Food Gathering

Blantyre Synod’s Bi-Annual meeting will convene on Sunday, August 21. The Synod offices are in full preparation mode, with reports being printed, committees meeting to arrange for housing and protocol, for transportation and entertainment. But the most creative and resourceful of the committees, from my perspective, is the food committee. Theirs is the task of feeding the 500 delegates and dignitaries. They must do this on a limited budget. They have enlisted the support of the various presbyteries to accomplish this task.

The 18 presbyteries represent the entire southern region of Malawi, an agriculturally diverse area. The committee has asked each presbytery to contribute food that is grown in their particular area to help feed the crowd. So Thycholo Presbytery is contributing cabbages and tomatoes, since that is what is grown in that area. Liviilidzi Presbytery is contributing rice and Irish potatoes. Mangochi is by the lake, so they are giving chambo, the local white fish, and the list goes on, according to the agricultural strength of the area. Onions, carrots, green beans, bananas, papaya, chickens, goats, beef, maize flour, cassava, sweet potatoes will all be gathered, everything that is needed for a complete Malawian meal. This is a most practical approach to feeding folks in an agricultural country that has limited financial resources, but that has had a relatively good harvest this year.

These items were requested a number of months ago, to give each presbytery time to gather the needed produce. This week they are arriving at the Synod offices, to be stored and/or prepared for the meals next week. The gathering has begun in earnest. On Wednesday morning when I arrived at the Synod office for morning prayers, in the parking area outside the offices stood one of the Synod’s transport trucks, with a special pen structure erected on the bed of the truck. There quietly standing in the make-shift stalls were two cows, contributed from Shire Valley Presbytery, the cattle growing area of the district. They seemed to understand their plight. They stood silently, with big, sad eyes. Later in the day they were driven off to be butchered. This is a reality of life in an agricultural society, but it is still a bit unsettling for someone who grew up only purchasing packaged meat in the grocery store. I still have some difficulty looking the meal’s main course in the eye and then later sitting down to consume it. That is true for beef or goat or chicken or even whole fish, a favorite way of serving it here. In the States we have, for the most part, distanced ourselves from the actual preparation of the raw product, but here in Malawi it is just a fact of life, from butchering cows to dressing (or more appropriately undressing) chickens. We live close to the earth. No one at the meeting will give a second thought to the raw contributions each presbytery has made, no one except me. The others will just give thanks and enjoy the meal. I’ll pause to consider the sad eyes of the cows and possibly just take a larger helping of rice, thank you very much.