Today is Monday and we are driving to Nkurenkuru to visit
the ELCIN Lutheran High School there. We
may see our previous shipment of books and desktop computers in action, but
more importantly we will deliver a gift of eight laptops. Thanks, by the way, to our partners in the
Luther LIS department for their sale of these dandy used Dells to Empowering
Learners – these machines have come a long way!
We start out by picking up Pastor Henok who will direct us
on our way and make all of the necessary introductions. We have picked him up early (7:00 a.m.) and
now are driving the first 40 kilometers on a gravel road as we head to the
Kavango Region. The road is all
washboard and Pastor explains that during the war, the Namibians would never
drive on this road since it was riddled with land mines.
This part of the trip is slow going and it’s a bit hard to
converse, so I am jumping in to write some more. Along the roadside are donkeys, herds of
goats, dogs, long-horned cattle, children on their way to school, and memes
carrying loads mostly on their backs and sometimes on their heads. Donkeys, goats, and cattle dramatically
outnumber the people, and clearly these animals have the right of way – we have
stopped many times to wait for a steer or two to move from the center of the
road. This is Africa, and you can’t be
in a rush!
The farmsteads have changed over from being corrugated metal
buildings with stick fences around the farmyards, to all stick buildings with
thatched roofs. The danger of fire in
these farms during this drought is great.
Pastor Henok announced yesterday in worship that three parishioner
families had their farmsteads destroyed by fire, and now have nothing. Cooking over the open flame, of course, is
de rigeur.
All along the way … people wave.
Pastor Henok just told us as we passed a small grouping of
homes, that we were passing through Oshango, and that the Lutheran parish there
has 11,000 members. Goodness!
Our dear friend, Pastor Henok, has had a very busy three
days. On Friday he presided at a funeral
of a great lady, who passed away at 83.
People told us she had been an Ovambo Queen and her husband had been one
of the first Namibians to receive a degree from the University. The parish was filled to over-flowing and the
celebration of her life lasted six hours.
We heard the music from the church well into the night – and we know
those hymns! Then the next day,
Saturday, there was another funeral of another great lady, and another long
service. Pastor Henok said he looked forward
to having us at worship on Sunday, but that we should not be disappointed if
there were not many people there, since the funerals had occupied the
community. HA! The church was wall to wall with worshippers
– some 700 in attendance.
At the beginning of the service, we were graciously
introduced, and right after we returned to our seats, a dashing man (perhaps in
his thirties) came to sit with us – bible and hymnal in hand – and he served as
our translator for the whole three hours.
His name is Paul Homateni
Nakawa. We became instant friends and it
turns out Paul had taught at Oshigambo High School when Pastor Henok was
principal. He is now Head of Corporate Communications for
Air Namibia. Paul had come back home to
the North for the Friday funeral of his aunt (the Queen) and stayed this extra
day for worship.
From the front seat Pastor tells us Paul is a poet. Apparently he’s also a good businessman as
he is soon headed to France to negotiate the purchase of a new long-haul A330,
which will fly the Frankfurt, Germany, to Windhoek run. He was pleased to know we had flown Air
Namibia, and we are pleased to make his acquaintance. Interesting this constant
juxtaposition of progress and the traditional ways!
My point for writing today is really to acknowledge the
lavish sense of hospitality we encounter when we’re here. Esther (the manager) and Hilya (the head
cook) are taking such good care of us at the guesthouse. Sophia and Pastor Henok welcomed us into
their home on Saturday evening for a wonderful dinner and conversation. We were showered with gifts and singing at
the Henok Kindergarten, and everyone wore pink, a wonderful color of
celebration among the Ovambo. Pastor
Shaanika, education secretary of the ELCIN, hosted us all day on Friday and
also treated us to lunch. Paul Nakawa
came right over to translate for us during worship. Pastor Henok, on his much-needed day off, is
delivering us to Nkurenkuru. And brothers
and sisters whose names we will never know thank us for coming to visit their
country. It’s really quite remarkable
and deeply touching.
And speaking of hospitality, Ethan wrote in his post about
those marvelous Namibian donuts, called fat cakes. Hilya and the other cooks in the guesthouse
kitchen make these amazing creations by the hundreds. They sell them from the Take Away window in
the front of the guesthouse. Hilya let
me into the kitchen to watch the fat cake production and all the ladies laughed
when I patted my hip to indicate right where these fat cakes eventually end up! (Ah, the universal language!) The mix is made in a huge 5-gallon-sized pail,
and then the ladies dip their hands into the mix and pull out a long scoops
worth, they twirl it in the air, and then they get two big squirts of dough
through their fists to land in the kettle of hot grease on the stove. These baseball-sized cakes bob and fry there
for a bit and then shazam they’re done and taken hot to the Take Away window
for sale at one Namibian dollar each (about 10 cents US).
On those busy funeral days it was a brisk business at the
Take Away window. On Saturday, as we sat
in the sunny courtyard under a flowering hibiscus tree, perfectly positioned to
capture the office’s Wi-Fi signal – the laughter of cooks, the chatter of visiting
guests, the smell of frying dough, and the music and singing from the Oniipa
Parish filled the air.
This is home to us in so many ways.
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