Our First African Fire
Around an African fire community is built!
Community: “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests and goals.”
And who could argue that one of the greatest needs we have in our present American climate is community! Since our return to the states in the middle of 2015 we have been overwhelmed by division and disunity. Racial, social and political tensions are rife! Any feelings of shared attitudes, interests and goals seem like the impossible dream. Community has become fragmented and disjointed.
By contrast, in Africa Community is valued and even cherished! Few things are more important than relationships. Family, friends, neighbors, and tribe are paramount. In most African cultures there is even great respect for the foreigner and visitor.
Amidst half truths and conspiracy theories a cloud of distrust hangs over the US landscape. There are countless voices giving advice on how to remedy our divisiveness. Pundits abound! Talk show hosts are never short on advice. After all is said and done, it’s really not that complicated. I contend that what is needed in our country at this time are more African fires. Because around an African fire community is built!
As I write this I’m remembering our first African fire. It was during our first year of language school. As a part of our cultural learning we were required to do a village live-in. Ours was scheduled in the Bophuthatswana village of Motswedi. The guidelines:
No English was to be used. Setswana, our new African language was to be our lingua Franca.
We were to live with a Tswana family in their home doing life with them, and
Engage in as many cultural experiences as possible.
It was a memorable week to be sure. New sights, sounds and smells. Though there was running water in the house there were no indoor bathroom facilities. So that meant, candle or flashlight in hand, stumbling out to the ‘ntlo ya boitumelo’ (translation: ‘house of joy’) behind the main house. Other than asking our host ‘had there been a lot of pigs falling from the sky’? (I was trying to ask had it rained a lot?) the week went rather well.
But the highlight of the week took place around an African fire. Here’s how it happened. There had been a death in the village but not just any death. One of the chief’s sons had passed away. Our language teacher Mme Bertha wanted us to be exposed to this cultural experience. In the Tswana culture death and the funeral event is the doorway to the spirit world. It is the place where the badimo (departed family member or friend) and the living come in to close proximity. As such it occupies a central place in African life (more about this in a future blog).
As is the custom at death the village turns out in number to pay their respects. This visitation can last for several days before the burial. In rural Tswana life, there is a fire burning in the courtyard of the deceased. This is a perpetual fire that burns throughout the time of the funeral event. It's not a bonfire but rather a slow burning one. The end of a long log is set in the middle of the fire and as it burns slowly it is fed bit-by-bit into the hot coals.
It was around this kind of fire that two new language/culture couples, one from North Carolina and one from Georgia found themselves sitting. The men sat on one side and the women on the other. I was seated between one of the chief's sons, a general in the Bophuthatswana Defense Force and two elderly residents in their 80's. After a little while my wife along with the wife of the other student were asked to go into the house and help prepare tea for all the men. As our girls walked around the fire they would serve each man a cup of tea and offer them a biscuit (cookie). As we enjoyed our tea, the chief's son asked me and the other male student if we understood what the two rrebagolos (elderly men) were saying as they received their tea. Of course with our limited language skills we had no idea. So he told us in English. He said, "the rremagolo on the right said if he was 30 years younger he would take your wife home with him while the other said if he were 30 years younger he would take the other one!" Sometimes ignorance is bliss in language learning!
At the conclusion of our village live-in, we each realized that we had gained new and helpful knowledge about the way things work in Tswana culture. For one thing, I learned that I might should keep a close eye on my wife. I learned to appreciate a toilet that flushed and other modern conveniences often taken for granted. I learned that seldom do "pigs fall from the sky" in any culture and the importance of working a bit harder with my language learning. I learned to appreciate new foods shared with new friends. I learned that my small American worldview had grown a bit more and yet had a ways to go.
But sitting around that African fire I learned something invaluable that though I didn't realize it at the time was becoming a part of my own DNA. During the week of the live-in all sorts of people came to sit around the fire at the chief's house. Rich, poor, people of importance and some that were relatively unknown. People who supported the political views of the chief and those who did not. Those who were followers of Jesus and those who were tied more to their African Traditional Religion. Total strangers from neighboring villages as well as these new people from a village called America were also counted among that number. But regardless of who you were, you were equally respected and valued. Everyone was treated with the utmost dignity. Yep, around that fire and many others to follow God was weaving into the fabric of my life the value of all men created in His image.
Thank you Africa for demonstrating so well these values!
P.S.- I have been informed by my sweet wife that this was not our first African fire. There was actually another and I'll talk about that one in my next blog.