A Virginian, Nigerian, South African Easter

This was perhaps the most memorable Triduum of my 23 years of life.  Two young Nigerian Sisters of Notre Dame, Sr. Gertrude and Sr. Obehi, invited me to join them for a Nigerian Holy Saturday and Easter.  We traveled an hour into an even more rural area called, that's right, Virginia, where a young Nigerian missionary priest, Fr. Christopher, and his younger sister (my same age, visiting him from Nigeria) invited the sisters to join him at his parish, St. Augustine's, for Saturday and Sunday. And what a glorious time it was.  

We stayed in the parish house, where there were beds enough for us.  I told the sisters it was my first time having nuns for roommates, which they thought was absolutely hilarious.  Then began the comments that my vocation to be a Sister of Notre Dame (SND) was budding... any time they wanted to suggest this to me for the rest of the weekend, they sang a little song: "Oh I'd rather be an SND than be a Reverend Mother in any other order, Oh I'd rather be an SND!"). 

We rested most of Saturday, reading, praying, and helping Obehi finish some bits and pieces of work. She is responsible for all of the programs for OVC (Orphans & Vulnerable Children of parents with AIDS) in the diocese of Kroonstad.  We sat at the Fr. Chris's kitchen table and sorted binder after binder of documentation of these children, one binder for each small township where Sr. Obehi coordinates programs.  It was heartbreaking at first, numbing after a while, to read off the names and ages of hundreds of orphaned or soon-to-be-orphaned children.  Next to the child's name was a place for their parents' names, along with the word "Living?" and two powerful little boxes: "Yes." "No."  The vast majority of the children had two "No" boxes checked on their forms. 

After that, things lightened up.  We prepared a delicious Nigerian feast of curried fish, rice with squid, greens with dried crawfish, and Coca-Cola (it's made its way everywhere).  Spending time in Fr. Chris's home, I couldn't help but be taken aback by parish life from the priest's perspective.  In fact, I often felt a bit sorry for him as he scarfed down his meals to run next door to the church for the next Mass or to his office to meet with a parishioner.  I watched his sister lovingly ironing his vestments on a makeshift ironing board, thinking of him doing this for himself most of the time.  I watched the expression on his face when the doorbell rang for the third time during a supposed time of relaxation, knowing with 99% certainty it was a parishioner with a question or concern or perhaps popping in to simply with Easter greetings.  Being a good priest means truly being a father to hundreds in a very real way.   

At about 6pm, after enjoying the meal and its interruptions, we prepared for the Ceremony of Light. Outside the back of the church, the townspeople had helped Fr. Chris arrange logs for a huge bonfire. When 8pm rolled around, the townspeople were all gathered. The ceremony and Mass lasted for more than three hours.  We went outside, back inside, back outside.  There were all forms of fire and light: big candles, small candles, the huge bonfire, and the Southern hemisphere's magnificent star-filled sky, aglow with stars only visible hundreds of kilometers away from city lights. 

And there were the sounds of a praise-filled people with their drums and their voices.  Organic choirs sprang up from the townspeople as we processed in or out.  Some songs were sung by Afrikaners who sang more traditional hymns or 1960's/1970's songs we know and love.  At other times, the Basotho parishioners sang in their native tongue, Sesotho.  I could only make out words like Jesus and Alleluia (when the word was finally released from 40 days of captivity), but the feeling in your soul when the feet begin to stomp and drums begin to pound and dancing begins in the pews and harmonies you've never heard before ring in your ears... it is like no other. 

After Mass it was nearly midnight, but we managed to stay up for another two hours, celebrating the arrival of Easter.  Fr. Chris whipped out some Amarula (a delicious African liqueur) he'd received as a gift, and Sr. Obehi taught me how to dance like a Nigerian.  As the only white girl amidst four Nigerians, I was quite the spectacle, but they encouraged me, saying back and forth to one another with such surprise, "She really does have rhythm, doesn't she?!" See Mom, all those years of Irish dancing paid off.

Music at Easter Mass was more organized, but just as breathtaking.  The Besotho choir singing every part of the Mass they could.  Men and women alike swayed back and forth, praying with their whole selves, in even more new harmonies.  Five babies were baptized.  I couldn't help but wonder the age many of them would live to, whether some of them might already have HIV.  Thankfully the number of mother to child transmissions is less and less each year here.  The whole Mass was in Sesotho, but the singing kept my attention, as did the most adorable little rascal of a girl next to me sitting on her granny's knee and playing peak-a-boo with me.  One of my favorite lagniappes of the Sesotho Mass was the singing of a peace song as the sign of peace was offered.  The words translated as "we are all one big family." 

After a nearly three hour Mass, Fr. Chris, his sister Eva, Sr. Gertrude, Sr. Obehi, and I returned for another Nigerian feast of fried rice and peppered chicken.  Nigerians call anything spicy "peppered" and season everything with a boullion cube called "Maggi." It was spicy, even by my standards, which most of my friends agree are high enough to permanently damage the taste buds of a "normal" pallate.  On the drive home to Kroonstad, Sr. Gertrude and Sr. Obehi continued with their "She really does have rhythm!" comments, and they told me that all around, I had "the flavor of an African."  I think that's the biggest I've smiled since I arrived.