CHAPTER 4

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ENTEBBE TO KATIGONDO
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A Pig In A Poke Or A Leap In The Dark— The Use Of Altar Candles
The Car Jumps On— Katende And Father Robin— Mitale Maria And Some Pillars
Banana Wine And A Siesta— Overworked Missionaries— On The Equator— Nkozi
Bukulula And Native Priests— Tea (?)— A Bat-Catcher— Men From Ruanda— Villa Maria

4th April, 1935
Today, Father Manceau, the Regional, Superior drove me to Villa Maria.

The car looks like a pig in a poke or a leap in the dark. It has wheels, looks tinny in front and has a kind of wide coffin without a lid at the back. The coffin should be useful. The Regional Superior is at the wheel. He is responsible for the well-being of his subjects. I am his subject. I trust that he is conscientious.

Experts the world over have helped to make the car what it is (whatever that might be). It began in the Ford Works at Detroit, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and did service in England, found itself in East Africa and since then it has received the care of the Rolls-Royce Company in the shape of a nut in its bonnet; Vauxhall Motors have provided a new carburettor; Austins supplied a box, body (the coffin at the back); Morris Motors presented a petrol pipe. A part of the engine, of which no one appears to know the name, was picked up from the road one night down in the Congo, and a "man" fixed a Fiat axle to get home with. The bit of wire holding together the steering apparatus came from a barbed wire entanglement in front of the Belgian trenches out here during the Great War. There were various other parts used in this car. I may not have all the details right, but there is hardly a known car in Africa which has not co-operated in making this one what it is today What is it? Certainly something to be proud of.

However, it had only to take me eighty odd miles (and very odd they were) to Villa Maria. I said Mass in the dark, the only illumination being the two candles on the altar. It was not until I reached the Equator that I realised that candles on the altar could serve a useful purpose as well as a liturgical one, and one thought immediately of the catacombs.

My Superior companion touched something in the car and it let out a whizz. "Hold tight," he said "it sometimes starts suddenly." The whizz was followed by a clang and a clatter; there came a roar which was an uproar, and, as though anyone within two miles could be unaware of our whereabouts, the tonker was tonked and it gave out the blastiest blast ever heard on earth. Small totos (boys) came running from all directions, hens scattered far and wide as, amidst pandemonium, we jumped through the gate into the road. We jumped because someone (never blame your superiors) had forgotten to take off the handbrake.

Rending the air we sped forward followed by the clouds of red dust to which I am now well accustomed. I almost forgot the car in the entrancing beauty of the morning. Over green hills, through banana plantations, along narrow lanes, past lines of wooden shacks that is the "town" of Mbale, we moved on to the Mission of Katende with its red-tiled buildings and fatherly Superior. Father Robin is a veteran and a very comfortable, man. With his white hair and the luxurious beard reaching his waist he would make the best natural Father Christmas that ever was. Full of wisdom and kindness, he radiates smooth efficiency and energy. 'You feel that whatever is done will be done well and without jerks, according to plan. He needs a plan with his sixteen thousand Christians and a district of some thirty miles radius. He took us downstairs under the ground to the dining-room—actually found a bottle of wine (trust a Frenchman to do that) and bade us welcome in a way that made me feel I was the King of England and he the President of France. That was done in the simplest manner in the world. Father Robin makes every poor tramp of a native feel that he a man, and when baptised more than a man, a Son of God. And how he loves his people. Well here he is for the last thirty-five years, and here he dearly hopes to leave his bones, but his culture is that of a Parisian of the best kind in Paris, au courant with everything worthwhile in the world.

We left him stroking gently his gorgeous beard on verandah, and we went on our incongruous way,
feeling that it was time we settled down to serious things. Our next call was at Mitale Maria with the amazing church. It appears to be one hundred yards long and it is held up by a forest of enormous, villainous pillars. Dreadful beyond words. An explanation was forthcoming immediately after the Superior had seen my face. It is like the story of the three little pigs. This is the third church built on this site. The other two fell down under the power of the wind (or as some say, of Satan). The Vicar-Apostolic, choosing the windy explanation, decided to put a full stop to this falling about of churches. Hence the mighty pillars.

There were three old missionaries at Mitale Maria. I beg their pardon. Two have been out here for more than forty years, but are as young and as gay as youth can be. The Superior had suffered a heart attack during the night and had been spitting blood, so we took him forty miles to see the nearest doctor. This does sound like "darkest Africa."

Our welcome was as boisterous as one would expect from such young old boys. The welcome included banana wine at lunch and a room in which to take a siesta. Two hours later I thought a thunderstorm had broken over my head. Why did they awaken me? How I needed that sleep—or was it the banana wine?

This is a very large mission and one of the oldest in the country. There are some sixteen thousand Catholics in its district—but only three priests with a fourth promised "as soon as it is possible." One Father took a flower and pulled off petals, saying "This year? Next year? Some year?" and with the last, "Never! The trouble with the Superior is that he is overworked and has been so for forty years." That would make not a bad epitaph for a Saint.*

*The Superior of this Mission fell very ill again in 1939. He was taken by car again to the capital and died on the way. A perfect missionary rests at last.


We linger not at Mitale Maria, but I shall come back to dig deep into the three treasures of missionary experience who are the staff of this fine mission. We were on a hill, the car ran off and so had a good start. Twelve miles and we were under the Equator, i.e. a board marked SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE — NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. Father Regional refused to sit under it to be photographed. "I am not a tourist." But did I mind? I sat down myself and he tried to take the photograph.

Three miles at right angles to the "Equatorial Indication Board" (My!) stands the jewel of a mission called Nkozi. Jewel is the right word. It looks like a ruby set in palms. We passed it by, to come back another day, and sped on (Father Regional still thinks the car is hurrying) to Bukulula.

We went into a huge, new, red-brick church, after admiring the fine steeple. The altar appeared to be in stone and of very lovely design. It is of cement-covered brick but a credit to the brother who made it. Three native priests knelt in the sanctuary reading their breviaries.

They joined us outside. The Superior, a colossus of a man with a very priestly face, spoke to me in English. His quiet dignity and courtly manners calmed my nerves after the violence of the car. The house is furnished in European style (The White Fathers have only lately left it), but it has the stamp of poverty and cleanliness. We gladly accepted the proffered tea. "Sorry, no bread, Father; have a banana?" said the Superior, and a moment later, "Sorry, no milk, Father; but the tea is not strong." Side lights on the priests' scale of living.

I saw here an ingenious device for catching bats. A net hung round the eaves of the house and dropped down at night. When the bats swoop to what they fondly think is home, being blind, they swoop into the net and hang by the leg until they are dead. There were hundreds doing so this afternoon. This morning's execution.

We continued our bouncing way across a hot plain for seven, hot, weary miles. Hundreds of natives from Ruanda stretched out in single file, each carrying a load on his head. It is said that over a thousand men a day come into Uganda to find work, which is plentiful here, but scarce in Ruanda. Others say that wages are much higher in British territory, and the men more free to choose what work they will do. After a year or two the men return to their homes and remain there until more money is needed. A very large number of the men we saw are Catholics, as testified by the rosaries which hung round their necks. Once, when the car stopped, we were surrounded by forty or fifty of these who knelt down and asked for a blessing.

There was only one woman amongst them, and as my companion pointed out, therein lies an evil. Many of' these men are married; their wives remain at home with the children. That is good neither for the husband nor the wife.

It must be said, however, that these men from Ruanda practise their religion when away from home, and those who are still catechumens go on with their instruction in Uganda, as soon as they can understand the language of this country.

After the plain, the mountains; small ones covered with luxurious foliage, and the car went over them all. Then we drove through what appeared to be three miles of banana plantation, for banana trees were all we could see. "This," said the Regional Superior, "is Villa Maria, and you will need some days to see all that is to be seen here."
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