Language/Lingala/Culture/Chegey-or-Shegey
It’s impossible to spend much time in Kinshasa without meeting members of one of the city’s best-known groups, the chegeys or shegeys. While people may differ on the preferred spelling, few would argue that they generally fail to bring much in the way of positive contributions to interpersonal interactions. Or that they can be a bit dangerous. But personal shortcomings aside, the origin of the term for these street corner gangs is a bit of a mystery.
One theory is that the word chegey was coined after Laurent Kabila’s child soldiers – the kadago – marched into Kinshasa, reminding people of miniChe Gueveras. Hence the ‘chegey’ version. It’s probably worth noting here that although Che did spend time in eastern DRC in 1965, things did not go well between him and his Congolese counterparts. He left describing his time as an ‘unmitigated disaster’ and few of the Congolese involved would have disagreed. Pairing his tarnished reputation with young thugs is certainly in keeping with the wonderful irony that many Kinois are so adept at drawing upon. The problem, however, is that the term was apparently in use before Kabila and his kadago arrived.
A second theory is that shegey is an ironic reference to the 1985 Schengen Agreement relaxing border controls and allowing free movement across 26 European member-countries, similar to the way that the gangs seem to move about Kinshasa with impunity.
Don't hesitate to look into these other pages after completing this lesson: Days of the Week, Geography, Festivals and Celebrations & Traditional Music and Dance.
Source[edit | edit source]
https://lobalingala.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/23042014-loba-lingala.pdf
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