembers walking in London and seeing a sign saying “come to Canada” and that is when he decided to join. After basic training in Trenton he was posted to the Congo. Later Mr. Terry went to Cyprus where he served with the Royal Signals maintaining radio masts for the British. After leaving the military he worked as a salesman and a commissioner.
Transcript
One thing that contributed to the hostility was that the people went back to their tribal affiliations. You asked somebody there who are you and where are you from, they give you their name and they would tell you the name of their village, and then their tribe. They weren’t Congolese, they were Bacongos or Bantu or whatever they were. It was an environment that we find hard to describe because we’ve never experienced anything like it before, we’d never been prepared for anything like it before.