We travelled outside of Harare to Chisawasha, through lush green fields on red dirt roads. Our guide, Fr. Phiri, began the journey by describing, briefly, his almost abduction, how his brother was taken for collateral whole he was in hiding for 4- 5 months. The issue was cleared up only after a Jesuit with political connections was able to call in a favor to the State House.
We arrived pulling up over the hill to the singing voices of 400 young men and 50 young women playing mirimbas and dancing choked me with overwhelmed ness. The celebration and the beautiful sounds and views were echoed hours later, at Mass when the deep resonance of the boys singing hymns in Shona and the girls in wraps dancing the cross in and then out of the church. Ashes were spread, Eucharist was shared, and when it came time to say, 'It is right and just', they didn't. They clapped five deliberate times in unison.
We've had a lot of interesting conversations about farms being taken, about the white farmers having 24 hours to pack up and leave, and then the hundreds of black farm workers who had also worked that land for generations being left on the side of the road. We have seen the housing for the riot police who are kept separate from the rest of the population so that their violence is kept at bay. We have seen women kneel in front of men simply because they are women. And we have seen the work of the Jesuits, at schools like St. George's and St. Ignatius where the future leaders and academic elite take great pride in their work ethic and success at the highest performing and most academically challenging schools. And we have seen the Jesuit schools that serve the most poor who live in the highest density areas with overcrowded classrooms, very few computers, most with floppy disk drives, and endless hope that they can get out of Bari, smiling. Our experiences and observations and conversations here in Zimbabwe are woven together with this desire for what is right and just.
The Jesuits are working for justice through education with the poor and the wealthy. Their work inspires, the sounds of hymns sung and danced in Shona inspires, the beauty of the landscape waiting to be functioning again inspires us to work for what is right and just. There is so much to learn here in Zimbabwe and so much goo
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