«It felt just like what it was: a journey back home after the end of an adventure»

Emigration is certainly an adventure when you go to a country suffering from social unrest and shortages of power and water. Laura Münger and her family had already been to the DR Congo, her husband’s native country, many times and were aware of the challenges they would face there, but still, they took the plunge and moved from Biel for a new start in central Africa. The interview reveals how this experience shaped them and as well as how Zürcher Kantonalbank provided support along the way.

Laura Münger, what made you decide to move abroad?

My husband and I first started to think about it when the corona pandemic began in 2020. We lived in a quiet village near Biel in a house belonging to my parents-in-law, and we had a pleasant life. Still, the day-to-day routine was becoming a strain on us, and we had the feeling of being trapped and not being in control of our own lives. The idea of us moving to the DR Congo first entered our heads when my mother-in-law, who originally comes from there, got early retirement.

What connection did you have to the country?

My husband’s family are from the DR Congo. I visited it for the first time with my husband in 2014 and founded the NGO “Ekimeli” with my mother-in-law. In 2016 we built a school in Kasangulu as our first project. Today, more than 600 children and young people go to our school – from kindergarten to something that’s equivalent to a grammar-school education in Switzerland. Part of the appeal about moving abroad was having more family time, more control over our lives and the opportunity to carry out our own professional projects on site. We also wanted to give our three sons the chance to learn more about their Congolese heritage.

DR Congo has been wracked by conflicts and civil wars for years. Did you never have second thoughts?

There has been a genocide going on for 30 years. More than six million people in the east of the country are said to have died. The region is exploited because of all the valuable raw materials there, and those who have the power to end the conflict have no interest in it. My family were very worried when I first went to the DR Congo in 2014, and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs warned against travelling there. It wasn’t so much of a culture shock for me though because I had already been to other developing countries before. My worries turned into a fascination for the country. The DR Congo is a big country, and the warzone is further from Kasangulu than Switzerland is from the border with Ukraine. Of course we also worried about the well-being of our children, not least because of the condition of the transport infrastructure and the poor standard of medical care, which is much lower than in Switzerland.

How different was your day-to-day life in Kasangulu?

It was completely different to how we lived in Switzerland. We took a lot more time over breakfast, for example. We often used to buy our food fresh from the little shop next door, like eggs for omelettes, baguettes or freshly-picked papayas, mangos, pineapples or bananas. During the day, we would work at the Ekimeli school. I would give extra training to the staff and streamline the ways things were organised, while my husband, who worked in security back in Switzerland, would give young men training to work in security as well as looking after the infrastructure.

Our three boys would often play basketball for hours at a time on the court that we had installed in the schoolyard at Ekimeli, or sometimes they would explore the local area. Together, we tried creative and playful ways to get as close as possible to the learning objectives of the Swiss curriculum. However, everyday life kept throwing up new problems which we didn’t have in Switzerland – no running water, a lack of electricity, the heat. Everyday things like washing the dishes and washing clothes took a lot longer.

In Africa a lot of things are done differently to in Switzerland. How different was banking?

There aren’t many banks in the DR Congo. There are two currencies used there, the US dollar and the Congolese franc, which is preferred outside the bigger cities. After a month I started working with the treasurer at the Ekimeli school to get its finances in order. It was hard at first to get an idea of what prices were in Swiss francs. One dollar is worth around 28,000 Congolese francs at the moment, and you can only get banknotes. I often had to transport suitcases full of banknotes to pay the wages of the 30 or so members of staff.

Cash machines would often only have limited amounts of dollars available. When we wanted bigger amounts we sometimes had to go looking for lots of different cash machines to get enough for what we needed. However, the banking system is coming along because of the increase in international businesses and foreign investors. I think in a few years there will be more of an emphasis on banking in the DR Congo.

How did Zürcher Kantonalbank help you throughout the process of moving abroad?

I had been a customer at the same bank ever since I was 18. When we started to get more of a specific plan about moving abroad, I heard from my former client advisor that the DR Congo was on the bank’s red list and I wouldn’t be able to carry on using my account. I was very surprised by that. As I was a member of Soliswiss (Organisation of the Swiss Abroad), I was able to find out which banks offered support to people moving overseas. I applied for an account with two different banks, and ZKB got in touch with me straight away. The appointment took place about a week before we left, which meant that the opening of our new bank relationship could only be issued after we had already gone. However, my client advisor went the extra mile to make sure that I got the most important documents as soon as possible. Withdrawing cash and making card payments in the DR Congo went smoothly and I felt that they were always by my side ready to give me the right advice.

Are you moving abroad? Zürcher Kantonalbank will use its expertise to make things easier for you. Click here to find out more.

You founded the NGO Ekimeli at the end of 2013 together with your mother-in-law. You had already been involved with Ekimeli on a voluntary basis for ten years before you emigrated. How did you want to take the project to the next level by moving over there?

Our school opened in 2016 with just under 100 children, and continuously grew to the point where we had reached our capacity. In May 2023 we launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise 20,000 francs to expand the site, and we exceeded this target. My mother-in-law got started with the construction work straight away, and when we arrived there in August there was already a new two-storey building with eight extra classrooms. They soon became occupied.

When we got there we had to adapt our plans to develop the school to match what was actually needed. With the rest of the money we raised through crowdfunding we put flooring down in the kindergarten and built a basketball court. We had brought some sturdy basketball hoops and balls with us from Switzerland, and we fitted the kindergarten out with furniture which had been donated to us and some learning materials. We also opened a kiosk, built a seating area, founded a security company, trained some security guards and digitalised the finances. We reorganised the staff, provided further training and were able to hire some local basketball coaches to teach children at the school.

What challenges did you face and how did you deal with them?

Unfortunately, even now not many people in DR Congo have access to education or a job. A lot of people work as subsistence farmers and creative entrepreneurs, who often have to do multiple jobs to keep their heads above water. Trade skills are learnt on the job, and there is no kind of technical education available like in Switzerland. Another problem is waste management, particularly plastic waste. There is no government-run waste management system. Many people burn their waste by the side of the road or dump it in public spaces.

Seeing this, and randomly stumbling across a sustainable construction method online used to make buildings out of plastic bottles, was what lead to a new project for our NGO Ekimeli. Working together with the NGO Congo Innovation Academy (CINA), we launched an education initiative for children at the Ekimeli school based on the environment and sustainable construction. We also trained local craftsmen, and at the same time tried to make the local people in Kasangulu more conscious of ideas such as environmentalism and sustainability. At the heart of the project is building a library which is open to the public in the yard of the Ekimeli school which is constructed entirely from plastic bottles. To do this, we were able to access financial support from the Swiss embassy in Kinshasa. I’ve just come back from a trip to the DR Congo now, where I discussed the next steps in our plan together with our partners at CINA. The project should be finished by the end of the year.

After eight months in the DR Congo you and your family decided to return to Switzerland. Why was that?

We missed our family and friends a lot. The main reason for coming home though was our three children. I had hoped that they would go to the Ekimeli school part-time and I could teach them at home. Unfortunately, integration into the school was harder than expected and it was difficult for our children to make friends. Home schooling was very time-consuming plus it was hard to fit it around our commitments at the school.

We had to choose between either putting our projects on the back burner and finding a job in the capital city Kinshasa and putting our children in school there, or coming back to Switzerland. Because we couldn’t imagine living in Kinshasa, we decided to come back to Switzerland in May 2024. Just before we came back I had a first video interview via WhatsApp from Kasangulu for a new job in Switzerland, I started work there on 1 July. My children were able to return to their old school. With moving into our new apartment we have finally brought our emigration adventure to an end and returned to our old lives.

Looking back, is there anything you would do differently?

No. It was a great adventure, and we had so many great formative experiences together. We achieved more with and for the Ekimeli school than we intended to do, and drew up some new ideas for projects which we’re still working on putting into practice. We learnt a lot in our few months over there about what is needed to carry out development projects in a country like the DR Congo and which strategies should be applied. My husband and I hope to be able to spend more time in the DR Congo as soon as our children are old enough to be more independent.

What advice would you have for anybody who is about to move abroad?

It’s hard to give generic advice, because everybody is looking for something different when they move abroad depending on their personal reasons, objectives and expectations. For me it’s important to think long and hard about everything that’s involved with moving abroad before deciding to actually do it. Why do I want to move somewhere? How will I do it, and what would I do if things don’t go according to plan? For us, it was clear from the start that we didn’t want to move abroad to achieve a certain goal. This meant that we weren’t accountable to anybody and didn’t have anything to prove to anybody, not even ourselves. We knew that we always had the option of coming back to Switzerland, whatever the reason.

And when we ultimately made that decision to come back it didn’t feel we were giving up or that we’d failed, but just like what it was, coming back home after an adventure.

   Overview