CHAPTER 8

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RUANDA (11)
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Some "Don'ts" For Africa Which We Did—Fifty Miles To The Dentist—The King Of Ruanda
Issavi—Father "Zut Alors"—Father Prentice Plays An Organ—A Native Dance
Noviciate Of Native Sisters—Beer And Joy—A Triumphant Procession

And so to the mountains. Soon it is pitch dark and I do not like it. A wrong turning and BUMP! In a ditch. Bump! In a field. Stop! I got out. Safety first. The car was then got out. I got in. All's well. Up another mountain and here we are at Nyanja.

Another "Don't" for Africa. Don't arrive, if you are a party of four, at a Mission after dark I You will be a confounded nuisance. We were, but Father Superior yelled with delight. "What a surprise! What a joy! Thank you for coming]" Nice man!

We fished a camp-bed out of the car; other beds were found or made out of nothing. Lamps were discovered and lit, wash-basins were improvised, food was created too and eaten, and tongues wagged and the rafters rang with the joy of priests meeting in the wilds.

The coughing of a motor-bicycle told us of the return of the assistant priest. He looked ill. He had been fifty miles to a dentist after a week of toothache. The dentist broke the tooth. In agony the priest had ridden back the fifty miles. The misery of toothache on the missions! Another trifle one does not think of in advance. He was given hot milk and aspirin and put protestingly to bed. "But, I must talk with the fathers; they will find find us so rude. Besides I want to hear about Uganda."

We knew that Father Superior had a heavy day in front of him tomorrow, but he would not go to bed. He knew that we have to make an early start in the morning, but wanted to lose not a minute of this precious visit from outside. To us it was more than worth a late night. It is in these intimate conversations that one learns of Africa and the soul of its people.

The King of Ruanda lives in this mission district. He is a catechumen. That sounds fine, but there is a complication. He is married and has no son. Nor is there, it seems, much hope of his wife presenting him with one. A king with no son, according to immemorial custom which makes native law, takes another wife and puts away the childless one. The king will need much more than ordinary strength, faith and virtue to break this chain of the past. In the meantime he has to wait for baptism until the Vicar-Apostolic can feel sure of his perseverance. A Henry VIII in Ruanda is definitely undesirable.

0, dear! It is very late. It is very, very close, and I am very, very, very tired. This room was not meant to be slept in and so the windows have no netting. To open a window means "Enter mosquito," and mosquito means fever. I decide to undress, put out the light, open the window, dash for the bed and hide under the mosquito-net.

12th August, 1938
Senior Seminary of Ruanda-Urundi
To bed I went, but not to sleep for what seemed to be a week. I wish I had not already made that remark about the North Pole; it is even more suitable here. Up before five, breviary said and Holy Mass offered, we were off with the rising of the sun to Issavi Mission. I felt like a chloroformed mosquito; waspish but torpid. I regained consciousness and sweetness at the sight of
Father Z . . . (Cannot remember how to spell his name; at the Scholasticate of Carthage, we used to call him Father "Zut alors," as the French say). Twelve years have changed him from a fresh young student into a venerable Superior with a lined face, parchment skin and supernatural wisdom.

In the big church we spied a very small, but real organ with real pipes! Incredible! A benefactor sent it from Europe and also paid the postage. Father Prentice came to it, looked at it and was conquered. He sat down and coaxed it. The church was presently filled with wonderful music. I closed my eyes and was transported to Westminster Cathedral.

Natives in the church gave up praying to turn and stare with big white eyes and, round, open mouths. Natives outside the church came running inside, and even a Father left his work to rush to see what magician was at work in the church. Was Father Prentice happy? To see his eyes was worth all the tremblings on mountain-flanks.

Who but an artist can fully appreciate the joy of an organist on playing an organ after long years of deprivation? Another missionary sacrifice not often thought of.

The music faded away and I opened my eyes. We must push on, but I am very sorry. If one could only touch a magic button and produce an organ to present to Father Prentice at Katigondo Seminary, in Uganda, where for thirty years he has worked such wonders with a harmonium. Vain dream. . . But consoling thought of what glorious music he will enjoy in Heaven; God anyhow will appreciate the artist-missionary's sacrifice.

In the courtyard a group of natives danced for us a dance such as I had never hoped to see. Swaying, skipping, sweeping figures,in white, red and gold with flowing head-plumes. A hundred movements executed without a flaw. The enthusiasm and vigour of the dance were astounding. I stood entranced. Then wishing to convey to friends at home some idea of the joy of this dance I took snapshots. (left)

We went to the schools and the convent and all the rest; wide awake now and alert to appreciate without ever tiring of it, the wonders that missionary enterprise has accomplished in this little country of Ruanda.

What did we see? I turn back the pages of my diary, and read what I have written of Kapgaye and other places, and realise that the same marvels are taking place all over this section of the once -dark continent.

The soul of Africa is awake. Thank God! Its sleep had been so long and so deep.

Ten miles on an excellent road with no mountains to cross brought us to the Noviciate of Native Sisters. As we entered a wide gate, Father Prentice whispered "We have come to the wrong place. Look! there are Seminarists here." I looked and saw people in white habits, white capes and boys' heads without veils. But they were not boys; merely Novices, and girls, at that. We told the Superior of our surprise and she explained that the Vicar-Apostolic, Mgr. Classe, would not have Novices in veils. Later the Bishop himself told me that as a large percentage of these Novices leave before profession, he finds it preferable for Novices to "take the veil" only at their profession to avoid any unpleasant "spoiled nun" impressions to arise in the minds of the people. The natives of Ruanda attach tremendous importance to exterior signs, and they understand better that a Novice is merely on "trial" if she does not take the veil of the religious life.

We told the Novices too what we thought they looked like, but being Novices they forebore telling us what they thought about our appearance.

Built in red brick, and forming the four sides of square enclosing a flower garden, the Noviciate is very pleasing. The cleanliness of the place is almost frightening. Surely those milk-white floors were not meant to be walked on except by angels' feet . . .
Angels and White Sisters and Black Sisters. Yes, all these may walk in pure white places.

It was still early morning and work-time, Novices were scrubbing floors . . . what for? I cannot tell unless it were in imitation of the Novice whom Saint Benedict sent to water a walking stick. They were then, scrubbing floors and tables, washing clothes, mending things, rubbing two stones together to crush maize between them into the finest flour, sweeping dustless corridors (I watched one Novice conscientiously gather nothing into a dust-pan), weeding gardens and keeping absolute silence.

At our departure, Mother Superior (her brother was the Auxiliary Bishop of Carthage, an acquaintance of my own—nice to talk of the beloved absent out in the wilds) gathered together her community near Our Lady's Grotto in the lovely garden. I wanted a photograph, and I asked the Novices to look "natural," with the result—as usual, of a group of solemn owls. Dreadful!

A blessing, good-byes, and on our way, with a halt at a reception room and home-brewed beer made of who knows what but monstrous good and cold on that very hot morning.

We faced more roads and more mountains and more heat without a tremor and full of joy. That does read as though the beer were as strong as it was good, but I was thinking of the good and strong work of God which we had just been privileged to see.

There are now sixty professed native nuns in Ruanda, so that, with the goodly number of happy Novices we saw, the future of this congregation seems well assured.

At many a mission we saw these admirable Black Sisters, teaching in the schools, praying before the Blessed Sacrament in their own little, homely convents, living lives of perfection, objects of veneration for all the people.

When a little group of them went to establish a convent at Kansi the Christians went ten miles to meet them and carried them in triumphal hammocks to the mission. The procession was a mile long, and voices and arms were raised in tumultuous acclamations of joy.

Yes, I am returning home, truly sorry to leave Africa, but "rejoicing and glorifying God, for the things that I have seen."

And now for Astrida, the place of which we have heard so much, but can anything be better than the places we have already seen?

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