Today I go to Sunday mass at Muganza where Sister Josephine is based. I have been looking forward to catching up with her again. She has continued to work miracles from the distance. She has managed to get the motorcycle up and running, she has located the missing connexion for the gas stove. Where do missing gas connexions go when they go missing has always been a mystery to me; add to this a Rwandan context and I don’t even try to speculate...
The church is very basic and its audience is split in three groups - on the left: women only, in the middle: men only, on the right: men and women together. A democratic way of handling how you want God to see you in church. Today is not an ordinary mass – around the usual structure of Sunday service, the priest has added: one conversion of an elderly man from Protestantism to Catholicism (he must have his reasons), three couples who according to Soeur Josephine have decided to ‘faire régulariser leur situation’ (to make their situation legal) – in other words, they are getting married, and finally about twenty children are getting baptised.
The three ceremonies last for about two and a half hours, all conducted in Kinyarwanda. This gives me an excellent opportunity to observe and feel the air of simplicity and candour that reigns in the church. I feel in the heart of Rwanda. My favourite moment of the service? When we get to clap hands and when we have an opportunity to shake hands and make eye contact with the people sitting next to you, in front of you and behind you. I feel a certain sense of belonging the. I never thought I would make it through a one hundred and fifty minutes mass conducted in a bantu language... It was actually easy and enjoyable.
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