On Saturday morning, all the students gathered at Kundayo,
saying good-bye to their host families for the months of January and March, as
they prepared for all the new adventures still to come. Because from Arusha, they were going up into
the foothills of Kilimanjaro to spend five days in a Chagga village, they took
only light luggage with them and left behind their larger suitcases or duffle
bags to be stored here at Kundayo until this coming Thursday. Then, I will oversee the loading of all the
luggage and boxed lunches and board the bus myself for the drive to Moshi,
where we’ll all be reunited and begin our trip toward Dar es Salaam. On the way south, we will stop at Lushoto,
which is high in the Usambara Mountains (http://www.irenteview.com/gallery/index.htm), for a weekend retreat with Steve and
Susan Vinton of Village Schools International.
Life is very calm and quiet for me here at Kundayo without
John, Megan and the students. I am
enjoying the extra reading and quiet time I have by myself, but I do miss the
company of the others. However, the
staff here are very solicitous and make sure I am just fine almost every hour
on the hour. They also spend much more time just chatting with me when I am on
the terrace. Yesterday, Rebekkah, the
head housekeeper asked me about my house at home, so I showed her a photo. Her eyes opened wide as she made the typical “Awwwo”
of surprise and then asked, “Is school for your students”? I tried to soften the collision of 1st
and developing worlds by telling her that while I know our house is large, we
try to make sure we share it with others.
She then said, “Is nice.”
Because so little of note is happening around me these days,
I thought I would copy some of the email reports I have gotten from John. The group is staying in the Catholic bishop’s
house, which is a very large McMansion place with perhaps 10 bedrooms right on
the slopes of Kili. He rarely stays
there since the diocese HQ is near Lake Manyara. So, his brother, Adolph, and sister-in-law,
Ava, are the custodians and now the hosts for our group. Here is John’s report of yesterday, the first
full day in Shimbwe.
Church was from 11:00 to 12:30. The people at Shimbwe village are mostly Catholic with a smatterng of Lutherans and some Pentecostals. The Catholic church we attended was built in 1959 although some of it, for example the ceiling, was just completed this year. Although the service was in Swahili, I was able to follow much of it, and I certainly enjoyed the singing and the electric organ. The students really liked the service, but only Kristin, who was baptized Catholic, could take communion. They only served the wafer to the congregation. The priest, Father Hubeth, explained to us later that since the wafer is the actualy flesh of the living (not dead) Christ, the blood is part of the wafer, for no one has ever seen living flesh without blood. While that reasoning seemed a bit strained, his follow up comment that with so many people it would be expensive to serve wine, especially since some of the cups were broken, was not a lot better. His final justification--that serving wine in a common cup raised health concerns--seemed more like the real reason. Most of the Whitworth students had never been to a Catholic mass although they noted similarities with the Anglican service in Zanzibar. I know that our long-ago Reformed and Mennonite theological ancestors thought all the genuflecting, incense bruning, and heroldry were high popery and unbiblical, but I find the ceremony and engagement of all the senses appealing. I kept thinking our church could use a bit more drama. As I later said the the students, Presbyterian services are often about as exciting as a committee meeting. We have stripped out the drama and left only the abstract and intellectual.
After church, the priest invited us to his office for chai. Father Hubert is relatively young--he completed his studies in 2016--and this is only his second parish. He talked a bit about his background and education. As all priests here, he studied philosophy for 4 years and theology for 3 years. While it is great to have such welll educated clergy, it also means that it is hard to get enough priests. From the Father Hubert's office, we walked over to Mama and Baba Tesha's house for lunch. Mama Tesha was dressed in church finery--she told me she never dresses up like that when she is in the States--and served a wonderful lunch. We had chicken, a beef stew, rice, mbogambogaa (veggies) and greens. I told her she was such a good cook she should give up her school and start a restaurant. The students ate until they were stuffed, and there was still lots and lots of food left over. I told Father Hubert, who was invited as well, that it reminded me of the feeding of the 5,000 where so much food remained.
After lunch, we went back to the church office, where the students asked questions. Ruthie pushed Father Hubert about women in the priesthood. He gave the orthodox line about women playing a most important role because as mothers they are children's first teachers. He also emphasized all women do in serving the church, such as cooking at church functions and helping the poor. I'm not sure his anwsers sastisfied Ruthie or the other girls. I was glad no one asked about gay marriage.
Because it had been raining when we were at the Teshas and also at Father Hubert's office, we could not take the shortcut back to the bishop's guesthouse. The path would have been too slippery, and our hosts feared people would fall down. Therefore, we took the road back and the walk took a bit more than half an hour instead of just 10 or 15 minutes. We passed the Shimbwe village center, which consists of a bus stop (sign painted on a building), several small shops, and a cafe where one can buy drinks. Adolph, who was walking us home, told me he owned the shop and the cafe. We may stop at the cafe for sodas after our hike tomorrow.
Back at the bishop's house, the students had a couple hours to rest and write in their journals. Then we came back to the living room, where we talked about the Catholic service and where I gave the first half of my lecture on mainline Christianty. I got them all to come on time by promising them pieces of candy that I said you had purchased for them. They all thanked you and said hello. In part of my lecture, I talked about how missionaries often tried to separate Africans from they own society and culture. I told about your exprience with Netty Berge and the importance of Xian names. I also talked about the time Elmer Neufeld went with a missionary to visit some project. When they stopped for lunch, Elmer asked where the lunch for the African driver was, and the missionary told Elmer that Africans don't get hungry. Elmer noted however that when he shared his lunch, the driver seemed quite hungry. The students could hardly belive such things had happened in my lifetime, and even Megan had a horrified look on her face when I told that and some other stories. I did also emphasize that there were many, many truly wonderful missionaries.
While waiting for dinner, we played 2 truths and a lie. Everyone had a great time. Dinner was beef stew, spaggetti, rice, fried potatoes, and veggies. Afterwar.ds, one of the young men who is assisting us gave a demonstration of how Chagga hull, grind (mortar and pestle), roast coffee, and brew coffee. He used an "African kitchen" (a fire, 3 stones, and a cooking pan) to roast and then boil the coffee. Everyone got a chance to pound the coffee, both to hull it and to "grind" it. The coffee he poured in our cups was quite dark, but very light and smooth tasting. He is selling packets of organic coffee from the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro for 5000 TSH. [about $3] I'll buy a packet or two for you, which you can either use or give as gifts.”
No comments:
Post a Comment