Malawi 09: Bandawe feels

It is hard to put things into words to say what you see or feel like those emotions say of joy that bubble up into your chest or throat and especially to put into words that joy or emotion that you know someone else is feeling but they are not showing but you know it is there because you know and love them well and the thing that just happened came out of nowhere and you were not expecting it so their face does not show it yet or something like that. If you know what I mean.
This morning this happened so I will try. We stopped the car at the front entrance of Bandawe Girls Secondary School so I could take a photo. Marie predecessors had been involved in establishing the mission here over 120 years ago; her mother had worked here 20 years ago. As I lifted my camera a couple of girls moved into the frame, only to be followed by more. Laughing and posing. Marie appeared too from the car and something happened and the girls started singing around Marie. A welcome song. How did they know. Who told them about the connection and the power of that moment and that Marie could not have imagined the depth of this.
There really is too much to tell but we were greeted by the deputy head who was here on a Saturday for us and showed us around the school in the background the sound of girls singing. Five hundred girls crowded I to a tiny school into bunks sometimes two to a bed they were so desperate to learn. Also there was a teacher, Patricia, whose father was the reverend when Marie’s mother was here.
Of course there is much more.
After the school we went to the actual mission church to be greeted by the reverend and his family and taken into his house for a traditional welcome. Follows a tour of the grounds and cemetery where are the graves of so many young people who had left their homes in Scotland to serve here to die beside the lake of malaria within two years of arriving. And the women and their babies.
There is more and Marie will so tell but back to the revs house for more food and hospitality wanting to share stories and know about our stories and families and homes and all the time so grateful to us for visiting.
So was our day and so is Africa and its people who have such grace and warmth and humanness in a continent where the leaders disappoint and betray.
Big day so many feels.Read more