This week started with my final assembly. Mari and I arrived early to catch the choir and confirm it was OK for us to sing. This meant we were able to attend an impromptu choir practice at the side of the hall, and I was also able to catch Johanni and ask him to write out for me the Chichewa translation of “Thank you for making me feel so welcome. I hope I can come and visit you again one day”.
Mari and I sat with the choir, instead of in our usual place with the other volunteers. As a result it was difficult to hear the rest of the JP2 contribution to assembly, as the students had obviously not been trained for reading in large halls! (Unlike Mari and me, who, as children, were prepared for reading in church by being made to stand at the top of the stairs, and project our voices to the end of the hall. It wasn’t actually a very long hall, but it obviously worked, as people used to comment that they always liked it when the Jones children read in church, as you could actually hear them!).
Father John then lead the meditation, which was sung in Chichewa, and delivered a reflection, in Chichewa and English, which included the story about the children who ask each of their parents where they come from. Their father replies “from the monkeys” and their mother “ from God”, and when they challenge this inconsistency, the mother explains it by saying, “Your father comes from the monkeys, and I come from God”. This was left without comment, other than that it is down to choice whether you come from monkeys or God, and the subject provoked some debate in the following day or two (which, come to think of it, was probably the point!).
After this it was time for our two songs which Linda obligingly videoed for me, so I have a permanent record of my sister and myself singing with the construction choir.
(It will probably come as a surprise to some how much I have enjoyed singing about Jesus, given my lack of religious belief. It no doubt helped that the first song I learnt was in Chichewa, but as I commented in the blog entry about my first visit to the choir, the words for Jesus and Halleluya were easily identifiable, so I wasn’t under any illusions. And the second song was in English, so Mari and I had been singing away all weekend, on and off, about how “Jesus makes everything right”! I think it’s probably something to do with the combination of music and shared acts of celebration or worship that appeal to something other than my rational mind. I have also noticed that in assembly I really enjoyed the sung meditations, and the reflections in Chichewa, even though - or perhaps partly because - I couldn’t understand the words.
It has been interesting as well to be in a country where the vast majority of people have a religious faith. I have kept quiet, for the most part, about my own position. This is partly because I just wanted to experience things as they happened, without making myself, or my unusual position, the centre of attention, or allowing it to interfere with my ability to connect with what was going on around me. So I have sung religious songs, and bowed my head for prayer at the end of choir practice and when the lunch was being blessed at college. I have managed to deflect several invitations to lead prayer myself by deferring to others, as this felt a step too far for me, with one notable exception – of which more later!)
After the singing, Peter, the MD of Beehive, did a little farewell speech for me (also captured on video), and I made my little farewell speech in Chichewa. Peter was very flattering about me, and said I was welcome to go back any time!
Father John came up to me after assembly and said he had been inspired by the choir, and in particular its ecumenical nature, and was thinking about exploring the possibility of working with them to make a CD or DVD of religious songs. We agreed that Mari and I would take him to choir practice at lunch time, so he could talk to them about it. At this point nothing further was said about a trip to the parish, so Mari and I went off to Blantyre to do some shopping for the children’s centre in an amazing fabric shop. I also ordered a Malawi international football shirt for Martin, with his name and number on the back, and we ended up at the Mount Soche hotel for coffee, before heading back in time for our date with the choir.
We found Father John in debate with Hugh over lunch about the monkey story. We managed to drag him away, and introduced him to the choir, to whom he explained his idea. I didn’t understand what he said, as it was in Chichewa, but the smiling faces and a couple of outbursts of applause suggested that they were happy with his idea, and it was agreed that they would discuss it further. On the way back to JP2, Father John renewed the invitation to visit the parish, and we agreed to do so the next day, if his, and Mari’s, schedules allowed.
Later in the day we also paid a visit to Father John’s spare room, which he has converted to a small chapel, so that he has an area for prayer and meditation while he is living at Mitsidi. He also described his morning routine, which involves not only prayer and reflection before breakfast, but also dancing, which conjured up a rather wonderful image. He is an interesting man; very easy to talk too, and entertaining company.
This was confirmed on Tuesday, when he took us on the promised trip to the tea plantation, and to visit a number of places in his parish. It was a day of contrasts – we started in the beautiful house of the woman whose car he borrowed to take us, who is a wealthy benefactor who has built several churches and chapels in Malawi, as far as I could gather, and included lunch with a village family who are subsistence farmers, and had a cow, two pigs, several chickens and a dog in the back yard. In between we visited several brothers from Father John’s order, and one of the tea factories, where they also process macadamia nuts.
The tea plantations presented yet another different view of Malawi – vast expanses of bright green tea plants, with acacia trees planted amongst them, and every so often groups of pickers with big baskets on their backs, so that both hands are free, rather like the pictures I remember from the PG Tips packets when we were small. We couldn’t see round the factory itself, as our visit was unscheduled, but we spent some time with one of the managers (I think) of the factory, who is a good friend of Father John. The building in which he works must date from the 1930s I think, and it appeared that the furnishings did too – it was like an office from a 2nd World War film.
Lunch was the highlight of the day. We drove off down a dirt track and into a village, and stopped in a very well-kept garden, outside a small house. Father John seemed equally at home here as in the big house where we had started our journey, and equally at ease with both sets of people – and both sets of people seemed equally pleased to see him. We were ushered into the house, and served cold drinks. We sat and chatted for a while to the two sisters who live there with their children, before being served with a delicious lunch of chicken, pork (the Father’s favourite apparently!), rice, peas and a leafy green vegetable. Before lunch Catherine offered us water to wash our hands, and then Father John invited me to say grace. In the circumstances it would have felt awkward and churlish to refuse, so I drew on childhood memories to find something suitable, and expressed the genuine feeling I had of gratitude, both for the food, and for the opportunity to meet people I would certainly not have met otherwise.
We could not linger long, as Father John had a meeting at 4, so we took some photos of us with the family, and then set off back to Limbe, to return the car, stopping briefly at the parish house, to meet another brother. It turned out, due to a misunderstanding, he had made us lunch as well! Father John checked all the dishes, and took the pork with him for later, so at least it didn’t all go to waste!
We made the journey back in excellent time, stopped for a quick cup of tea, and then Father John’s friend drove us back to Beehive, partly by way of the President’s jacaranda-lined avenue, which is gloriously purple at the moment.
Mari and I went back to Mitsidi to prepare for our evening, as we had agreed to go out for dinner with some of the other volunteers, to the Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre – dead posh! It was a lovely evening, with very nice food. We travelled over with 8 of us in the blue pick-up – boys in the back. When we dropped them off in Chilomoni, they all queued up to give me a hug goodbye.
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