Botswana Diary 5

        I think I have let someone down today.  One day I promise to go with a church warden to see an outstation called Mmopane, on the other side of the airport, then this morning I say “next week instead.”

            But I have my reasons.  She calls from Molepolole, saying I should “just drive out the Molepolole Road past the BDF….”  I pause, then remember that BDF stands for Botswana Defence Force.  There must be a base out there somewhere.  After I pass it, she continues, she’ll be waiting for me by the side of the road.

            I have driven to Molepolole once in my life, and then with someone to direct me.  The road is very congested, lots of road work, and the notion I will spot her just “somewhere by the side of the road” seems unlikely in the extreme.  No.

Instead I pick up a few things at the shops, then pack for the four day trip to Tsabong. 

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A bit after eight the Archdeacon, Fr. Andrew Mudereri, and I find ourselves on the way.  The trip from Gaborone to Tsabong is a long one, perhaps 300 miles.  In an hour or so we reach Kanye, then head west, leaving the dramatic hills for flat.  The trees seem smaller, the scrub further apart, as we go along; the soil becomes distinctly sandier.  We are skirting the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert.

There are few towns along the way.  My map marks them with an all-black circle (“garage only”), half-black half-white (“petrol only”), or all white (“no known facilities”).  Tsabong will have gasoline.

Some thirty miles from Tsabong we turn off the main road.  “There is the church,” Fr. Andrew says, “with the blue door.”  Up a short dirt track and we are there: St. Anna’s, Kisa.

The congregation had expected us at noon, and they are still there, some 30-40 of them, at 2:30.  I’m introduced, we say dumela rra, dumela mma, over and over again in greeting, and we go in.

A woman is at a blackboard, propped up on a bench in a corner near the altar.  She writes Difela, hymns, on one side, Dipalo, readings, on the other.

The readings are dispensed with quickly: One from 1 Timotheo, the gospel from Mareko.  Fr. Andrew looks up the appointed psalm, Peselema.

The hymns take longer.  The Archdeacon chooses one from the Setswana hymnal, sings a verse.  The

congregation joins in, as they are able; a poor response shows it’s not known well enough.  Eventually we have five.  The woman dutifully puts their numbers on the board.

At the end of the service the women come dancing out of the building, singing a chorus.  Last are two ancient ladies, taking full part, large smiles.  I try to capture them with my camera.  Their faces have no place left to put another wrinkle.

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            I am sitting in the early morning sun, keeping warm, next to the church in the desert village of Kolonkwaneng.  The old church building, of clay and thatch, sits empty now, some 50 feet away across reddish sand.  There are signs that goats take up residence in the old building from time to time, probably trying, like me, to stay warm.

            Fr. Andrew is hearing confessions in the vestry in the new building.  It’s Saturday morning.  Soon we will celebrate the Eucharist.

            The drive here from Tsabong is about 60 miles, along a newly paved road that clings to the South African border.  Only a few months ago it was gravel.  Fr. Andrew entertains me as we travel along, pointing out places where he has been stuck in the sand.

            The lay minister, Simon Moseki, comes over as I write.  “It is awkward here,” he says, looking around the village.  “No work.”

            That’s difficult to respond to, as his English is poor, and my Setswana extends only from greetings, thank you, and that’s fine to being able to say “the body of Christ” at the altar.

            A herd of goats comes wandering over, interrupting our congenial silence.

            We wait.  More people gradually arrive.  The goats move on.

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            At the offertory a ceramic bowl is placed in a plastic chair and positioned in front of the altar.  The congregation comes forward, dropping coins into the bowl.  I can hear them clang.  I add a bill.

            The reading is from Mark, the widow’s mite.  I wonder if I will miss the bill, as the widow may surely miss her thebe – the Botswana equivalent to a mite – which I think is Jesus’ point.

            After the Eucharist we drive away, leaving behind another spot that Fr. Andrew can point to, where he became stuck in the sand.

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            Middelputs is maybe 20 miles further along.  We promise to be there by 2:00, and we are remarkably close, given that our Kolonkwaneng saga starts before nine, we do not leave the church before one, and even then there is communion to the sick, and a meal in Mr. Moseki’s home.

            The village of Middelputs is on the Molopo River, which marks the boundary with South Africa.  A border post is actually in the town.

            The church is tiny, maybe 25 by 25 feet.  A cement foundation for a new building is nearby, but it looks as if it were laid some time ago, and no sooner have we arrived than the lay minister, Jackson Ditlhatibi, takes me aside and says they need money to build.

            As we follow the same pattern again – confessions, Eucharist, teaching, inviting anyone in the congregation to raise concerns or questions, taking communion to homes – I gather a better impression of what it means in this Diocese to have outstations at considerable distance and to have so few priests to serve them.  This is the first opportunity to visit that Fr. Andrew has had since Ash Wednesday.

            Lay ministers may be well-trained, or frankly, may not, but it’s clear that priests are missed, and sorely needed.  There has been no priest in the parish of Tsabong since 2005.

            I think about this as I drive back to Tsabong.  Well, about this, and about whether there are any cows in the road.  Dusk changes to darkness, and it’s hard to see.  Fr. Andrew is resting.

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Botswana Diary 4

           Moroka is a small rather nondescript village northeast of Francistown, just off the main road to Bulawayo, and only a few miles from the Zimbabwean border.  Most houses are modest, small rectangular buildings with metal or tile roofs, with dirt yards swept clean.  Some are the traditional round dwellings, thatched, with smooth painted walls.  Mrs. Lydia Maleho, the lay leader of the small congregation here, has both.

            She isn’t home, but her grandson, named Witness, is.  “I will take you to her,” he offers.  “May I let the cattle out first?”  Polite.  Rev. Callender, of course, assents.  Witness frees them from their overnight pen, and they wander on off.

            The congregation meets in Mrs. Maleho’s small living room, but a church building is on its way up.  Witness takes us there first, where we see the cinderblock walls of what will be St. Alban’s Church standing on a large plot, awaiting a roof, among other things.  The Diocese of Newcastle, which has a companion link with Botswana, has offered to help complete the work.

            We return to our van, head back to the narrow tarmac, then turn left onto a dirt track next to a small shop named “Why Not Fresh Vegetables.”  It’s closed.  No doubt that’s why not.

            Mrs. Maleho is at her farm, several miles along the twisting track.  Finally we come to a gate, consisting of huge thorny branches.  Witness hops out and pulls them aside.  We drive a short way, then park and walk.  We can see her in the distance.

            She brightens up when she sees us.  No doubt part of that is genuine hospitality, but I can also imagine she happily envisions a ride back to her home as well. 

She’s been gleaning the remnants of her harvest, sorghum mainly, but some rather sad-looking sweet potatoes too.  “Like Ruth,” Rev. Callender says.

            We lug the bags back to the van and climb in.  Her dog, who has accompanied her, looks up.  “He’ll find his way back,” she tells me, but the dog has already gauged that in me he has a potential ally.  He has big eyes.  “Surely we can make room for him,” I say.  I hear a sigh.  Witness lifts him up into the van, and he settles nicely between the seats.

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            Saturday is our day for the lay leaders’ workshop in the north of the diocese, similar to what we have already done in Gaborone.  Actually there are two parallel workshops, one for church wardens, the other for lay leaders.  We all gather together at St. Patrick’s, in the town center, and I do a meditation on 1 Corinthians 12.  Then it’s tea time.

Afterwards we split up, and the lay leaders and Fr. Amanze and I head to the rectory, where I have been staying, to meet in the living room.  We have been expecting, at the most, about 20, but 38 of us crowd inside.  No one complains.

We hear many of the same things about what kind of training they need, but not all are the same.  Two women say that they want someone to “teach us how to pray.”

Unfortunately I never find the chance to learn what in particular they have in mind, but several of us talk about it later.  One thought is that ingrained in them is a deep respect for liturgy in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, so they can read prayers from the prayer book but have a hard time spontaneously getting wound up the way they surely have heard their pentecostal neighbors do.  “Teach us how to pray.”

I hope someday someone will value their appeal and come, holding up for them and others the richness and diversity of prayer, in our tradition and in the church universal.

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            At lunch on St. Patrick’s grounds I spot a young man sporting a Carolina sweatshirt.  Oteng Montwedi is his name.  A part of the youth delegation that visited North Carolina some months ago, he wears it proudly.  We take pictures.

Two days later he comes to my house to see me off as I return to Gaborone.

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            As the sun is setting, a bunch of us are standing outside a small office at a very imposing gate, waiting for our passes to be issued so we can enter Orapa.  A large sign gives the company name, Debswana, a combination of the historic diamond conglomerate DeBeers and Botswana.  Underneath it says, “You are entering a Precious Stones Protected Area,” and it goes on to warn that we must have a pass and are subject to search.

            I fantasize that Orapa’s diamonds may be the solution to the Diocese of Botswana’s stewardship problems.

            We have driven the 125 miles or so from Francistown to be present at the consecration of land given for the building of a church, suitably planned for Pentecost tomorrow.  Bishop Mwamba has flown up from “Gabs,” as folk here shorten Gaborone, on the company plane.

            Soon I am seated beside him in the living room of a Debswana guest house.  He leans over and says, “I wonder if you might preach tomorrow?”  That’s not quite as bad as when I visited one of my former seminary students in his Nairobi parish, and as we were walking down the aisle in the processional, he suggested that I should preach.  But close.  It’s been a long day.

            We are enjoying a glass of wine at the time, and I am looking forward to another.  Instead I say “yes,” and I take my leave to make some sermon notes.

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            The Pentecost service, held in a schoolroom, is over, and some 30 or 40 of us - many from Francistown have come in solidarity - head over to the new plot, in Letlhakane, a nearby town where mahy who work in the mines live. 
            The property is already fenced, and Bishop Mwamba moves from one corner of the plot to another, marking the sign of the cross in the ground, and censing the area, and offering prayers – from the American Book of Common Prayer that Bishop Curry gave him on his first visit.  We sing “The Church’s One Foundation” as we go along.

            The Orapa congregation has three trees to plant, and Bishop Mwamba does the first two.  Then they turn to me.  “The third should be a ‘North Carolina’ tree,” someone says.

            I begin digging and strike rocks but no diamonds.  It’s an orange tree.  The task done, a young man comes over and waters it.

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