Z like Zoo

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

It was noon in our parish of Baraka in Congo DRC when I hear noises, shouting, people running all over the place.

I run out the door of the house and see that someone near the chicken coop is chasing an animal. I ask, “Ni nini?(what is it?).”

The vegetable farmer tells me, “Padiri, ni kenge. Anaiba mayai (it’s kenge, a lizard, stealing eggs).” And everyone running after him, until one manages to hit him with a spear. We finally found out who was taking the eggs away every day.

“What are you going to do with it now?” I ask. The answer is simple: “We eat it. Nyama ni nyama (meat is meat).”

But there is one animal that is really a bane to the villages, where there are mango plants or where you want to plant new seedlings. It’s the goats. You can tell where they have passed by by looking at the base of the mango plants and see that they are bare as far as the goat has gone.

Instead, when you plant new seedlings to stop desertification, you have to surround them with a bamboo fence, otherwise there will be nothing left.

Another animal, which fortunately I have seen very few times, are snakes. They are usually venomous, and there are of course larger ones
large ones that, if they hug you, you stay with them.

Our African brothers have very sensitive hearing. They can feel their presence. If by chance, one is bitten, you try to get the blood out, apply the “black stone” (which absorbs the venom and prevents it from going into the body), then, of course, take him to the hospital to treat him. In short, he manages to save himself.

On the other hand, if he is in the forest, herbs are applied that have the same effect. But it does not always succeed, since among these
animals, there is what they call “three steps” (that is, after three steps, you are gone forever).

Then in the lake, there are two kinds that have “different characters.” Crocodiles sit quietly sunbathing, snoozing, but not sleeping. All it takes is the slightest movement that they suddenly slip into the water and slowly grab their prey. They bring it to the bottom and slowly eat it.

In contrast. the “river horses,” hippos are really cumbersome, noisy and mischievous. One of their favorite games is to
going under the fishermen’s dugouts and dropping them into the water. On the other hand, when they hear a noise, like that of our boat, they go away a little annoyed.

The most dangerous animal, though, almost invisible but causing bad experiences, is the mosquito.

You don’t see them, but you feel them. They are always on the attack, bloodthirsty. And when they have touched you, they leave you malaria and you sweat, you are without strength, we know what to say and you have to stop.

In short, this is also an exercise in patience, to go deep into African life.

Source

  • Father Olviero Ferro

Image

  • Image digitally created by spazio + spadoni
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