vera e. renaud

In 1918 Vera Renaud and her mother go off to join her father in the heart of darkest Africa, the Belgian Congo. Arriving in Elizabethville, the wide-eyed innocent is attracted to the first dapper young man she meets at a colonial New Year’s ball, and the two are married within months.

With mother in tow, the couple joins the Renaud Bros’ family trading store in the wilds of Kasenga, on the banks of the crocodile infested Luapala River. Bringing up a young family with little more than a matted grass shutter between them and the occasional man-eater on the prowl can be a harrowing experience. Not to mention the mosquitoes, soldier ants and other hungry predators … even cannibals!

A true life story.