Part 2: Botswana Diary Update

I have received multiple invitations to the 80^th birthday celebrations of Mr. and Mrs. Mabuse, who were born within a week of one another.  Dean Mongezi Guma, who visited the Diocese of North Carolina with a youth group from Botswana awhile back, and I drive over.

            A large tent has been raised in the back yard, and a hundred or so people, many of them Anglicans, are seated around tables underneath.  A large number of helium-filled balloons dangle, trapped, within the tent.

            Dean Guma begins a talk about their lives well lived.  (Mrs. Mabuse has just earned a masters degree, so there are still new things for them to celebrate.)

As the Dean proceeds, a breeze comes wafting through the tent, and the blue and pink balloons see a means to escape.  Folk seem determined to give the Dean their attention, but our eyes nevertheless wander as the balloons move, as a group, toward the edge of the tent.  This phenomenon energizes the kids, who rush to the edge, waiting for balloon strings to come close enough for them to grab before the balloons find their freedom and drift upward into the blue sky. 

Dean Guma carries on.

            During a lull in the speech-giving, I find myself in their living room.  There are photos of the Mabuses as a young couple, just married, in Johannesburg in 1952.  They look so hopeful, as newly-weds are inclined to do.  I wonder what they were thinking then, as the apartheid regime, which came to power four years before, was tightening its grip over black South Africans.

            How do we sustain hope, as the Mabuses seem to have done for these many years since?

            Maybe by remembering. 

Mr. Mabuse answers a teasing question.  “I first kissed her,” he says definitively, “on April 22^nd, 1952.  Around 8:00 p.m.  We were near the Coronation Hospital,” where she was training as a nurse.

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            I am sitting on the porch after a busy day when a Gaborone radio station leaves its music and begins an interview with someone from Alliance Francaise – a French program found throughout the Global South, sort of like the British Council, the German’s Goethe Institute, and the old U.S. Information Agency libraries.

            She begins by saying, “As you know, the Alliance Francaise is the hub of Botswana’s culture.”  She has a charming accent.

            Still, I sigh.  I wonder what the San (who used to be known as the Bushmen of the Kalahari) have to say about where lies Botswana’s culture.

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            We travel the short distance to Kgolagano College, an ecumenical program that focuses primarily upon distance learning, what is often known in Africa as theological education by extension (TEE).  Rupert Hambira is the principal, and we sit down in his office.  Tea and sweet muffins soon appear.

            I first visited Kgolagano in 1988.  I was a seminarian with a small grant to visit grassroots theological education initiatives in southern and central Africa.  Kgolagano was seen as being cutting edge back then, a strong testimony to the emerging world of contextual theology.

            The place looks very much the same, but now there are fewer Anglican students and more from African-initiated churches.  Their tutors travel across the country, holding intensive classes before moving on to the next place, leaving behind resources and assignments, until next time.  The College still struggles with what recognition they are allowed to offer – certificate is all at the moment.  We talk about ways Kgolagano may assist the Diocese in ministerial formation.

            Toward the end I mention that back in 1988 Kgolagano arranged for me to spend a weekend with one of their students from what were then called African independent churches, historic breakaways from missionary control.  He was an older man, I say, in a rural area northwest of Francistown.  “Oh yes,” Rev. Hambira quickly responds.  “Moses Holonga.”  “Is he still alive?” I ask.  “Yes,” he answers.  “But old.  Very.”

            My mind takes me back to Mr. Holonga’s place, not even in a village, reached by following a track through scrub.  I remember deciding that I couldn’t make it through the night, so I took my flashlight, climbed out of my bed, left the small thatched house, and wandered out to a kraal where a herd of goats were penned.  It seemed the most appropriate spot.  I stood there, contributing to the goats’ own collection of waste.  Most were tolerant, although a couple bleated a small protest.  What I remember is looking up at an endless array of stars, stunningly pressing down upon me.  It made the night-time outing memorably worthwhile.

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            I buy a South African newspaper, and I spot a Sudoku puzzle inside.  But as I pick up my pen to give it a try, I notice that they use different terminology in their ratings of the degree of difficulty.  Today’s is rated “cruel.”  I put my pen back down.

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            We host our first workshop, Fr. Amanze and I, listening to clergy about their hopes and needs for theological education and ministerial formation in the Diocese of Botswana.

            We are located in the “Upper Room,” upstairs in the Cathedral, seated around tables, fifteen or so of us.  I begin with a meditation on 2 Timothy 2:15, the passage that led to my great Sword Drill victory at Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh in 1955.  “Study to show thyself,” the passage used to read.

            I draw out a chart as clergy introduce themselves, hoping to learn names as they speak.  If only they don’t sit at different places after lunch.

            For lunch we walk down the street to the YWCA, which operates a lunch room for whoever appears.  Today they have seswaa, boiled beef that is then pounded to a stringy consistency, served next to a pile of rice with a nice dab of gravy.  A bit on the fatty side, but I’m taking my cholesterol meds.

            Happily, the priests return to their same seats.

            Fr. Amanze asks what they do to continue to grow in the faith.  What do they study, do they read?  There is an awkward silence.  As with us – clergy and lay – some have more substantive answers than others.

            We want something to come from this, several remark at the end.  It should not stop here, they say.

            We’ll see.  We meet with lay leaders next week.  

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