BAD CONNECTION: NO PHOTOS THIS WEEK! SORRY!
As we said last week, we have been asked as a team to write up some reflections about island culture. I’ve been thinking about community. We often talk about how African cultures are communalistic. Community is central. You’ve heard us talk about it some before, but below are some observations about community and food.
Eating is one of those basic things that all people have to do. The community helps one another eat. They don’t have continual potlucks or big neighborhood meals (except at weddings), but they look out for one another.
· Abdul is cooking for us in our kitchen. He’s making a beef and coconut dish. How did he grate the coconut? We don’t have a grater? Oh, he went next door. Where did he get that pressure cooker for the beef? It must be from our neighbor, Mama Ababu.
· “Mama Grace!” I go over quickly to the connecting door to Mama Ababu’s house. “Umm, do you have ...?” One day she needs an onion or milk, another she asks for matches or a frying pan or a platter. Nothing big and I almost always have it.
Borrowing things from neighbors is an American ideal that doesn’t actually seem to happen very often. We are more likely to change our dinner plans or go to the store to buy our own appliance or food item rather than inconvenience our neighbor or humble ourselves enough to ask.
Here sharing and borrowing is the expected norm. Some people have and others don’t. We don’t have a coconut grater or local style grill. Others don’t have a good frying pan or a refrigerator. The community depends on each other and reaps the benefits of what the community owns.
· The taxi driver pulls over to buy some peanuts, perhaps the entirety of his dinner for now. We’re just a couple of foreigners in his back seat, but as soon as he opens them up, he says, “Karibu” or Welcome and offers the peanuts to us.
Your very presence entitles you to a share of whatever is being enjoyed, whether it is food, drink or conversation. Even when we have just finished eating, someone will say “Karibu” if we walk by and they are still eating. Here there is a sense that anything (no matter how small) can and should be offered and shared. Community means no one in our presence goes without.
· It is just about mealtime and I’m about to set the table. There is a knock at the door. Most likely it is a young, single male, that’s why we made extra.
· I’m sitting in the smoky outdoor kitchen of Mama Furiapa on our village homestay. The meal is basically done and her daughter brings what seems like every available pot or bowl. Mama Furiapa fills each with a sample of rice and sauce and sets them aside. Throughout the night various men, some old, some young stop by. They greet, sit down, are handed a bowl of food, eat, chat and leave.
My western sensibilities want to call them moochers. They are so blatant. They come right before the meal, eat and leave. Aren’t young men in their 20’s and 30’s supposed to be the base of the working force, not wandering jobless eaters? But here they are a helpless class in society. They are taken in and fed by whomever they happen upon at mealtime. The community shares the burden of these men that don’t have a wife to care for them. So there are some poor women with a whole clan of wife-less male relatives who look to them for their food. I’m not sure how the give and take works, but dependency isn’t looked down upon. It’s a sign of community.
There are many ways that community is a strength of island culture. They take pride in the fact that people don’t go hungry if they are in community. Maybe someday soon we’ll talk about how it is also a weak point, tainted by gossip, mistrust and long-held grudges, but that’s a whole another set of stories.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
The leadership conference has been a blessing. Individuals from all three islands have been participating. (See requests for the speaker.) Grace is doing very well without her pacifier! We had three young men come over for the same meal this week! Thank God we had made enough to share freely.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
The speaker for the leadership conference (from Chad!) has been very sick, perhaps with a strong strain of malaria caught in another part of Africa. Pray for his recovery on this final day of the conference and for his travels home. Pray for all these burgeoning leaders as they go back to their home areas that they would apply the things they have learned and share with others. We begin our intensive language week on Monday. Our retreat is next weekend and we still need to plan. Tom’s birthday is on Sunday (Oct 25)! Pray that he would have a great birthday week!
