CHAPTER 11

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URUNDI (II)
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Bad Staff Work—The Story Of A Dinner—A Sly Bet—The King's Kraal
Crowds And Organisation—Red Tape And A Dispensary—"Sister Fever" Calls—Our Lady's Day
A Native Gets A Ducking—A Very On Way-Street—Better Late Than Never—Savages
Rambura — Excelsior — Cold — A Fireside — Two Murders—Father Greta Garbo
Lake Kivu—The Saucer-Lipped Women — Cannibals — Rulenga The Gorilla Mission
Lutari—The Missionary`s Joys—Mutolere Again And A Bath

14th August 1938
Bad staff work today. We reckoned the time to cover forty mountain miles as forty straight road miles, and were still climbing the mountain to reach Bukeye Mission while the staff there were eating their lunch. We deserved kicking, but received joyous hugs, food and drink hastily dug out from Who—knows—where.

On the way up the hill, Father Nicolet, who was our guide, made a sly bet with me. "I will bet you an orange that I know what the Fathers will be having for lunch."

That seemed a safe bet for me, but Father Nicolet won. He knew, what I did not, that the Superior's name was Canonica and, of course, there was macaroni for lunch. We had an omelette; eggs are twelve for a ham here, but Father Canonica grumbled about the high prices.

After lunch I strolled around the mission and dreamed. On this very spot stood the residence of the old pagan kings. Here were held the vile festivities of old, and in the trees around the mission it was thought there dwelt the spirits of departed kings. Here in 1915 the king and his brother killed each other.

The pagan king's kraal was pulled down, and in front of the old entrance to it you can see twenty-four royal drums rotting; drums that announced the ancient pagan rites.

Today the king is a Catholic catechumen and his queen is baptised, as are their children, and other drums summon the twenty thousand Catholics of the district to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered in the "kraal" of the King of Kings, who sends out blessings instead of curses from what was once the very centre of Satan's domain in Urundi.

At three o'clock we set off again and were soon once more entranced by the beauties of these mountains, the fast-moving streams, the blue of the sky and the golden air. Across the hills we soon spied out the mission of Katara, but it was long before the wrong road brought us there to our night's repose.

The first person I met was a priest with whom I had studied at Carthage. Ten years ago he was twenty-five and almost a boy-like priest. Africa has not treated him well. He is just over two serious operations, but looks as though he were not over them. I suggested that perhaps a complete rest would put him right. "No," he answered, "I am getting stronger now. You see, this is a big mission, and if I were to go away—well, the Bishop has no one to send here. The other Fathers would have still more to do."

And I am on my way home!

I walked round the great mission with the Superior and my old time friend, and saw the usual signs of a people being converted "en masse." Buildings going up, thousands of men and women, more children in the schools and the little "savages" just arrived from the bush to prepare for the sacraments. We saw, also, the usual calm, methodic, ceaseless labour of the priests. Every duty has its time, and every moment has its duty. But for this organisation, and fidelity to the timetable, I am sure that within a week there would be chaos. One can have no idea of what these mass conversions mean in labour until one sees with one's own eyes mission after mission flooded with people eager for God.

One was ashamed to take a minute of the time of even one of these tired over-worked priests. I begged to be allowed to walk around on my own, but they answered "it is good to see you, Father, and a rest for us."

'But," I protested, "I know that the time you give me will be taken from your sleep. "What's an hour more or less?" said the Superior and walked on with me.

As we approached the White Sisters' convent, the mother Superior hurried towards us. A message had been sent that some Fathers from Uganda were coming to see her. So she came to ask: "How is my cousin, Sister X?"

Now Sister X. was the Principal of the Teacher Training School in Uganda who had been killed in the motor accident. Once again I had to tell the sad story. Some news, after all, travels slowly in the bush.

I found a White Sister in a large dispensary writing out tickets and filling in forms. Hundreds and hundreds of forms. It appears that the Government, who supply the medicines, demand an exact account of what is given to each patient, and as the patients run into many hundreds a day that poor sister spends her evening filling in forms. It is little short of torture. I felt suddenly very angry with all Government officials. But "Sister Fever" is paying me a visit and she always makes me irritable.

As well as all the other establishments to which I have become accustomed in every mission we visit, there is at Katara a delightful boarding school for the little daughters of chiefs. These nice girls with their sad eyes followed us everywhere, seemingly never tired of staring at these strange beings who had come all the way from Uganda to see them.

We spent a happy evening with the Fathers of the mission. Half-an-hour for supper with home-made cheese and fruit with mission coffee to drink, and half-an-hour to smoke a pipe before the Superior excused himself. "I must just get some registers up to date: otherwise they will never be done," said he. I went with him to his room. There were hundreds of names (and notes to make against each name) to be transcribed from his "bush notebook" to the mission registers. Then he had instructions for the next day to prepare before he could go to his little camp-bed.


15th August 1938
I was up long before the dawn this morning, but the mission staff were already in the church, and people were arriving for Mass, an hour or more before the time.

As the sun rose over the mountains we set off. "Sister Fever". had not gone: in fact, she was pressing her attentions more closely upon me. This is the 15th of August, and a day of triumph for Our Lady of Urundi. The hillsides near the missions we passed were decorated with flags, and masses of people were coming down hills and going up other hills to the churches. Here we took part for an hour in a procession of some sixty thousand people. There we were in time for the end of a Mass, but could not enter the church, for even the sanctuary was crowded to the altar steps, and there were more people outside the church, praying together with those inside.

We crossed a wide river today on an antique hand-pulled ferry. I saw a big native take off his Kanzu, wrap up in it very carefully a packet of cigarettes; fix the parcel round his head and prepare to step into the river to pull the wire. He slipped and I think he swore. Anyhow, he said a good deal to console himself for the lost cigarettes and wet clothing.

The car had to be driven on to the ferry over very narrow and precarious looking planks. To my eternal surprise it did not go into the river. We made a very early start this morning, so, of course, we took the wrong turning. Once on the wrong road we were immediately aware of it, but there was no turning back for a long time. The road was a track up a mountain side with room, and only just room, for one car. What we should have done had a car come in the other direction ? I do not know. Nobody knows. I think the cars would have stopped, faced each other and gone on facing each other until the end of the world.

In places the track has been built up with stones to unite two bits of mountain, and we had the pleasure of looking down at two precipices yawning beneath us instead of one. And all the time we were conscious of the fact that we had no business there at all. Wasted heroism!

After twenty minutes by my watch and twenty years off my life, we reached a mining camp, turned the car and descended ignominiously before a crowd of smiling natives who were no doubt confirmed in the universal opinion that all Englishmen are mad.

Once on the ground floor, we turned left and went racing along a fine road with a happy, smiling stream on our right. Suddenly, on turning a corner we were met by a boy who was waving his arms frantically. Brakes . . . slither . . . stop.

Under our very noses there was a huge hole in the road. Decidedly better to be slow and late than never. Off again and soon up and up into the clouds. Down and up, up and down again. We had lunch by the roadside after a wash in a stream. We are well into the heart of Africa now, as witness the very scantily dressed natives who come down the hillsides to stare at us fearfully. As we made a few steps towards them they fled. We won their confidence at length by proffering food, and eventually they crowded round us. They were, of course, pagans, but this is the first time in Africa that I have met natives who did not at first sight acclaim White Fathers as old friends.

Off again, but the shivers over my body and the ledge-hammer in my head did not add to the interest of the journey nor the beauty of the scene. I can remember, tonight, lots of mountains, black faces, bearded White Fathers, cattle with terrifying horns, drums, dances, and a train rushing through my head from back to front, then jumping backwards over a mountain to start again its forward dash. We crossed the border into Ruanda, and at length the car stopped.

The mission-of RAMBURA was above us at the top of a mountain, along the side of which ran the road. The road was, however, running the wrong way, and to reach the mission we were obliged to turn the car by backing on to the precipice. A thing everybody. knows that you must not do under any circumstances whatsoever. I directed the manoeuvre from the safety of the road, praying that nothing would prevent the brakes from acting in an orderly and sensible manner. Nothing did. But, once on the steep upgrade of the mission road, our Brother-chauffeur did not stop for me. I made my weary way up the hill, foolishly humming "Excelsior," and I was feeling very sorry indeed for myself when at last I reached the mission, a warm welcome, a wash, a drink, quinine and an armchair near the fire. The first fireside I have seen for four years. Sweet memories of home.

This is the highest mission in Ruanda, and that is saying a good deal, so that it is exceedingly cold, here tonight. We had a long talk round that reminder of home, although I should, perhaps, have done better to go to bed.

But the "bed-time stories" were too good to be missed. The people of this region, said the Regional Superior, are the hard type of mountain-men. . They were opposed to religion and fought it at first, tooth and nail. A White Father once sent envoys of peace to them and one of the envoys was killed. So the priest went himself, only to meet the same fate.

Now, little by little, the people are coming into the peace of Christ. Once converted, these warriors make good Christians, as is to be expected of a hardy race.

I lay awake thinking of the story of the conversion of Africa. What tales of undaunted heroism I have heard, yet I am inclined to think that little in the past, although much was more spectacular, surpasses the heroism of the present missionaries of Ruanda and Urundi, who toil on, without hope of rest, to gather into heaven the multitudes I have seen with my own eyes who are calling to them incessantly for help.

I shivered through the night with fever.

16th August 1938
I am very unpopular with my travelling companions. My latest nickname is Father Greta Garbo. I thoroughly deserve it for saying to every objection to my suggested change of plan, "I think I shall go home."

We had planned to drive today through what is claimed to be some of the world's finest scenery, along the newly-finished tourist road. We should have gone up to the volcanoes of Kivu-Ruanda. There we should have visited some intensely interesting missions, too, and we should have spent the night in the car, looking at lions in the Great National Park of the Congo.

I am ashamed to say that owing to the persistence of "Sister Fever," I lost all interest in Africa. In vain did Father Nicolet describe the wonders we should see; active volcanoes left me passive; roaring lions left me apathetic, and glorious mountains only made me feel more sick.

I am, therefore, writing this in British Territory, waiting for a "boy" to fill my bath with hot water.

On rising I knew that I was down and out, and the car's nose was directed towards the border of Rwenzori. We stopped at Nyondo, where I met Father Pages, who is famous in this part of the world. It is said that his knowledge of this country and of its peoples is unsurpassed by any living man. But I was hopeless. We walked through thousands and thousands of people at the mission, and went over to the school, said "How do you do," to the White Sisters and then, "Home, Brother, home."

Father Nicolet made a further attempt to revive me later in the morning, as in the distance we saw the volcanoes. "It will be a crime which you will regret for the rest of your life to pass them by," said he. I answered that it was very unlikely that I should have any "rest of my life."

But presently when the car broke through a gap in the mountains and the glory of Lake Kivu burst into view, I did sit up and take notice. Our Brother chauffeur bathed in its cool, blue waters, and how I envied him. Father Nicolet then truly believed that I was ill. Whoever heard of an Englishman missing the opportunity of taking a bath? He gave me vermouth to drink. That merely made heavier the sledge-hammer in my head, and the fire in my blood hotter.

At Bubira there are the women who are-called the "saucer-lips" or the "plate-lips." They have, fixed into the upper lip, a large piece of flat wood, like a plate. Father Nicolet, who certainly knows, told me that the origin of this, at first sight, barbarous practice, goes back to the dreadful days of the slave trade. The slave-drivers raided this country and carried off many women, but those who remained disfigured themselves in this way to escape a like fate.

We saw some of the Bahunde people. When the missionaries first arrived here they found that the people were cannibals, and in consequence the tribe was fast disappearing. Their cannibalism also has its roots, again according to the knowledgable Father Nicolet, in the slave-trade. The villages were raided by the Arabs, and the people were taken by surprise. When, however, the raiders returned to complete their cruel work, the people, were ready for them. Four Arabs were captured, and two of them, tied to trees, looked on while their companions were roasted, cut up and eaten. The two survivors were then sent away to tell the tale. Never again were these villages raided, but the people themselves found human flesh so good to eat that they could not resist the temptation to taste it again and again.

We went through one end of the National Park of the Congo where big game of all kinds is preserved. The thing to do is to spend the night either in the car or in one of the rest houses provided for the purpose. There one waits and watches while lions, elephants and other animals wander around, and in the waters crocodile and hippopotami abound. We missed it all . . . is it any wonder that tonight I am unpopular?

We went up to the famous Gorilla Mission at Rulenga, so called because it is situated at the edge of the forest in which gorillas have their home. The Superior filled me with awe. He had actually hunted gorillas, but not alone. He said that it is a tremendous business and that a party has to be organised. He had been fortunate (?) in joining one arranged for an American hunter. He also said that many a famous hunter had stayed at the Mission. Some books on his shelf testify to the gratitude of some of these who had afterward gone home and written of their experiences in Africa. To me the forest looked impenetrable, but the priest said that the natives crawl through it, and so do the hunters in their wake.

We did not see a gorilla. One does not want to see one—except in a zoo.

We saw the usual crowds at the Mission as well as some junior Seminarists on holidays. They wore blue cotton shorts, black and white striped jerseys and European straw hats! Do not ask me why? I did ask why and received a cold stare in reply. I think, incredible thought, the priest actually liked the costume. It occurred to Father Prentice, I think, to remark, that to dress boys up in that fashion was certainly a strong test of their desire to be priests.

My companions were served with an excellent lunch while I selfishly took all to myself quinine and aspirin tablets and some lukewarm water. I also took to myself a bed, out of which I was gently but firmly removed an hour later.

By four o'clock we were at the pretty mission of Lutari with its new brick buildings. It is the only mission I saw on this journey which was not on top of a mountain. The church was fairly full of people and the fathers were hearing confessions. If the sacrament of penance had not been instituted by Our Lord, no missionary would ever have thought of inflicting upon himself the long weary hours in the confessional. Nevertheless it is there that he reaps the fruits of his labours; it is there that souls are saved, and it is then in consequence that the missionary lives his most joyful moments. If there is joy in heaven upon one sinner doing penance, there is also joy on earth in priests' hearts upon so many thousands humbly telling God they are sorry to have offended Him.

One by one the Fathers came to welcome us and then after joyful greetings and a quick exchange of news, one by one they ran back to the confessionals. We drank tea and went on our way and darkness fell suddenly upon the land.

Two hours more and we were across the border in British territory, and back at Mutolere. So here I am in a delightful room. Over the bed is the photograph of King Albert of the Belgians, and there is the notice to the effect that he once slept in this house. And here is Father Steward with a "boy" who has hot water for the bath and quinine and aspirin for my stomach. The sheets (real sheets) are turned down and a pillow that actually looks soft awaits my amazing head.

This has been a day of lost opportunities which will probably never return, but I cannot regret having lost them. I am so glad to be going into that bed.

What a wonderful journey it has been through Ruanda and Urundi. I have seen history in the making; events unsurpassed in the history of the Church of God; two whole peoples holding up their arms to embrace the Infinite they have but lately come to know; pagan eyes brightened by Divine Light; pagan hearts jumping with the joy of a new hope. I have seen heroic priests, sisters and brothers spending themselves and being spent with joy for the souls of these peoples. Thank Cod for giving me this privilege and these joys.

The bath water is growing cold; better use it.

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