Life in Community

It’s been relatively easy to live side-by-side.

Relatively.

We (and by this I mean I) have argued over women in leadership roles in the church, the treatment of homosexuality in the church, the requirement of women to veil their heads in church…  In the west, I have always thought of myself as hideously conservative – there are things that I believe the Bible says that are inescapable – but here I find myself the voice of liberalism.

I now know a lovely woman who will only wear skirts, will not cut her hair, does not believe women should preach, and is very firm on her treatment of homosexuality.

I’ve always been an awkward feminist – straddling the fine line between ‘Anything you can do, I can do’ and ‘We were created differently to do different, but equal, things.’

That bridge is getting wider and I can’t do the splits.  I'd like to ignore our differences, but they seem to effect how and where we will encourage and light others...

How do I explain that I know wise women who preach to sanctify their congregations?  That strong women are not the cause of divorces?  That homosexuals can and should be loved like any other sinners - like me, like you?  That difficult issues should be discussed with the Bible and strong, gentle leadership, not by plugging your ears and screaming la-la-la? 

I’ve adjusted to the fact that I’m here to learn, but finding myself on the wrong side of every argument (too conservative or too liberal) is a little ridiculous.  So I’m trying to remember that I don’t need to fight every battle.  In fact, I don’t need to fight any.  The major one’s already been won – I just need to be with God for the rest.  I’ll try to relax with some fiery politically charged raps and pop love songs, which should be this country’s main export.

More practical concerns involve food.  We are a team of eight – four men and four women. 

Three men are Congolese and thus have no idea how to cook (the fourth is American and is probably more used to making a sammich than ordering his sister or his mother to make one). 

The women are Congolese, Burundian, Rwandan, and Canadian (nee Indian – it’s a whole Trojan horse thing).  One of those is not like the others.  The odd one out made spicy food (admittedly misunderstanding the strength of the piment) and definitely garnered the lowest spot in the cooking roster.  In my defense, though, my partner did not know how to use a peeler, a can opener, or a bell pepper, so… we all did the best we could.

A major Congolese food item is foufou, which is a large white mass that looks like a horribly bland disco ball.  A horribly bland igloo without an entrance.  A horribly bland white balloon.  Now to describe the taste…  It is made of flour and water.  Mixed.  Into a ball of flour and water. 

Onward.

The sauce that usually accompanies this cultural treasure is one of leaves: lenga-lenga.  Leaves from a tree or a shrub.  Boiled.  It tastes like leaves from a boiled tree/shrub.

To see Carrottop and other almost-natives dive into this meal is a delight – it makes you imagine that they are wrenching off a bit of the choicest morsel, massaging it, and dipping it in pure gold. 

I think this is a clear sign that God blesses their efforts here and wants to strengthen them.  In my case, foufou re-forms into a giant white globule in my belly and reminds me to work out my salvation with fear and trembling in case I die soon.

In all seriousness, I love most of the food here: fried plantain chips, fries, fried little fish, fried large fish, and piri-piri (the piment I so love).  They also eat squash leaves (bishusha) and cassava leaves (sombe).  One dish involved potatoes and goat intestines (I knew when I saw strings and heard the word ‘goat’ that peristalsis would be too much to expect from my esophagus).  But most of the dishes we’ve made at home have been well-received (barring my spice).

What’s been a bit harder has been respecting cultural boundaries.  I often find myself putting down Western culture, which is not what I want to do.  I respect many things that the West has taught and tries to promote and am a product of Western education, but I think I sound disparaging to my American teammate.  I also find myself having to defend myself from half-teasing, half-serious accusations that Indians are racist.  It’s mostly true – many of us don’t like dark people or Asians and tend to pretend that we’re the white people God forgot to brush off properly.  I’m not entirely sure what I’m to do about this except say that Indians hate other Indians unanimously. 

It’s hard to joke about it when there have been cases of hate crimes resulting in death in the same university that your African teammate’s little brother attends.

Everything seems to come together when we pray for each other.  We do devotions together most mornings (a beautiful exercise because it involves the Bible and not a good author’s view of the Bible), but our faith came into practice more recently when a Congolese teammate lost his aunt.  He was given some time off to go and be with his family, but we prayed, cried, and laughed together like any family.  Which I can’t say that I came expecting to accumulate brothers and sisters, I think God had a different idea in mind. 

Note:  I realize I’m very behind, but I’ll try to catch up on some salient events over the past few weeks, and maybe get around to my placement soon!