Thoughts on food and funerals on two continents

Zimbabwean funeral
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik)

Following is a piece I wrote for the Edmond Sun. They're doing a series of reflections on Scripture as part of a "read the Bible in a year" package. I had several verses to choose from, but I thought that a couple in Proverbs related to an experience I had in Zimbabwe:

“Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.” (Proverbs 15:17)

It was a thin stew of herbs, greens and a few meager scraps of chicken, served with a side of sadza — a doughy substance made from corn that tastes a bit like mashed potatoes.

It probably was more than most Zimbabweans eat in a week.

I visited Zimbabwe earlier this month with a group of missionaries from Kansas. They were checking up on a church-run hospital and school, both suffering from the economic turmoil that’s gripped this landlocked country in southern Africa.

In the 1980s Zimbabwe was an almost-utopia of racial harmony and prosperity — especially while it’s neighbor, South Africa, was in the throes of apartheid. But in recent years many of the farmers have been killed or run off their land. Crop production has fallen and inflation has reached 1,000 percent.

One U.S. dollar will get you more than 100,000 Zimbabwean dollars — if you’re lucky enough to find them. Fuel and food are scarce, as are drugs to deal with the country’s AIDS epidemic.

So I was a bit surprised to find smiling faces in Zimbabwe — especially at a funeral.

Brother Timothy, a local preacher, took us to the home of a church family that lost a 12-year-old boy to HIV. We mourned with the family and sang a handful of hymns.

I figured that was it, but then the family invited us to lunch.

I was more than bit concerned for how my stomach might respond, but my hosts smiled all the while. They even cheered when I turned down a fork and ate with my hands like everybody else.

“I would like to hear you speak,” said the family patriarch, and just like that I was on the funeral program. Talk about indigestion! I’ve never spoken at a funeral in the U.S., much less one in a country — and a language — I don’t understand.

But I muddled through it, with Brother Timothy translating my words into Shona. I told them that I didn’t understand their customs, but the love they had for the grieving family was universal. It required no translation. I read the verse from Romans that speaks about present suffering and future glory.

Right now, after a pulled pork sandwich from Earl’s Rib Palace that was much too big, I think about that humble meal of chicken bones and sadza — served by starving, smiling people.

“All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast.” (Proverbs 15:15)