Instead there were single women, known as ndumbas in Lingala and femmes libres in French, “free women” as distinct from wives or daughters, who would provide their clients with a suite of services, ranging from conversation to sex to washing clothes and cooking. One such ndumba might have just two or three male friends who returned on a regular basis and kept her solvent. Another variant was the ménagère, a “housekeeper” who lived with a white colonial official and did more than keep house.
