Holy Week

Holy Week has been kept in true anglican style with a service each evening at 6pm , consisting of evensong followed by Stations of the Cross using the liturgy in the South African English Prayer Book. Some of the pictures have at some stage been stolen from St Thomas' so one's imagination had to come into play. Numbers attending gradually rose as the days went by and on Thursday about 40 were at the Maunday Thursday service which included Tom washing people's feet. Confirmation candidates are expected to come to these services so that helped swell the numbers.

                                                           St Thomas'church

Our young American friend Lindsey stayed the week until she left to return to Cape Town where she is running a half marathon tomorrow. She and I were both sad to have to say goodbye to the kids at the FAS house whom we have got to know and love. We'd enjoyed being part of an Easter Egg hunt one afternoon followed by some amusing singing games where the children stood in a circle on the grass, singing and dancing different rap-like songs, with english words which we struggled to pick out properly but which were quite saucy in a sweet way. They move their tiny bodies so cutely, as Lindsey kept saying! The house is closed next week as there are 2 public holidays and then I shall be gone. It has been great for me to go over twice a week in the afternoon and play board games or whatever with them. And I have got to know the other staff and we all had lunch out together on Monday, courtesy of Lindsey.

Lian invited me to spend a morning there too this week to see one of the sessions with pregnant mums. She was showing ingenious ways to make simple baby toys, giving each of the 11 mums a foot massage (I helped do that a bit, very appropriate in Holy Week) and one of the helpers gave a talk to reinforce the message of not drinking alcohol, of any sort, to avoid risk to their baby. The long holiday weekend will see many people getting drunk in and around the town.

We woke to our first frost this morning, and a cloudless blue sky which lasted all day. The sun grew hot but the air temperature in the middle of the day was only in the low 20s, so it depends whether you are in the sun or not as to how warm you feel. The evening temperature falls rapidly with the clear sky and as we have no fire in the house of any sort a hot bath before bed is welcome. We gather you have warmer temperatures than us in the UK now.

Our Good Friday service was held at Britstown, one of the chapelries. The idea is that it moves round each year and we join together. In fact two churches were not represented but distances are large and transport expensive. Three languages are used across the churches but most of the readings and the talks were in Afrikaans. The Litany was said in English and hymns too were from our A&M. I feel considerable frustration when I don't understand what is being said but it makes me realise what everyone in this country of 11 official languages must often feel. It brings home too the power of the Pentecost experience with the joy people must have felt at being able to understand what was said even though many languages were being used by the early Christians..

I think our difficulty in communicating easily with people has been the hardest part of our stay here. Afrikaans is such a difficult language to pronounce. All the vowels and their combinations are so different to english that we still only have very few simple phrases we can say. I can now pick out and understand a very few words and obviously if we stayed longer that would continue. Although most people here do understand a bit of english when it comes to reading it out loud as in church it is much more difficult. And speaking socially is even more difficult except for a few phrases. So it stops easy discussions except with those who have a very good grasp. However that doesn't stop frienships being made and we shall be sad to leave our new friends.

The Good Friday service went on for over 3 hours, with no silence at all as they don't do silence here. A bunch of kids sat at the front as usual and they barely stirred, seemingly enjoying all that was said and sung. The two priests and many lay minsters did the varipous readings, prayers from the litany and talks, with hymns interspersed. Afterwards when we all burst out into the sunshine, plates of pickled fish in a curry sauce were given to everyone, though I refrained having just eaten a marshmallow chocolate egg I was offered.

Tonight, Holy Saturday, there is a 10.30pm service of light and Easter communion here at St Thomas with an 8am one tomorrow which will be quiet we suspect. We will be at Britstown again for a 5.30am service as dawn breaks and back for 8am. Then Tom will go to Nonzwakazi but our farewell there will be on May 1^st so I can miss that.

Then we set off after lunch to Kimberley for two nights so that we can meet other clergy at a service of renewal of vows in the Cathedral on Monday. On Tuesday we drive northwards to the Moffat Mission which is a very special place, founded by Robert Moffat (not a forebear but of the same clan surely) in the 1820s. Nearby is Batlharos where we have had a link with the Newbury deanery for a few years and where I spent 10 days a couple of years ago. So we shall stay in a rather african style lodge and meet up with their new priest and the group of 18 who are coming to vist Newbury this June. On our return journey on Thursday we hope to visit the Mary Moffat museum at Griquatown; she was Robert's daughter and married David Livingstone. And so back here to pack up and after a final service on Sunday May 1^st to make our way to Johannesburg and home to our family and friends. Laura's baby is due the day before we leave so we have that excitement as well as the move into our house in Tysoe. Emails will be sent with our address and phone details once we are sure of them.

Meanwhile have a very happy and joyful Easter!

Running down or a fast last lap

Emma's last blog had me ailing with a fever and horrible sickness. I am glad to say that this was a 24 hour affair and by Monday morning I was fit enough for us to re-engage our plan to go to Graaff- Reinet for a short overnight stay. But on the way we called in at Richmond, one of the towns of our outstation churches, hoping to catch up with an American called Joel Tjornehoj (pronounced “Churnahoy”). Let me tell you about Joel. He is an Anglican lay man (actually he was brought up Lutheran – his name and ancestry is Danish – but married an Anglican) who is a member of St. Peter's Anglican Church, Poolesville, Maryland, USA. A few years ago a fellow worshipper at St. Peter's called Jonathan Warner (we have mentioned him before hving met him a few months ago) started a link between St. Peter' Poolsville and St. Matthew's Anglican church in Richmond. This has grown into a partnership with all the people of Richmond, not just the church community, to improve the quality of life there. Jonathan being a good Rotarian has involved some Rotary Clubs in USA and elsewhere in this project which has now grown so much that instead of calling it “Hope in Richmond” they call it Hope in South Africa. You may wish to look it up on the internet (Hopeinsouthafrica.com).

Joel and Barbara who runs the community centre (HISA) at Richmond

Having been given the wrong mobile phone number for Joel , we had to track him down in Richmond but that was not too difficult. An American in a remote Karoon town is easily known.

We had a fascinating couple of hours seeing what has been achieved and hearing of the hopes Joel has for the future. Their website shows what can be done and by re-naming it “Hope in Sotuh Africa” (HISA) they hope to expand from Richmond into other areas including De Aar. Some of their work has already reached us here as they have been very supportive of the Foetal Alcohol Syndrome House and Grassroots Soccer initiative which uses soccer as a vehicle whereby you can teach the young people about HIV/Aids.

We discussed at leangth the problem that Joel has with the relationship with St. Matthew's. The link of course was naturally seen by the people of St. Matthew's as a way of getting financial help with their run-down building and facilities and purchasing prayer books etc. But the church community has not been supportive of the other initiatives taken by HISA and has rather kept aloof from them.

There are cultural reasons for this. The divisions that still exist in even the smallest towns of South Africa mean that if you help one group, the other will dis-associate themselves from it. This is compounded by the fact that the theological concept that social action is part of the mission of the church is alien to many Anglican churches here. To them mission is something that is done to them by priests and missionaries from outside. It is not seen as something that is central to the life of the church community. Most people in our Anglican churches here will not know what you are talking about if you speak to them of mission as we see it. Perhaps we have the old missionaries to blame for that; or perhaps our continued patronising way of trying to help.

The other difficulty for HISA working with the church in Richmond is that because of the link with a rich parish in USA, the other churches in the whole parish of De Aar are naturally jealous. One of the mistakes of the Richmond/Poolesville link is that it seems that consultation with the rest of the parish has been minimal which has caused resentment. It is something that perhaps our influence might help to overcome. Joel's rector in USA has a tentative plan in which one or two seminarians from a theological college in USA might do a placement in Richmond. He seems to have a good relationship with a college principal who is keen on the idea. We advised that this should be seen as something for all the parish and not just for Richmond and that consultation with the Dean/Archdeacon was very necessary, along with the church council here who have overall responsibility for the parish as a whole. We are staying with the Dean in Kimberley after easter so we will talk with him about it.

So having had interesting and we hope fruitful talks with Joel, we continued on our way to Graaf-Reinet which is delightful Karoon town some 250 kilometres to the south-east. We stopped there breifly on our return from holidaying in the south and promised ourselves a longer visit. It is a very historic town having been one time second only to Cape Town in importance. It was for a time at the end of the 18th century, the town that “governed” a vast area of the interior of South Africa. So there is much more history and culture there than in De Aar. It has a number of museums and art galleries, some good restaurants and colourful shops. We had a very pleasant time there before rushing back for a church council meeting.

The church council meetings are very different from when we first came. They are much more relaxed and informative and we even use the new data projector we have installed in church for studying the accounts. The data projector is also a great new aid to worship. Many of the congregation do not have hymn books or prayers books themselves and the church does not supply them. So any newcomer or young person had no way of participating in the worship. But now it is up on a screen in front of everyone – oh the joys of modern technology!

Finally a few short items. Lindsey, our delightful American young lady, moved out to stay with another family but is returning here tonight for her last few days. We have been greatly blessed by all the people who have come and stayed with us, all so different but making ourlives so much more colourful. Emma has finally succumbed to her gardening passion now that the temperatures are cooler and has bought some shrubs and plants to enhance the rectory/church yard. We have spent some time weeding and digging which has perplexed some of the locals. White people do not do that type of thing and get others to do it for them. They do not seem to realise we enjoy it! And so to today, Palm Sunday, where we processed around the local ward which is far from salubrious! As we trudged through some rather smelly and rubbish strewn roads and pathways, I could not help but realise that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem must have been through similar rather disgusting routes. Perhaps that is why cloaks and palm branches were used to make the journey less grim. How we have sanitised these events in Jesus' life! Fresh palm branches from the churchyard were used to decorate the church and made into green palm crosses by a couple of nimble-fingered men.

So on to Holy Week and really the last full week in the parish. We hope it will be a fitting climax to the time we have spent here.

Railway ramblings

My cousin David has been to stay briefly, coming from Cape Town where he is staying with his son and family, by train to avoid an 8 hour drive. The trouble is the train arrives at about 11.30pm if it is on time. We/he were lucky as it was a mere 30 minutes late so we all got in a decent night's sleep. The only alternative is a very expensive tourist train which does call here on some days at about 4.30pm but you have to buy a ticket for the whole distance to Joburg costing hundreds of pounds. David quite enjoyed his long journey – 13 or 14 hours so a good deal longer than the flight to London! He had chosen to be in a coupe or sleeper for 6, all men (or women- or you can have a half coupe for a couple. One woman I heard of booked for her husband too, knowing she would actually be on her own but preferring to travel alone. The cost is half that of the overnight coach which she usually takes, feeling safer, so she didn't lose out. The trouble with that method of travel, which is much quicker, is that it is a 45 minute drive to get to Britstown where it passes through. Most have no means of doing that.) But David seemed to have quite enjoyed swapping life stories with his fellow travellers and he could get lunch and supper in the dining car, not a brilliant meal but adequate.

For his return journey two days later the train south arrives at about 1am and was only an hour late. There are plenty of other people around at the station and David insisted he felt safe enough so we left him to wait on his own and we retired home to our beds leaving him to get back to his son's at 5pm or so! It is a marathon journey which we hear dreadful tales about – not safety but the delays of perhaps 6 hours. And for those who can't afford a sleeper the length of journey must be awful. We saw families with babies strapped to the mother's back and bundles of blankets waiting to board. It is sad that with the infrastructure in place for long-distance rail travel that there isnt a better service. Only wagon trains use the E-W line between Port Elizabeth and the far west and many people must wish there was a passenger line to connect them to their distant families in those directions. Perhaps in the future?

David as it were brought some heavy rain, as have all our visitors! (Actually a sign of the unusually wet summer season here.) The cold winds from the south seemed to switch to warmer wind from the north and we had a classic front situation, even experiencing some fog. But it was good for him to experience our flooded yard as others have, as well as some glorious blue sky and puffy white clouds. We did our usual trip to the Vanderkloof dam, as he is an engineer, and this time as well as continuing overspill from the lake they were clearing out silt from the pipes and there was the most extraordinary sight of red muddy water wooshing out from 5 huge pipes just downstream of the spilling water. The wind direction was different and we had a wonderful rainbow effect in the spray. I'll see if I can post a photo.

David is keen on birds and he was able to confirm that we saw two black eagles from the top of the De Aar hill as well as the usual Lesser Kestrel, about 100 perhaps! There aren't as many as there have been, so maybe they are starting to return to Russia for their summer. There are still many swallows and swifts but we dont know if they will make it back to Europe for summer there or if they stay here. We shall!

While David was here there was a rare knock at the door from someone in the congregation wanting help with CV. We actually have no copier nor printer here so Tom took her across to the FAS House where Lian kindly helped create an impressive document and then Tom was able to drive her to a newly opened correctional centre where she'd heard there was a possibility of a job caring for teenage boys. Her present job at the hospice pays so badly and not on time that she is desperate for anything. But it is difficult. The gap between the rich and poor here is so great. We have just found a few streets on one edge of town with huge mansions and green well-manicured gardens. And yet on the opposite side many live in the most appalling basic shacks. Many are in between and one thing that surprises us is that people don't seem to move away from a poor district but simply rebuild bigger and smarter houses on their plot, cheek by jowl with hovels. Some aspiring people do move to the white side so at least apartheid has broken down to the extent that it is possible. It's not like the old days when anyone coloured or black had to be over the railway bridge by the 9pm curfew. But we think we are the only white people on 'our' side. Having a wide area of railway land slice through the town does exaggerate the situation.

Walking through the long grass in the area this side of the railway lines one comes across all sorts of abandoned railway ironware – from largely broken fences, to buffers and even old steam engines. For some poeple it would be paradise! There used to be hundreds of old steam engines apparently but most have been sold off to other countries around the world. We hope that these last few aren't allowed to rust away totally or be sold off for scrap. But no care is taken at the moment. As I walked over the railway bridge today I saw 3 donkeys about to stray on to the line. Such is life here!

Tom is down with another nasty bout of fever today, hence my rambles.

A month to go

Today Tom has driven to Kimberley for a meeting of the archdeaconry clergy, taking Father Joseph but refusing to use the parish car without aircon. Temperatures have risen well into the 30s again in the last week and at night we only use a sheet again not the light quilt we had started to use. I have repositioned my cheap thermometer amongst the branches of the vine, more or less in the shade and out of sight now that the kids have no reason to come here looking for grapes. It had been inside the kitchen door but the temperatures varied so little as the house retains its heat. A week or so ago I found the morning temperature to be 10C; now it is 18 or so. So we thought autumn had definitely arrived but since summer style thunder storms have also resumed we are not so sure. Our house fans are once again sometimes in use as temperatures are into the low 30s in the afternoon and the evenings are uncomfortable without them. I insist on windows being shut by dusk as mosquitoes continue to plague me if I am not careful. Apparantly there are summer and winter varieties. I think the latter may have arrived as my bites are even bigger than before. But thanks to a pleasant skin oil produced by Avon, Skin So Soft, and Raid plug-in mosquito killers I mostly avoid them.

We had a perfect day on Monday when we decided to try the dirt road north from near De Aar to Hopetown mostly following the railway, 123 km going straight as opposed to going on tarred roads which is much further. The sky was a brilliant blue with puffy clouds here and there lighting the relief in interesting ways. We took our time, stopping to use binoculars to try to identify birds and to take photos and just to take in the silence and beauty. Every so often the karoo scrub is broken by a group of large trees and even a few fields of maize or alfalfa where windpumps bring water from deep underground.

The farmhouse and small workers homes are usually found amongst the trees and often this coincides with what used to be a train halt, still marked on the map but no longer in use. We got very excited when we saw a train in the distance; it proved to be just a diesel engine but a later one passed us pulling a huge length of wagons. Tom managed to catch it on his small video camera and later counted that it was pulling over 100 open wagons, probably with stone or ore.

The sense of being at one with nature was so strong; apart from a rusty wire road fence and a partial surface of stone or grit on the natural mud there was nothing man-made between the farmsteads, no billboards, filed boundaries. We have been reading a fascinating book 'Circling the Great Karoo' by Nicholas Yell where the author describes a solo journey on a scrambler bike around the Karoo giving details of conversations with the locals in the small towns and decribing the history and geology. This was one of our ventures into the real Karoo. Not knowing how long we would take and knowing there would be no towns we had packed some lunch and folding chairs and we found a thorn tree that gave just enough shade for a picnic. The silence is incredible. No aeroplane ever passes overhead, no road was remotely within earshot and we met about four cars during all our time. It may reduce the mileage to Hopetown a good deal but since driving speed is halved it doesn't reduce travelling time. But it was a thrilling experience for us.

Later we diverted on our way home on the usual route to go into Orania, a white-only settlement started post 1994. It had the blessing of a good clean swimming pool to cool us off, empty except for one family, but the small town seemed very dead, no children even though school would have finished. Black flags flew at half-mast in honour of its Afrikaans founder who recently died. I was strongly reminded of the kibbutz I stayed on back in the 1960s, newish soulless buildings and very tanned white people doing manual work, which you otherwise never see here.

Our week since has been enlivened by the arrival of Lyndsay, a young American doing research in Cape Town who has come to work at the FAS house mostly inputting data. I continue to go and help on a couple of afternoons a week. This week I got eager children using (Play)dough on one afternoon and playing matching games on another. My inablity to speak Afrikaans doesnt help in controlling their noise and enthusiasm for attention but they get such a lot of fun from whatever they can get their hands on that it is worthwhile I hope. My one regret was suggesting they be allowed to use some plastic motorbikes and a nylon tunnel I spotted in the store room. Play had to be in rather a small room so as to not get completely out of control. As their body temperatures rose from dashing about so my nasal senses suffered! Cleanliness is difficult I guess in the sort of homes they come from.

Tom has spent a lot of time on practical jobs this week, eventually succeeding in fixing a bad leak from our toilet cistern (only to have another develop from the pipe, but the sort that is manageable with an old ice cream tub beneath). Yesterday he again spent ages trying to attach a rather ingenious draught excluder on the chapel door after we had noticed leaves had blown in during the night. He and Danny the caretaker so nearly succeeded until they realised the door-frame was metal not wooden and a roller stop had to be fixed into it. More ingenuity eventually solved the problem using the draught strip in a different way from that intended.

A few priestly tasks came Tom's way but he is having to resign himself to the fact of his paid ministry ending in about a month from now. Our time here is in some senses a gentle slowing down.