Ash Wednesday

As we begin this Lenten season in Malawi it is hard to come to terms that those which I see out in the villages are starving at this point.

The outdoor Church

Ash Wednesday started out like any other Wednesday.

I has spoken with Little E the night before and asked him what time mass was going to be and he told me 9 am.

Perfect I thought, I will have enough time to gather myself in the morning and do a few things before mass.  So I woke up Wednesday morning and got up and shaved and prepared myself quite well with good clothes and such.

It was about 8:45 and I thought I would head over to the church and just sit there and wait.  So I walk over to the church and strangely I do not hear any music coming from the church.

I continue on to find the church doors locked.  Well as it turns out what Little E meant was that mass was at 9 am, but, 9 am in the village.  So I completely missed it.  Well great I thought, what am I going to do now, I do not think I have ever missed Ash Wednesday mass.

Luckily Big E was heading out soon to go to the village........realizing I was heading to the village I went back to my room and changed my clothes to more mud, dirt and rain suitable clothes.

And we were off.

The problem with the rain in Malawi is that there is a lot of it.  I mean a lot.  I think one storm went for 9 hours the other day.  One of the results of these long rains is the erosion of the road.  Because of this you have to drive slower because there are more rocks, potholes and puddles/ponds/lakes.

So we went to a village which usually takes 30 minutes to get to.  This time it took just under an hour.  When we got there the people were waiting and we began mass.  Luckily we did it outside where there was good ventilation.

The congregation, I was sitting under that tree on the left and this bug came down and bit me and it really hurt.

Surprisingly mass only lasted 90 minutes.  I was kind of astonished by this but I can understand now reflecting back on it.

This is farming season and the means of survival are the crops which these people go.  How much do we need to deprive them of tending to their crops?  Mass is important, but so is living.  So there is an interesting balance which I am discovering here.

After we finished mass we packed up and left.  I quickly ran over to the church and took measurements of it so I could draft it up later.

Once we got home that was about the end of Ash Wednesday.  We watched mass from the Vatican and sat around and talked about the Pope.

Big E during his Homily as rain clouds roll in

The mood in Malawi has changed because of the farming season.   I see less people meddling about because they are always tending to their farms.  At daily mass there is a handful of people there because people are tending to their farms.