Page 328 - Volume 2_CHANGES_merged_with links

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m̩ 'zuŋ u memories of the Christian Church in Africa

walk softly, go quietly and you wlll see...

These priests enjoyed their alcohol.

As is sometimes my wont, I spent the night in my small tent, under the spreading trees
on the village green between the priests’ house and the church, disturbed only by the hoof

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steps of grazing cows. And as always, the priests took care to protect the m'zuŋ u. Their
security guard had been briefed to make sure of that.
*****
She stands all in white, rigid, isolated and unmoving, all the time listening to the words of the

priest whose voice is relayed to the grounds outside the Christian Cathedral in Aksum,
Ethiopia.

It's a daily sight. Different locals. Sometimes alone, sometimes in small groups. Their
rigidity and lack of motion a tribute to their devotion to their religious faith. An act of piety in

its own right.

*****
Louis, my landlord in Gisenyi, Rwanda, runs several businesses. As well as renting out the two
houses he has crowded into his family compound, he runs one retail business and a small but

lucrative grain business located near the town's border post with the DRC.

And as part of his expansion plans, he has recently started a brand new church. Being
the founder, leader of a church provides elevated status and power within the local

community. It's also a source of extra income. Not all the donations make their way to
community causes. It can also provide a platform for other forms of future self-

aggrandisement.

If it’s not actually a career choice, it very much can be a staging post in a career.

*****
Gisenyi is crowded out with this and that branch of the more Christian churches. It epitomises
the invasion of Africa as part of the territorial empire building of Christians.

Walk around Gisenyi, and you will rarely be far from a church. Look closely and you will realise

that the density of churches belonging to any one branch of christianity is out of proportion to
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what we would expect in our own m'zuŋ u-land country.
Wave after wave of the chaos which arose out of those decades of post-colonial chaos was
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m̩
used by 'zuŋ u churches to build their own overseas empire.