One Face in a Million Book 1: Mu Shangaaniana. William Bond
she undoubtedly needed a break from her many responsibilities.
It seemed to Christine that her hardworking mother was busy from sunrise to sunset every day of the week!
Christine realized that her mother kept busy every day—whether she was working at the health-care center or doing work around the house. She laundered and ironed clothes, did some baking, and spent lots of time in her office where she did official paperwork and kept up a correspondence with various ones. She also studied her Bible daily, prepared Sunday school lessons, and occasionally prepared the main message that was presented on Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings. Despite many activities, Mother found time to spend with Christine, and she made Christine feel that the time she most enjoyed was the time she spent with her!
And on this day, December 23, 1929, just what had Christine accomplished? Nearly nothing. She had slept late and made her bed. After they had had lunch together, she had washed the dishes, and she had played the piano for about an hour. She had gotten warm and bored, so she had sat on the swing for a while and had tried to keep cool. She had done some daydreaming and reminiscing until the chickens put up a fuss. A snake had caused their agitation, but Joao had bravely taken care of that snake. After that, she had again paged through photo albums that she had looked at more times than she could say. It had seemed like a long day, and she was still bored. She knew that things would get better when Mother came home. She also knew that she was getting hungry!
She closed the album and put both of them back on the table where she had found them.
She had thought that she would at least set the table, but she soon found that Joao had already taken care of setting the table. She walked into the kitchen and immediately saw that Joao had everything under control.
“Should be ready as soon as Mamana gets home.” He smiled.
Christine acknowledged that she was hungry, and then, she left the kitchen and returned to the veranda where she again seated herself on the swing. She picked up her fan and resumed her efforts to cool off. Sadly, her fanning did little good, but she used the fan to temporarily drive flies away that seemed determined to annoy her. Flies seemed especially pesky when the weather was changing, and as she looked to the east, she could see that the sky had gotten quite dark. Such a dark, threatening sky inevitably meant that a storm was heading their way. A summer storm could be quite dangerous, but rain was needed, and the temperature would cool off for a while. After the storm had passed, of course, the heat and humidity were sure to return.
As Christine looked toward the area where the Shangaan homes were located, she could see that several young boys were still actively hitting a can with long sticks. This seemed to be the Shangaans’ version of hockey, and it amazed her that they were still amused by what they were doing. She realized, of course, that there was little else for them to do. Their lives were not exactly full of opportunities. The children seemed destined to grow up and live just as their parents were living. Their lives were so different from hers, and even though she didn’t know what the future held for her, she knew that it offered more possibilities than were available to the black people.
She lived in a nice home and had good clothing. Their home had a piano, decent furnishings, and even a Victrola. Such amenities were not present in Joao’s home or in the homes of any other Shangaan people. The children who were playing with the can had precious little formal education, and their future was grim. Chances were good that they would never travel far from their present homes. Christine, on the other hand, had gone to a private boarding school in Swaziland and would probably continue her education somewhere in the United States, a land that she had already been privileged to visit twice! The black people barely had the basics in life, and it seemed that they had no privileges of any sort.
Their lack of education, their limited experiences, and their limited knowledge of other possibilities combined to create circumstances that were difficult to overcome. Joao was one who had seen how a white family lives, and it must have distressed him that he could not provide similar things and various amenities for his family. It must be depressing for him to realize that he could work as a cook and caretaker, for years, and never be able to have what many white folks have. If Joao had any resentment or envy, he kept it well concealed. In the presence of Mamana Cartwright and her daughter, he was always respectful, cheerful, hardworking, and trustworthy. Such attributes made him a valuable employee, but chances were good that he and his family would never have much of life’s material things. However, many of his people had received a Christian faith that would help sustain them in life, and who could put a monetary value on that?
Many black people were aware that their living conditions, their opportunities, and their basic rights were less than what white people experienced. Black people were generally poor, uneducated, and deprived of many things which most white people took for granted.
Although a minority, the whites throughout southern Africa were the race of privilege, position, political power, and prestige. The blacks and Coloureds had almost none of these things, but they had numbers. There was no doubt about that!
There would probably come a time when they would rise up, gain control, and finally have many of the things which they had so long been denied. On the surface, dark-skinned people often seemed good-natured and even jovial, but beneath the surface there was undoubtedly a lot of bitterness, resentment, and envy. A revolution would come someday, and it was apt to be a bloodbath. At that time, probably even peaceful missionaries would fear for their lives. Christine did not want to think about the terrible things that might happen, but the racial situation presented problems in parts of Africa that seemed too difficult to be easily solved. Christine had often thought that Africa was like a sleeping giant. Someday, the giant would awaken and be discontent with the inequality, and then, things would happen!
Despite its enormous size, Africa did not seem large enough to indefinitely contain all the racial, economic, social, and political differences in a peaceful way. Racial tensions and problems caused by so much inequality would erupt, someday, into real conflict. It was only a matter of time.
Like the storm that was gathering on the eastern horizon, Africa’s future seemed dark and uncertain. Christine realized, of course, that her own future was also uncertain. She had lived in Africa for nearly eighteen years, but she doubted that it would be her home indefinitely. She knew that she didn’t want to be a missionary, and she didn’t want to remain at Tavani where there were no opportunities for her. Although she liked LM, she didn’t want to live there or in places like Mbabane or Johannesburg. She didn’t want to live in a land where she might be viewed as an outcast because of her Indian ancestry.
She was nearing the completion of her education at St. Mark’s, and after that, she would go to college in either England or America. America seemed more likely because she had family connections in that distant land. Hopefully, the social problems that she had experienced would not continue after she had left St. Mark’s. After she had finished college, she had no idea what she would do with her life.
Mother was expecting her to go to college, for she wanted her to have a decent education, and she had said that Christine might have to support herself, someday. Having lost two husbands, she had learned from experience that a woman can sometimes find herself in a position where she has to provide for herself, and perhaps for some children, as well. In previous conversations, she had refrained from telling Christine what career she should choose, but she had tended to favor professions like teaching or nursing. Working on a mission field would also have met Mother’s approval, but she would have been the first to admit that such work really needs to be a calling. Choosing a profession was a topic that was apt to come up again, but none of the careers that they had discussed, thus far, had seemed very appealing.
At school, she had seen what a career in teaching could be like, and at Tavani, she had observed what nurses do, and she was well acquainted with how many responsibilities a missionary can have. Seeing all that her mother could do had convinced her that she was not cut out to be a missionary. Under normal circumstances, Mother had plenty to do, and with the Bostwicks away, she had even more to do. Christine was amazed that her mother could work in the health-care center; study her Bible; prepare lessons for Sunday school; do fill-in preaching during Mr. Bostwick’s absence; do her administrative work; host visitors;