P like Patience

What language do missionaries “speak”? Theirs is an alphabet of mercy, with letters that breathe life back into words and generate works

Warning: this alphabet follows Italian words, but we urge readers to consider the concept rather than the consonant or vowel with which they begin

“Uvumilie, padiri. Pole pole vitaanza kuendelea bien (Patience, father, slowly things will begin to go well.”

That’s what a friend, an elderly man named Masongezi, used to tell me. He was an original guy, one of the staff members of the parish in Baraka, South Kivu in Congo DRC.

He had taken me in at the beginning of 1984, when I had arrived and confided in him about my difficulties in fitting into a new environment.

He was also telling me his stories of many years past, when there had been rebellion in those areas in 1964 and 1967 and some missionaries had been killed. But their sacrifice had produced fruits that we now saw with our own eyes.

Patience, is the word that is often used in the face of difficulties, but unfortunately or fortunately, it is not found in the marketplace. We have to look for it within ourselves and grow it every day.

Sometimes it feels like losing it (but have we ever found it?) and then you are not well.

The only thing is to know how to start again every day.

Masongezi told me about the difficulty the early missionaries had in speaking the language, adapting to the food and the people’s way of life.

He, along with others, had noticed this, and so they decided to help them out, as he was now doing with me. He was a special guy. During the feast days he was the first one to start the dances. He was a Mbembe, a tough guy, and by putting himself in the middle, moving his shoulders, he would set the tone and everybody would join him.

And, as if by magic, worries flew away, across the lake. Joy took hold of each person who felt united with those who had gone before them. It was something special and it felt like joining them.

A few times I tried. No one criticized you. On the contrary, they were glad that you also began to feel at home among them.

Then patience you had to exercise it, understand it, when you asked them for something to do and, as a “good” European, you expected results right away. Instead, when they came to you and asked if they had succeeded in doing that thing you had asked, they would say, “Univumilie, padiri. Nilisahau. Lakini, usiogope, nitafanya kesho (forgive me, father. Don’t be afraid. I will do it tomorrow.”

And that’s how things went and you got used to their way of living time, which is for people and not people for time.

Then, when you had to leave on a trip, either by car or by boat, and you had given them a time to leave, you would see that they would arrive quietly. Then you felt like saying something. But the answer would immediately block you.

“Padiri, nilikuwa na maneno, na problème nyumbani. Sikuweza kufanya mbio. Unihurumie (Father, I had problems at home. I couldn’t hurry. Forgive me).” We would tell you with a smile and you were defeated.

So when they would arrive late for Mass, yet they had their watches on their wrists. I used to wonder what was the point if they didn’t look at it.
“Ni mapambo” (it’s an ornament). And you were starting to change your mindset, you were starting to realize that the world doesn’t always go your way and that if you wanted to live together with them, you had to start realizing that they are people too, even if they have different rhythms.

And that helped you get better. It’s not that then I was also arriving late. Normally I would try to arrive on time.

But I would occupy the waiting time to talk to people, to take an interest in their problems, in short to show them that I was not
I was someone who had come to do his own thing, but to be together with them.

Then, you would begin to discover so many things that they confided in you because they saw that they could trust you. It took very little to
understand it, to take away the “kitchwa nguvu”(hard head) and “kuwa na moyo ya kupokea”(and have a heart that welcomes).

Source

• Father Oliviero Ferro

Image

• Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni