characters against the background of the arrival of missionaries, and chart the growing tensions within the tribe, the village, and even within families between those who embrace the culture of the white people in matters such as religion, schooling or medicine, and those who continue to affirm their indigenous tribal traditions.
What cannot be denied, however, is that all of the Irish missionaries in Kitui are doing tremendous work for the poor. I became acquainted with many of them fairly soon after arriving. OK, I had mixed motives; in remote places, they are the only people with a few Western comforts—like a functioning shower, albeit a cold one from their tank of rainwater. All of them, without exception, immediately welcomed me as one of their own, and we instantly became friends. It was the Kiltegan Fathers (Saint Patrick’s Missionary Society), with whom I had stayed on my first night in Kenya, who brought Catholicism to Kitui in the 1950s. Around a fifth of Kitui District is now Catholic, and the Diocese celebrated its golden jubilee in 2006; there was an Irishman at its helm even then. These ageing missionaries may vanish over the next decade from Kenya, to become a part of Ireland’s, as well as Africa’s, history.
I used to have an uncle working amongst the Zulu tribe in South Africa and an aunt living alongside the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, working as missionaries for many decades. As a child, I would listen, mesmerised, to their tales of life in Africa, and be fascinated by the exotic carvings they would carry as gifts whenever they came home for the summer on a break every three or four years or so. I never pictured their lives properly until I came to Kenya. There is a character in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa who arrives back to live in Ireland after spending decades working as a missionary priest in Uganda. After a while, it becomes obvious that he had gone native and is suffering from malaria-induced delusions. He feels more at home in Africa.
Many of the missionaries I met would feel perfectly at home in both Ireland and Africa, but a great number of them soon discover they have a greater commitment to Africa. They have adapted well to life in Africa, and feel they belong more in Africa than in Ireland. These missionaries seem to stay exceptionally active and nimble as they grow older, tirelessly working long after people of their age would retire in Ireland.
The newer-style missionaries, mainly from America, might stay for a few weeks and, arguably, not do a whole lot of good. They often hand out a load of money to some local and hastily recruited African pastor to build a church. The money may be the conscience money of some televangelist. These local pastors are sometimes reported as embezzling money; many spout an intolerant ‘saved’ brand of Christianity. This may sound a bit cynical, and they are not all like this, by any means, but I saw evidence of harm done by a few of these fly-by-night operators, however well intentioned they might have been.
Indeed, one could argue that there is too much ‘religion’ in Kenya. In Ireland, most people talk down their personal religious commitment, whereas in Kenya they talk up how religious they are all the time, like when applying for a job, for instance. On occasions, I became frustrated when some people would not help themselves, lazily using religion as a crutch. ‘God will help us,’ they would tell me, when they should have been giving God a hand. Sometimes, admittedly, they told me this in sheer desperation.
Some of the buses run by the cool dudes in Nairobi even had a Pioneer Total Abstinence Association symbol brightly emblazoned across the side of the bus. It was not necessarily a pledge of Christian abstemiousness! I was in a truck once with Cecil (our Akamba Nyumbani driver), who like every other Kenyan lives by the philosophy of ‘polé, polé’ (slowly, slowly). Except, that is, when he got his hands on any kind of
What cannot be denied, however, is that all of the Irish missionaries in Kitui are doing tremendous work for the poor. I became acquainted with many of them fairly soon after arriving. OK, I had mixed motives; in remote places, they are the only people with a few Western comforts—like a functioning shower, albeit a cold one from their tank of rainwater. All of them, without exception, immediately welcomed me as one of their own, and we instantly became friends. It was the Kiltegan Fathers (Saint Patrick’s Missionary Society), with whom I had stayed on my first night in Kenya, who brought Catholicism to Kitui in the 1950s. Around a fifth of Kitui District is now Catholic, and the Diocese celebrated its golden jubilee in 2006; there was an Irishman at its helm even then. These ageing missionaries may vanish over the next decade from Kenya, to become a part of Ireland’s, as well as Africa’s, history.
I used to have an uncle working amongst the Zulu tribe in South Africa and an aunt living alongside the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, working as missionaries for many decades. As a child, I would listen, mesmerised, to their tales of life in Africa, and be fascinated by the exotic carvings they would carry as gifts whenever they came home for the summer on a break every three or four years or so. I never pictured their lives properly until I came to Kenya. There is a character in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa who arrives back to live in Ireland after spending decades working as a missionary priest in Uganda. After a while, it becomes obvious that he had gone native and is suffering from malaria-induced delusions. He feels more at home in Africa.
Many of the missionaries I met would feel perfectly at home in both Ireland and Africa, but a great number of them soon discover they have a greater commitment to Africa. They have adapted well to life in Africa, and feel they belong more in Africa than in Ireland. These missionaries seem to stay exceptionally active and nimble as they grow older, tirelessly working long after people of their age would retire in Ireland.
The newer-style missionaries, mainly from America, might stay for a few weeks and, arguably, not do a whole lot of good. They often hand out a load of money to some local and hastily recruited African pastor to build a church. The money may be the conscience money of some televangelist. These local pastors are sometimes reported as embezzling money; many spout an intolerant ‘saved’ brand of Christianity. This may sound a bit cynical, and they are not all like this, by any means, but I saw evidence of harm done by a few of these fly-by-night operators, however well intentioned they might have been.
Indeed, one could argue that there is too much ‘religion’ in Kenya. In Ireland, most people talk down their personal religious commitment, whereas in Kenya they talk up how religious they are all the time, like when applying for a job, for instance. On occasions, I became frustrated when some people would not help themselves, lazily using religion as a crutch. ‘God will help us,’ they would tell me, when they should have been giving God a hand. Sometimes, admittedly, they told me this in sheer desperation.
Some of the buses run by the cool dudes in Nairobi even had a Pioneer Total Abstinence Association symbol brightly emblazoned across the side of the bus. It was not necessarily a pledge of Christian abstemiousness! I was in a truck once with Cecil (our Akamba Nyumbani driver), who like every other Kenyan lives by the philosophy of ‘polé, polé’ (slowly, slowly). Except, that is, when he got his hands on any kind of
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