The Wanawake, as we now call them, are a phenomenal group of women within our church. One woman in particular, Mama Esther (so called because she has a daughter called Esther, as I am Mama Samuel thank goodness because Bethan is too difficult!), is very wise and formidable. When I arrived only six weeks ago and was told about the women’s prayers on Wednesday mornings, I didn’t know what to expect.
I turned up on time at 8am to find one woman sitting on the back bench of the empty concrete church building. I said my greetings in KiSwahili and then we sat in silence, reading our Bibles. Gradually a couple of other people arrived and when there were four of us, Mama Esther began to speak. To be perfectly honest I don’t know what she said because our pastor’s wife (my personal translator!) Alice, was not there. But the meeting went something like this: a lot of speaking and gesticulating followed by singing. More speaking then suddenly everyone bowed their heads and I remembered that I did actually know the word ‘tuombe’ (we pray) and got my head down quickly too. Hearing the word ‘Amina’ I realise that praying has finished. More singing, more talking, some mentioning of my name (well, Sam’s name!) then the women began picking up their Bibles, so I assumed we had finished.
I have really come to appreciate these times of fellowship together, especially as I understand more of the language and the culture. The women are so friendly and welcoming. Mama Esther doesn’t speak any English at all so she is the main reason why I am fervently beavering away at learning the language: she is my impetus because I want to know what goes on in her life. I was sitting in the women’s prayer one morning and was lucky enough to have a sentence translated for me. It was a good job because I heard that it had my name in it so I was curious! The translation came across like this: “Mama Esther says that it is important that you do not deny your husband in the bedroom.” I had not even considered that this piece of advice would come from a morning prayer session! It reminds me how much I am missing by not being able to speak KiSwahili.
August 1st was a special day. The Wanawake had decided that on the 1st and the 15th of each month they will get together and spend a day praying and fasting, with a break in the middle to do crafts together and teach each other their respective talents. I was apprehensive about a whole day fasting and praying, and especially a whole day sitting on a wooden bench! Luckily, I am a crafty-type of girl so I had plenty to take with me (I decided on starting a hand-sewn patchwork bag with local material) but the issue of leaving Samuel with Gareth all day was a tough one because he has not been without me that long at least since being in Uganda.
This particular morning I had a very heavy black cloud hanging over my head. Maybe you know that type of mood? I couldn’t bring myself to even clear up the breakfast things so there were ants everywhere! Luckily Samuel wanted his morning nap early so I could dwell in my black cloud. I sat on the chair inside Sam’s mosquito net with him while he slept and I just stared at the net. When Gareth got home from Swahili at 10am I had to think about going to the Wanawake’s prayer meeting. This prayer meeting was the last thing I wanted to do! But I got on my bike and free-wheeled down the road, stewing inside at the people pointing at me and gawping at this mzungu on a push-bike with an empty baby-seat on the back. I was not in the mood to be a freak show this morning!
I arrived at the church to find some eight women seated on mats on the floor or on the benches deep in silent prayer, except for a gentle worship song coming from the lips of Mama Esther, also the choir mistress. I sat down on the floor in silence and prayed that God would enable me to focus on him, not on my current state of mind. I shed a few tears because it is these moments of closeness with God and other Christians that make me feel that I don’t need to pretend anything: God already knows it. After a few minutes the women began to sing together and someone said ‘amen’. We came together and Alice spoke in both KiSwahili and English so that I could take part in the proceedings. They were taking 30 minute blocks of prayer for each specific thing that had been mentioned at the beginning of the day and a song marked the beginning and end of each 30 minutes. (Incidentally, Alice asked to use my phone as a clock because she was using hers which couldn’t be put on silent and had the Venga Boys ‘boom boom boom’ song as a ring-tone that would ring at the most inappropriate times!)
At 2pm we stopped praying and got out our crafts. We sat on the reed mats each doing our own craft, but showing interest in the one next to us. As we sat, words, laughter and more gesticulations were thrown back and forth between the women and Alice threw me tit-bits of translation that kept me in the loop. It seemed that Love (said ‘Luvay’), a Congolese young woman, is going to get married in August and Mama Esther was giving her the advice that typically the paternal aunt is supposed to give such as how a husband should be treated and what a woman should do in the bedroom. Suddenly, I heard my name mentioned and everyone was looking at me! I looked hopefully at Alice. What were they asking me about this subject? Apparently it was my turn to offer marital advice to Love. Everyone else had already said their piece and now I had to add a nugget of wisdom. I didn’t know what area of marriage I could talk about (from her gesticulations, I noticed that Mama Esther had already covered the bedroom!) so I told her that she should never go to sleep at night without resolving a conflict with her husband. The women seemed pleased with this advice and Mama Esther was off again on a wise lecture involving more acting out of bedroom scenarios as I carried on with my patchworking, pleased to have been a part of this momentous occasion.
After an hour of doing handiwork, Mrs Baluku, wife of an elder (mzee) at church and also the other member of the choir (with Mama Esther) asked- no, told- me to teach the women a song. Well now I was on my home ground! I taught the women ‘Freedom’ and ‘Ihparadisi’, and they loved them, immediately breaking off into the harmony parts that would have taken me an evening to teach to the On Board choir. (No offence to On Board; Ugandan ears are trained from birth!) After teaching the songs and having the pleasure of hearing someone burst into ‘Oh Freedom!’ after every few minutes of silence, we went back to praying in 30 minute slots.
I felt so much love from these women and feel so privileged to be a part of their ministry. They are so active in church: they have clubbed together to buy a portion of land next to the church and plough it to grow cotton and start a co-operative so that each woman can start her own business. They look out for each other, they visit each other when there are concerns, they pray as though their lives depend on the answers, and they accept newcomers like myself.
Needless to say, my black cloud had lifted by the time Gareth called me at 4pm to say that Samuel had grown tired of their ‘boy-time’ and wanted his mum home.
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