CHAPTER 10

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URUNDI (I)
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A Playful Bridge—Ventriloquism And The Word Of God—More Beauty—Kitega
The Helpful Resident And Dusty Guide—The Bishop's Jiggers Upset Our Plans
A Wonderful Night Of Talk—The Conversion Of Urundi—Hard Labour—Early Rising
Ten Miles To Mass—Two Millions On The March To God—A Princess Does Her Bit
Bells—Crowded Roads—"Pray Ye The Lord Of The Halves"

We set out for Urundi, where a whole people is marching to God. It is not easy to enter this country. First you go up and up and up with the car sitting on its back. Then you go down and down and down with the car sliding on its nose. When it gets on to its four wheels there is a very shaky bridge saying, "Come on! I'll dare you to try to cross me!"

We dared, and the bridge squeaked and creaked and swung up and down. Underneath it was the wettest water I have ever seen, fairly glittering with expectation. The bridge knew what we were thinking, and it fairly shook with laughter. It was merely teasing us, for we got over it all right and told one another that we had not been nervous at all; anyone could see that the bridge was as strong as the Forth Bridge-nearly.

"Anyhow, it was a very useful trip," said our Brother-chauffeur. "Now we know that the engine is powerful — and that the brakes are good." Fine, so we shall not be nervous any more. A timely resolution, for up we went again into the clouds. I did not like it until I saw the view. If only we can get a good picture of it, I need never try to describe it.

We saw a signpost, "To the Quaker Mission," but we did not go there, much to my regret, for later in the day the Vicar-Apostolic told a priceless story of it. The minister, it appears, cannot speak the language of the people, and as only he who is moved by God may speak His word, that presents a very special difficulty. He has got over it, however, by attaching his wrist to his daughter's, and she, who knows the language, says words; but, of course, it is the minister who speaks through her mouth. I should have liked to have seen the man who is able to think of that. There are not many Quakers amongst the natives.

This journey was a fascinating experience. One long sequence of beautiful scenes, each more entrancing than the last. The 'hills, all green with their tree-topped crowns; the valleys with the fast-running streams; the cattle with their glorious, huge horns; the peasants; men with their spears, and women with pointed baskets on their heads, the noble class, the giant Bafutsi, six to seven feet tall, with their quaintly-trained hair, in their white robes, coloured with red and yellow decorations. The decorations were often a joy to us. Some of the men had big yellow rings printed on their white cloaks and within the ring in red, the letters "O.K." Some of the women had printed across the back of their cloth "MY DARLING" and one "MADE IN JAPAN."

We stopped at a mission for dinner, but we shall pass this way again, when I hope we shall have more time to look around. On then to Kitega and the Vicar-Apostolic.

We reached the "town" at sunset, and we asked a Belgian Official our way. He was the Resident. Most kind, he invited us to ask the Bishop to bring us back to him for the evening. An invitation we were reluctantly obliged to refuse. We have only one night to pass here, and it is with the Vicar-Apostolic that I want to talk.

The Resident increased our debt of gratitude by calling a chief and telling him to precede us in his car to the Mission, He did. He went like the wind and he was soon in clouds of dust. We stopped whenever the road became entirely invisible. Then, when the dust had fallen, the chief's car was out of sight. We made half-a-dozen guesses, mostly bad ones, but managed to reach the mission safe and sound. We shall have a lot to say about this day to our Guardian Angels when we meet them.

The usual rapturous welcome from the Fathers was surpassed only by that of my old friend of Carthage and student days, Mgr. Grauls, the Vicar-Apostolic. Presently he said, "When I left Belgium a friend gave me a bottle of . . . (Guess!) I still have it. Today is the day of all days to open it. What do you say?" I did not hear anyone say, "No thank you, My Lord." It had been a very long, very dusty, very thirsty, very tiring, fascinating day . . . "Oh! Thank you, My Lord. How good God is, and how kind His Bishops."


Kitega 13th August, 1938
The Vicar-Apostolic of Urundi is hobbling in bandages and carpet slippers. Jiggers, no respecters of persons, have been at his toes. He has not been long in Africa, and probably did not attach enough importance to the itching of his toes. He has had his toenails painfuIly drawn out.

Reflection: In Africa, watch the little beasts, the big ones take care of themselves.

The particular little jiggers that found a home in the Bishop's feet have been the cause of a complete change of plan for me. The Bishop was to have driven me round his Vicariate, while my companion returned to Rwenzori with the car which Bishop LaCoursiere kindly lent me. Now the jiggers have prevented Mgr. Grauls from driving his car, and there is no one else on hand to do so. Result: I must return to Rwenzori at once to deliver the car to Mgr. LaCoursiere by August 17th.

We decide, therefore, to begin the return journey tomorrow morning. We shall travel by long stages, and see something of Kivu and the Belgian Congo. I do not regret the change of plan, for although I shall see less of Urundi, I shall see enough to obtain a good personal knowledge of the Vicariate and, in addition, have a glimpse of the Congo.

Tonight the Vicar-Apostolic came to my room to talk. I count the conversation amongst the great moments of my life. He talked of the wonderful conversion of Urundi. Dead of night in the wilds; a thousand insects humming and hissing outside the open window; from time to time the throb of drums reached us from some distant village. Inside the room a simple camp-bed, a long chair and a bare table. From the whitewashed wall a large crucifix looked down on us.

The young Bishop, sitting on the bed, and leaning back against the wall, had his bandaged feet sticking out. Nothing could have been more prosaic, but the tale he told was thrilling. His predecessor, Mgr. Gorju, whom I had met in Uganda (as already told in this volume) had already given me much information about the wonders God is working in this country. Now Bishop Grauls completed the tale and brought it up-to-date.

A story of martyrdom and heroism; of suffering and labour; of organisation and grace, which has brought a whole people to the heart of Christ.

The first missionaries were shot down by the arrows of the barbarous Barundi; their successors paid an immense price in suffering for the souls of this people, and those actually in the Vicariate are paying, as I bear-witness, no less a price in intense labour. Some of these missionaries rise at half-past three in the morning in order to say their breviary and their Rosary and get some necessary writing done before Meditation which is at five-fifteen, so as to be free to be "eaten" by the natives for the rest of the day.

The Bishop spoke of natives in their thousands who make and carry the bricks necessary for the many buildings which are rising like magic from the ground in every mission of the Vicariate and in many new spots as well; natives, who, because the great number of sick calls was threatening to disorgahise the work of the missions, carry their sick to the churches to receive the last Sacraments; nine hundred catechists who, better educated than the great majority of their people, condemn, themselves to a life of labour and poverty in order to serve the missions.

He told of three hundred thousand baptisms in something like six years, after fifty years of struggle against paganism and the opposition of chiefs.

Of chiefs, practically all of them, who seeing themselves outdistanced in the race for all things really worthwhile by their peasants, after struggling in vain to prevent the triumph of Christianity have surrendered at last to the Galilean.

Of Christians who, when asked to bring more pagans to instruction, brought so many thousands in a fortnight that the Bishop was obliged to forbid them to bring any more.

Of groups of villages with five and six thousand Christians who walk every Sunday ten miles to hear Mass and then write pitiful letters to the Vicar-Apostolic, begging him to send them priests; for "we got to the church which was already full and, "how can we ever hope to get near the confessional in a mission where there are already ten thousand people living on the spot?" Heartbreaking letters.

"And now," said the Vicar-Apostolic, "I have been obliged to add six months to the four years' course of instruction preceding baptism to slow up this mass movement of conversions which is flooding the missions and threatens to drown us all. I have just received notice that eight new missionaries are on their way from Europe. Eight! God help me. I need eighty!"

All this made up a story more thrilling than any fiction; more wonderful than the story of the conversion of the Greco-Roman world. A whole people of two million souls marching to God.

14th August 1938
Reflection: Is Africa receiving the graces which Europe is rejecting?

After breakfast this morning, Bishop Grauls, in spite of our protests, insisted upon showing us round the mission of Kitega. The natives threw amazed glances at him. "They are not accustomed to seeing me with bare feet," he explained.

We saw the marvels that we must now call the usual sights." Hundreds of people at both Masses receiving Holy Communion (an ordinary weekday) thousands receiving instruction, hundreds carrying bricks for the new Teachers' Training School. Amongst these brick carriers were a hundred young girls and each bore sixteen full-sized bricks on her head.

One was a little princess (i.e. a Chief's daughter; all the Chiefs are "princes") who wished to do her share of the work to help the church. Sixteen bricks were piled by another girl on this delicate head that had never carried anything before. As the pile of bricks rose so the girl's knees descended until she collapsed with bricks all round her. "Oh!" said she, "When you put on the last bricks I thought my head was going into my stomach."

The church bells rang out (yes, bells from Belgium!), and the church was soon full — but not for a service — only for confessions. At half-past-ten we said farewell to his Lordship and left him entering the church to take his place in the "box."

All along the road we passed groups of natives who were on their way to the mission. Tomorrow some twenty thousand will have assembled to honour Our Blessed Lady. Happy, happy, country! It is God's if the number of missionaries, grows more rapidly year by year. If not, what is to happen to this people? They must fall into the new paganism imported from Europe, for the ancient paganism has received its death blow. "Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the harvest."

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