More Than One Fr. Gabriel

 

After living here for so many months, I thought miscommunication might not happen to me as much. And I was very wrong.

 

Two Saturdays ago, in the middle of the night, I was sitting next to my window, watching Mamma Mia on my laptop with my headphones on, minding my own business and I hear a very loud, “Sally!” over the song Dancing Queen, and I turn and see Sister Peace staring down at me outside my window. I’ve never seen the movie, “The Nun”, but a nun staring down at you from the darkness is scary whether you’ve seen the movie or not. After I got my adrenaline back down to a normal level, she told me that Father Gabriel had invited us to go to the bush with him to attend mass at a village. I said I would love to go and she said she would meet me in the morning.

 

After I got ready for mass the next day, I saw Sister Peace getting into a vehicle and she yelled out, “Father Gabriel will pick you up and I’ll meet you there!” So I waited on my front porch and Father Gabriel drove by and waved at me and kept going. So I yelled out, “Father!” And he stopped, backed up and he said, “Kushe, Sally! Where are you going to mass today?” And I replied, "I thought I was going with you, Father. Sister Peace said you had invited me to go to the bush.” He said, “No I haven’t talked to her in a while. But you’re welcome to come with me.” So I got in his car and went with him. Turns out, Sister Peace wasn’t talking about the Father Gabriel who lives next door to me and has been teaching me Krio all this time. She was talking about another Father Gabriel who I have met maybe twice since coming to Sierra Leone. Here’s a helpful tip about Sierra Leone; Gabriel and Mohammed are very common names here, and you should clarify with people about which Mohammed or Gabiel they are talking about before you make assumptions.

 

That day, Father Gabriel took me and his assistant, Gabriel (like I said, it’s a common name), on an hour-long drive through the bush. The rainy season has made the roads even worse than during the dry season. It’s very easy to get stuck in the mud or get caught in a flash flood on the roads. Luckily, that didn’t happen to us. I actually think the miscommunication was a blessing in disguise. I love being out in the bush, surrounded by trees and foliage, seeing farms and people living surrounded by nature. It was as close to “touching grass” as I’ll ever get living here. We arrived in a small village called Mabinki (I think) and were greeted by children chanting “Fada! Fada! Fada!” They love it when Father Gabriel comes to the village for Sunday mass. Father Gabriel showed me around the village. He showed me the village lime and banana trees. 

We also discussed the difference between the African way of telling time and the Western way of telling time. According to Father Gabriel, Western time is all about being on time. But African time is all about the event itself. It doesn’t really matter if you get to an event on time or not, it’s about being able to get there on your own time. For example, let’s say you say you’re going to have a party at 3:00 on a Friday. People will show up on Friday, it just will be whenever they decide to show up.

 

The village church was so cute! I’d say it was the nicest looking church I had seen since coming here. The Cathedral is nice, inside and out, but this church has character. It was called the Church of the Holy Family. The paintings inside were by the same artist who I had admired in another village I went to with Father Luigi. Everyone was very happy to see a “Porto” at the service. The whole mass was done in Krio so I didn’t understand everything. After mass, Father Gabriel and Gabriel had some palm wine with the chief and the other elders of the village. I politely declined. I don’t really like the taste of alcohol and didn’t want any on an empty stomach. After we arrived back in Makeni, Father took me out to lunch at a restaurant he knew which was nice.

 

The Sunday after that, we had Thanksgiving! Apparently, the people here have a Thanksgiving too! I had no idea! It’s not like our Thanksgiving. I don’t think they have turkeys or cranberry sauce here (although they do have sweet potatoes). This Thanksgiving took place after mass at Conforti, which is the church that’s closest to my house in Stocco. When mass was finished, everybody went over to a community center next door. They had music turned up to the max on some speakers. Then a bunch of people started talking on the microphone. Hearing Krio spoken over a microphone is like trying to listen to the “old coot” from Blazing Saddles and understand what’s being said. It’s hard. After that, food and sodas were passed around. It was a bunch of different kinds of fried foods. The only thing I could identify was chips. I ate everything, I just had no idea what I ate. It was all good. I hope one day I’ll actually understand more about what’s going on around me. Until that day comes, I’ll just go with the flow and enjoy the experience.