Advent Sunday

A happy christian new year to all our readers! Today we have had yet another new experience – that of driving 120kms to church. We travelled from De Aar to Richmond with two other members of our St. Thomas congregation to take a Eucharist service in the Anglican church in Richmond (as different as it can be from either of its English namesake towns). We set out at 8.15am and arrived about 9.30am for a 10am service. Afterwards we were given a lovely lunch in one of the township houses (more a tiny bungalow -with corrugated iron roof etc.) and then drove 120 kms back to De Aar. We were using the parish car which sadly has no a/c so we were all rather hot and sticky when we returned.

But the congregation were lovely and welcoming and although very poor they had made a collection and gave us R300 (£30) to help us settle in. Emma and I felt very touched by such generosity and we shall try to respond generously on later occasions.

We are learning fast about how to live in this place. Adjusting to the climate and to social norms,

getting to know the geography of the town and what is available and what is not and I suppose being brave enough to be strangers and British and to do mad things. We have begun to take walks around the township, sometimes in the midday sun (or afternoon sun) and people think we are crazy. However we have begun to be known and there is much waving and shouting hello to us as we make our merry way. We have discovered two super swimming baths both of which were empty of other customers. We are beginning to know the good shops, the nice places to have coffee and the

other pleasant parts of the town. It is certainly not a place that you would make a detour to visit but it has its charms and we are beginning to feel as though we shall learn to be at home here.

My first impression of church life is that there is tremendous amount of goodwill and enthusiasm but poor communication stifles many a good intention. I thought that our communication in the parish of Thatcham had a lot to be desired but here it is decidedly chaotic and often non-existent.

I suppose this is hardly surprising when there are such enormous distances to cover, when modern forms of communication (other than the cell phone) are not common and when there seems to be no sense that letting people know that something is happening is very important! We must try and see whether we can help in making people see how important good communication is.

An elderly MU member and one of the churchwardens at St Thomas'

The worship is traditional High Church Anglican, something that is a reflection of the way the church here

grew through the work of religious orders. So I have had to renew my skills with the thurifer as incense is used freely. The Anglican Prayer Book Eucharist service is almost exactly the same as our Rite A so that is helpful. However not every church in the parish uses the English language version. So we have had a wonderful mixture of English, Afrikaans and Xhosa in some of our services and often my sermon needs to be translated. Most people here are wonderfully multi-lingual putting us to shame. Often the hymns are from Ancient and Modern hymnbooks, but familiar tunes are used for words in other languages. There is a certain tension especially in the main church of St. Thomas between those who feel they ought to be singing hymns properly (i.e. as the English do) and those who just love singing in the African style with freedom to put in your own harmonies. I love it when they sing the African way and feel that they should abandon the uptight British way of worshipping. However it is not up to me to make that decision.

We had a church meeting yesterday. It was apparently an innovation as it was the first planning meeting that they had ever experienced. After a rather sticky beginning, we made progress and finished at about midday (started at 8am) with a rather good list of aims and people co-ordinating each item. So we shall see whether the plans come to fruition. At another meeting a couple of evenings before the clergy and lay ministers organised the Christmas service rota. I am down for Midnight Mass in De Aar at 10.30pm on Christmas Eve and then a 6am service at Britstown (50kms away) on Christmas Day which means getting up at 5am. Emma was not amused by this and slightly objected at yesterday's planning meeting. She got firmly told by my clergy colleague that this was our priestly duty and that she had no right to object. His wife offered to drive me there which gives Emma a little bit of relief as she did not want me to drive so early in the morning after only a few hours sleep, nor could she herself get up so early to help keep me awake.

This week-end's sport fixtures have meant a great deal of TV watching. I wake at 5am to view the Test Match and have done a lot of viewing of international rugby and English soccer. Much pleasure for me and a great compensation but Emma is less than amused. Great news today of a wonderful English fightback in the Ashes. So all is well and we are happy to be missing the early winter onslaught.

A typical Karoo scene, this one in Philipstown but parts of De Aar are little different

Home Comforts

A lot of our first week has naturally been spent setting up our home so that we are comfortable and happy in it. We shall spend a lot of time in it! It is really too hot and /or windy to be outside though I have once taken a chair outside in the early evening. Our first two evenings we had heavy rain and thunder.

Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we would be provided with largely new furniture – a set of 2 sofas and a big chair, coffee table, TV stand, dining room table and 6 chairs and a double bed with accompanying headboard which includes side cupboards, and a grand dressing table. The last won't fit in our room as it has many built-in cupboards but it has gone into a second bedroom where there is a single bed which will have to do, with a mattress on the floor if needed, for visitors. We expect Alastair Blaine from Newbury for a 3 month parish placement in the new year so he will make good use of the room.

All the windows are covered with nylon printed curtains, double layered to insulate the house and to keep out prying eyes. Sometimes we do draw them back, and even open windows, but dust coming through the cracks is a real problem. So with the heavy African style of dark polished wood it is not quite to our taste but we are immensely grateful to have a new and comfortable bed and chairs. New bedlinen and towels were provided, the bed made up and towels arranged tastefully.

The kitchen has old built-in cupboards and electric coooker but a new fridge-freezer and table and chairs. The electrics and plumbing leave something to be desired but a young teacher friend of Eugene's sorted the faulty wiring so the coooker is now working. The new microwave which I had doubted really needing was very much appreciated for the first week. The ladies had provided basic sets of cutlery, new white china, saucepans and a few utensils but inevitably my old ways of needing all sorts of gadgets comes into play. However it is not difficult to buy pretty much all of these as the supermarkets (two big ones both owned by the same company but one a bit more African, the other like ours essentially) stock things very cheaply. China's influence extends everywhere!

 

Our purchases have largely had to be made on foot as the parish car developed a faulty window winder on our second day. We have a 10 minute walk across the railway and some rough ground, on stony, dusty paths well littered with glass and plastic rubbish in the African way. I am instructed never to use this way alone but together we feel safe if a bit conspicuous. We have been finding other useful stores, hardware for picture hooks (one picture left here we feel should be hung), a book/stationary shop which has provided the Bible and hymn books, a decent enough cafe for our day off treat and so on.

Of course there are some things we do miss. A washing machine and vacuum cleaner spring to mind but handwashing dries so easily I don't need to wring it, and I am developing a sweeping/mopping routine for the smart white floor tiles We have borrowed Eugene's vac for the carpets after a dust storm blew in not just dust and grit onto the newly laid bedroom carpets but also beastly little thornheads which were painful on bare feet.

The whole house had been repainted and new ceilings put in after a tank had leaked in the roof, so that gives a real smartness to the house. Our ensuite bathroom(!) is from the 1980s so looks a little tired but a good scraping away of old paint and scale has left it cleaner. The other 'family' bathroom has a dreadful bath with no plug that fits yet. The third bedroom has no furniture but a couple of kitchen chairs turned it into a chapel for morning prayers, though we will probably transfer those to the church soon. We have been offered an old spare table and chair from the township church which will be brought over so that room can be more of a study and the dining room table released from clutter.

I realise some readers will have got weary and found more urgent business to attend to! Forgive my ramblings! Time is not much of an issue here for me. But the midweek service will soon begin so off I must go to that.

Our first Sunday

It was a long but happy day, starting with the 8am parish eucharist here and ending after an evening one which meant home at 9pm! Tom described the pattern in his last blog -now for some impressions.

Here at St Thomas' it was a good full church with nearly 200 present, nearly half of them children, with some toddlers wandering as they will, all shades of the rainbow though very few white. The singing was lusty but with fewer part singers than in the more African churches later in the day. No book drumming either here. A&M Revised and Mission Praise are used and we wish we had brought copies as one has to provide for oneself. We have bought the SA Prayer Book quite reasonably and an A&M revised is on order for us but we think how many copies of these might be lying at home unused. If anyone would like to send out a copy we could give them to some of the poorest-looking who share or have very tatty copies. (Address is PO Box 113, De Aar, S Africa 7000 – a printed paper rate still exists I think).

This shows the empty church when we first arrived.

The service was quite long as all the readings and a psalm are included, but by 9.30 people were spilling out and rushing off home. No coffee/drinks has beenserved at any churches we have yet experienced. A few of the ladies asked to look in our house. They had helped prepare it but not seen the furniture. I had spent the time before church getting online, as the evening before we got no signal, so our bed was unmade and plenty of mess left around! Still it was nice to share it with them as they have been so generous. Never did I imagine we would be given brand new furniture and a completely redecorated house. More about our home later.

Father Joseph drove us with Hildegaard, another churchwarden, to Philipstown where a dilapidated simple church was some way off the tarmac road. Our route through the dry Karoo had been a virtually empty straight road, accompanied by power and phone lines, kopjes or steep-sided hills, occasional green trees where water is pumped up by wind for the few sheep. They say their meat is the best but how sheep survive is a mystery!

Everyone here seems to speak Afrikaans as a matter of course. At St Thomas' many speak good English and their service is in English by their choice, with the gospel and sermon usually in Afrikaans. Y'day it was in Eng, as it was done by Tom. Fr Joseph hopes Tom will learn Afr; I have my doubts!!

At Philipstown however Fr J took the service in Afr and one of the lay ministers translated while Tom preached; ditto at Britstown in the evening where it was Fr J's brother translating. His mother was in the row behind for that service and sang lustily- we later discovered she is 95!

After the 11am service communion was taken to a lady who had turned 103! She was sitting bolt upright with her tiny legs straight in front of her, a position I could never achieve! She was blind and pretty deaf, cared for by a daughter or grand-daughter with toddlers playing in the room and children outside their very simple house.

Singing and dancing to welcome us after the service at Philipstown

Then came lunch at a smarter home, a delicious meal of chicken, sweet potato, coooked grated carrots and rice, followed by much better tinned peaches than we ever see these days and hot custard in a jug taken out of the freezer cabinet – presumably used for storage and not switched on!

The day was pretty sweltering, mid 30s I think so when we returned at 2 or so we were ready for a read/snooze before setting out again at 5pm.

Monday is to be Tom's day-off and we were glad to be able to sleep till 7.15, an hour later than usual. We have had a leisurely day here, waiting for the satellite dish to be installed. Tom is now happy as Larry infront of a sports channel! While watching Sky News I was shocked to realise that at our 7pm it was dark for you at 5pm, and obviously cold. We will now be well able to keep abreast of national news and sports results worldwide.

It has been so lovely receiving emails from friends. Forgive us if we do not always reply and please do keep your news coming.

Arrival in De Aar and all is well

 At Kimberley on the last night of our journey, we were very apprehensive and a little troubled especially as we had heard by email of the death of Chris Roberts, my late cousin Jan's husband, after a short illness. Chris was a dear friend and it made us realise that life is both precious and delicate. But the next morning we left for De Aar with all our luggage and three new friends from the Diocese of K and K in Fr. Noel's bakkie. Most parishes here have a bakkie which is a small van with a back that can either be open or have a top to it. Fr. Noel's bakkie was chosen because he could seat four people but Fr. Dan Peters wanted to come too (he had been the parish priest in De Aar and I guess he wanted to meet some old mates) but he had to lay with the luggage in the back despite his advanced age.

Our apprehension had been heightened by the reaction of many people in Kimberley when we told them we were going to De Aar. There was much commisseration with our lot! The lady who sold me some splendid sandals was most sympathetic. We wondered what really was in store for us.

But now we can report that all that apprehension was totally unnecessary. We have receievd a glorious welcome and we have a house that is now so well appointed that it feels like home already.

As we arrived in our crowded bakkie we were greeted by a host of people deperately trying to get the house ready. The furniture van (another bakkie) arrived with three peiece suite and then left to get the next load this time consisting of beds. Gradually the house began to fill with things and people and it has hardly stopped since then. The parish here has been extraordinary generous in buying us all kinds of furniture and gadgets so typical of the warm-hearted African approach to life.

The afternoon of our arrival had been planned with a welcoming service with food afterwards. Since then we have been equipping our house with all the household goods you need and finding out what is possible in terms of communication. The wonders of modern science means that we can now get on the internet, have located the World Service on BBC and even more gloriously have signed up for a TV contract that will allow me to watch more rugby, football and most importantly cricket (the Ashes start next week!) than I would have in England!

So what of De Aar. It is a remote place positioned in the middle of the Karoo – the roads N1 and N12 run north/south and De Aar is between the two about 50 kms from each of them. De Aar used to be an important railway junction but because the railway in RSA is now rarely used and is in decline so the town has been affected. So there is much unemployment and poverty around us. However, having said that, the town centre seems to be busy and there are shops for all we could want.

The railway divides the town. In one way St. Thomas Church is on the wrong side of the tracks. It is in what people here call "the location" which was the word the white people used for the black townships situated here. On the other side of the tracks is the business/shopping area and some up-market houses where the white people have been joined by the black middle class. It is a fascinating mix with many of the black/coloured people wanting to remain in houses in the townships because that is where they want to be. There are two Anglican churches serving the town and both are in townships. Sadly the other Anglican church in the town where the white people worshipped was abandoned by the congregation during apartheid years when a black priest was made rector! It remains an empty building.

The parish consists of five churches The main one, St. Thomas, is where we are situated and in De Aar itself is the other church of the Good Shepherd, Nonzwakazi. On Sunday after we do the Eucharist here at St. Thomas we shall travel 50kms to St. Andrew, Philipstown for a service at 11am.Then in the afternoon we go to St. Barnabas, Britstown (also 50kms awa) for a 6pm service.

The good people of Philipstown will provide us with lunch. The other church is 120 kms away at Richmond where we travel in a week on Sunday. I have one colleague, Fr. Joseph Hugo, a self-supporting priest, who has been great in showing me the ropes starting yesterday moning with a round of sick communions.So I have started work already! The real stars of our time so far has been one of the churchwardens called Eugene le Grange and his wife Ria. Eugene is vice-principal of one of the High Schools and Ria has been an educational advisor but is now studying for a further Masters degree at Bloemfontein. Nothing has been too difficult for them and they have been sorting out all those little problems that inevitably happen. Great people!

Time to stop and think of retiring to bed as it is necessary to get up early and work when it is not hot. We have had two brief storms of heavy rain and strong winds but today it has been sunny all day with the heating really building up in the middle of the day. And we are not yet into the really hot season!!!! This morning Emma was up and digging a small plot in the garden for some vegetable seeds at 7am.Crazy I know but it is too late to change her now.

No photos yet but we will try to post one or two next time.

Vryburg

On Saturday we had a 5 hour journey across to our friends Drake and Hope at Vryburg. But before we left we walked up the local Kopje or hill with Lucy and Bongani and had fabulous views across the city in all directions. It was a steep rocky hill, with the typically red earth of Africa and interesting flowers. Their suburb is pretty central  but has all these open spaces which they take advantage of. It is not as we imagined Jo'burg at all.

Drake is the priest at Vryburg and Tom had been asked to preach at the Sunday service. So it was up early for 8am and a full parish eucharist with smells and bells, lots of hymns and choruses but no organist as she is unwell and elderly. After coffee with the PCC at the Rectory we went to a black church in the local township and were introduced to them as their service ended.

Lunch was out on a big farm owned and run by one of the churchwardens and his family. The lunch was magnificent and included all the meats they produce and sell locally (including hot toungue wh ich I remember only from childhood and which was delicious). Afterwards we were shown the farm which includes 2 ostrich, many beef cattle of the oldest African variety, some strange sheep with fat tails, goats, poultry in vast numbers, geese etc. The owner had had a baboon empty dustbins at night - they knew because he had got into the shed where the men were asleep and terrified them!

All very fascinating. It was a very hot day, probably mid 30s. Today has more of a breeze and some cloud but the 30% promise of rain has not materialised. We have more experiences this morning, going to the Aids Care Centre in a black township and then on to Taung with Hope an dDrake to see the house her family owns and where they will retire to. Also Oxford diocese has contributed to the renovation of an old rectory to be a residential centre for parishes - but its future is uncertain.

So now for a couple of days in Kimberley, where I have got access to the web at our B&B but am paying - so should stop!! We have been promised that someone from here will drive us to De Aar on Wed, and hope to see the Bishop and others here tomorrow.

It is lovely to receive a few messages by email. Keep them coming. It amazes us to think it is still less than a week since we left - so many things have happened.

Jo'burg

After an 11 hour overnight journey, uneventful but uncomfortable, it was so good to be met by Lucy (my sister Sophie's daughter) at Jo'burg airport and whisked away to her most civilized home she shares with Bongani in Melville. It is recently modernised and has quite a bit of garden and lots of space inside. I fear our future home won't come anywhere near this standard but it is a few days for us to recover our strength and acclimatize as well as to acquire a hire car, mobile phones with local SIM cards, plugs for our gadgets and so on.

The hire car had been booked but Avis had not sent the extra charge for it being collected from De Aar. This turned out to be about £500, much more than the cost of hire for 8 days so the agent himself was horrified and refused to allow us to do this. He asked whether we might return the car to Kimberley and get the bus or a lift back to De Aar. So we will somehow but it is about 300km away so no mean thing.

Lucy is out at work all day but Bongani is revising for an exam so has been able to do things with us most helpfully. He left us at the Botanical Gardens where we had a long walk reducing the swollen ankles from the flight. It is a huge park with lawns sloping down to several lakes, rose gardens and exotic trees.

Another outing with Bongani has been to Soweto, seeing the homes of Mandela, Tutu and what is now a great variety of housing for those less well off. It has a very African feel, akin to our link town Batlharos and totally unlike the comfortable suburbs of Jo'burg where we have driven through beuatiful streets lined with flowering jacaranda: one afternoon to have tea with Nola Park and her two children - they lived in Thatcham until 2 years ago, returning to her home city with some trepidation. They have a good life and have settled down well.

To return to our visit to Soweto - we spent a good while in the Hector Pietersen Museum, reminding ourselves of the horrors of what happened in 1976 when schoolchildren rebelled against being forced to learn in Afrikaans. Hector Pietersen was the 12 year old lad pictured in the famous iconic photograph being carried after he was shot . He was one of many who died when police shot at the protesters.

Temperatures have risen during our 3 days here, into the high 20sC, with glorious sunshine and a lovely breeze.

What a week!

TM: It all started with the build-up to the final week-end at Thatcham. The last service and the last sermon had to be prepared in between being invited out to say "good-bye" to so many people. Obviously it was going to be an emotional time but what we did not realise was the huge amount of work that had gone into both the party on the Saturday evening and the service on Sunday. It was a truly wonderful send-off and we really were very touched that so many people came from our former parishes to share in the celebration. For a celebration it was and the good people of Thatcham were so wonderful in the way they all rallied round and worked together to give both party and service a great feeling of joy. So a big thank you to all those who planned both occasions and worked so hard to making them so memorable.But of course there were tears too as we said our final good-byes and left a parish that has been our centre of existence for the last twelve years.

So with lovely memories of those days, we came to earth on Monday and started the awful process of packing up and moving on.

EM: Much of Monday was spent taking a last load to Joe's at Teddington, including the first two of our large suitcases. But since we were doing all the packing except china and glass we got on with packing books etc. Tuesday was made difficult by Tom suddenly needing a molar extracted. It had been bothering him for a while and became too painful. Henry stepped in to help with loading things into the car to park in a friend's Thatcham shed, since Tom was not supposed to be lifting. The bleeding continued making hm feel nauseous. However by Thursday when the removers arrived we had packed nearly 80 boxes. The men from Jamie Briggs were a great crew and by 3.30pm they drove off with 6 full containers, returning for another two the next morning.

So we are now at Teddington recovering strength for the next stage and having to make painful goodbyes to our family. Leaving our home and local friends was emotional enough. This is far harder and my floodgates of tears finally broke. But still we are hugely excited about what we will experience in South Africa.