Timothy Epupa Ngenge

Stoking Hanno's Volcano Timothy Epupa Ngenge

When Chief Ijoko and his people open the gates of Mboa, their village, to welcome Paulo Dias, the Portuguese, it is the very first time they are setting their eyes on a European businessman. Little do these men who have inherited an insular lifestyle from their fathers know that the newcomer and his host of business partners and rivals are bracing themselves for an intense commercial wrangling over Mboa. They are completely uninformed about Hanno, the Carthaginian who had spotted their mountain from the sea many centuries ago and had named it the Chariot of the Gods. The Portuguese ex-soldier is the first of four European investors who take turns to develop and run the exceptionally successful Chariot of God or Carruagem Do Deus mountain resort. On retiring from business a few years later he sells the resort to Herr Mauch, the strict disciplinarian, who expands the business and Germanizes the now lusophone natives of Mboa. Herr Mauch is subsequently picked up by a specialized unit of Nazi hunters who have been tracking him and other ex-German soldiers for years. Before he is whisked away by these men who present themselves as the 'Institute', he is forced to cede his business to his French and English friends: Monsieur Barbot and Mr. Edward. The resort is befittingly renamed Carruagem Do Deus Wagen Gottes Char De Dieu Chariot of God to honour the four men who turn the verdant landscape of Mboa into the most flourishing resort business along this segment of the coast of Africa.