By faith Abraham obeyed when he set out, not knowing where he was going. He sojourned in the Promised Land as though it were not his, living in tents (Heb 11.8-9)
That’s how I think of myself – as a pilgrim in a foreign land, a holy land blessed by God where the only thing that one can do is to approach with respect and wonder. I was a Pilgrim in Africa. The journey was long. Twelve hours to Dubai followed by twelve hours to Madrid and six hours to Togo with stops in Morocco and Ghana. On the route you meet other pilgrims. In Dubai, where I spent twelve hours waiting for a connection, I met a Pakistani woman who came from Russia. On the flight to Casa Blanca my travel companion was a Muslim who spent the flight praying the Koran. The sisters and Alceu who had arrived two days before me were waiting in Lome.
After a few days in Lomé, we traveled to Dapaong on the day that Ramadan ended, a great holiday for Muslims. The journey was 12 hours by bus. We traveled along the only road that accesses the north and it was clearly holidays because there were only lorries on the road. Every time we stopped on the road, there were women who offered you bread and fruit. There were no bathroom facilities so both men and women had to relieve themselves in the middle of the field.
Impressions
In the beginning there were no cultivated fields or animals to be seen, which showed that there is little development of agriculture and livestock. In the middle of the trip there was a sand storm that ended with an avalanche of water flooding the fields. The villages we passed as we climbed north were formed by mud and straw huts scattered across what was virtually desert. Only from Accra did we see some mountains with more vegetation. We only had one military checkpoint where they made us all get off the bus and checked our papers.
Upon arriving in Dapaong I began to realize the gift of being here to visit and meet my African brothers and sisters. How privileged I was to be a pilgrim in Africa. Although the journey had been long and drawn out, I thought about our ancestors. They were pilgrims through the desert who would have needed years, a lifetime to make the journey that I did in almost a week. Today we are able to move from one continent to another in a short time, but it takes time, years to get used to the place and delve into such different realities and worldviews. Next week we will attend a meeting on enculturation. You cannot love what you do not know. Through the incarnation we can discover God´s way of making himself known as well as the path to know and love each other as true brothers and sisters.
Darío Marote SEMD
