Maggie and Mark Banga – Page 2 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

My name is “She Rained Down”

9 June, 2015 by Maggie and Mark Banga

Names have a unique significance and richness in Ethiopia and the naming of a child may come about in a few different ways. The country’s ancient Christian roots reveal themselves to this day in the naming of many new babies. As among other Christians throughout the world, it would be common to name a child after a person in the bible, one of the apostles or a saint. For example, common names here are Hanna,Solomon, Isaac and Yohannes (John).

But what is also common and beautifully unique here is that many Ethiopian names are compounds or small phrases rather than one word. Some examples of compound names are:

Ehitnesh – You are a sister
Terunesh – You are wonderful
Serkaddis – Always new
Zenebetch – She rained down
Engedawerq – Golden guest
Yibeltal – He is above
Yemiseratch – She who works
Nega – It became dawn

The meanings sometimes reveal the circumstance of the child’s birth, a personality trait that the parents see in the child or an aspiration of the parents for their child. For example, the name Tesfaye which means “My Hope” is frequently given by a mother who is very poor or single reflecting her hope for her child’s future goodness and success. Or a name like Mitiku meaning “Substitute” would be given to a child after the death of a brother or sister. One of our friends is named Teshale which means “He is feeling better” because he was born sick but pulled through.

Many compound names may also stem from the parents faith and reflect one of God’s characteristics. They are given to give reverence and thanks to God for the gift of the new life into this world, for example:

Meheretu – His Mercy
Gashow – His Shield
Mebratu – His Light
Gebre Mariam – Son of Mary
Habte Mikael – Gift of Micheal (if the parents had prayed to St. Michael the archangel for a baby)

Another unique feature is that there are no surnames. The tradition is that the first name of the child’s father becomes the child’s last name. Since my fathers name is Alex Banga, had I been born in Ethiopia I would have been named Mark Alex instead of Mark Banga. Also, a woman never takes her husbands name in marriage, instead she keeps her fathers first name.

Because the Amharic names still sound ‘foreign’ to our ears we don’t notice how different the names are. Meheretu enters our mind as Meheretu and is quickly classified as a foreign word, not decoded into its Amharic meaning. But if we stop to think about what we are hearing it’s quite peculiar for us. The compound names shown above do not symbolize the meaning but are in fact the literal words. Just imagine if you overheard this conversation:

“Good morning His Shield”
“Hi You are Wonderful, how are you doing? Did you see My Hope last night”
“No, My Hope did not come to the party but He is feeling better was there with his new girlfriend She is sister.”

The names have on one hand been helpful to learn Amharic, because we have not needed to remember a lot of names as new vocabulary. We can translate someone’s name into the literal meaning which both reinforces the Amharic grammar and helps us remember their name. Bonus! But on one hand it has been difficult. Perhaps in reading the little conversation above you were confused? This often happens to us for example when listening to the radio. We are not always sure if the broadcast is about the government or if the person who is being interviewed is named The Government! Also several names can be used for both boys and girls. For example, Tesfaye – My hope or Fiqere – My love.

As for our names, although Maggie is a short name and easy to spell in the Amharic alphabet (only 2 characters!) there is no equivalent or similar Amharic word so they struggle a little to remember it. We have found it funny that if Maggie says her long name with a Spanish twist and calls herself Margarita they have no trouble remembering! But for me, there is no easier name to recognize under the Ethiopian sun than one of the Gospel writers, Markos.

– Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia

Way of the Cross

17 March, 201527 February, 2015 by Maggie and Mark Banga

A couple years back, we joined Fr. Sixtus Agostini, Comboni Missionary, to journey through the Good Friday “Way of the Cross” liturgy in the small rural mission parish of ‘Kege’ about an hour south drive of Awasa city. Good Friday is the commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ and the Way of the Cross is a retracing of Jesus’ Passion, the final events leading up to his crucifixion. What a precious blessing it was to “walk” this Way of the Cross as guests with our brothers and sisters of Kege.

The Kege area has a soupy, clay valley floor that delivers beautifully fertile soil to the farming community, and is flanked by rocky hills. We turned off the main asphalt highway and as we drove through the final 20 km to our destination we began passing more and more people walking with large crosses they had made of wood. We wondered if they would be joining in for the Way of the Cross procession and also wondered how far they had come from and whether they were going to make it?! We packed as many people as we could into the truck but we looked with astonishment out the window at small groups every few hundred meters diligently walking, crosses in hand.

We arrived around 9:00 am at the local chapel. To our surprise there were about 200 people already gathered praying in silence in the simple chapel. No one peeped a word when we entered. The chapel was constructed using the local method of mud (chika) and chopped straw (chid) packed and smoothed onto a wooden skeleton. Your nostrils filled with an intense earthy aroma upon entering. Maggie and I took a seat on a plank of wood at the back.

Soon we were leaving the chapel on procession. Realizing that we were the only ones without a cross, Maggie picked two small branches from the ground and a piece of grass which she tried to use to fasten the two pieces together. The children understood what was happening. Instantly, numerous teenagers came to the rescue with dried palm leaves and they tied Maggie’s cross tightly together. She shook the mud off the sticks and raised it into the ready position. This spontaneous fabrication triggered giggles and huge smiles around us.

Teenage boys carried a massive cross at the front, along with backpacks carrying a megaphone, receiver, and batteries. The megaphone crackled and Fr. Sixtus began the Way of the Cross procession with the first ‘station’ or moment of the Passion. The Gospel passage was read, followed by a reflection and prayers. The tone was solemn and penitential with the people singing responses to the prayers. As Fr. Sixtus began to read the blessing to conclude the first station, to my surprise, everyone knelt down right where they were standing – be it, the mud (it had rained hard the night before), cow dung or onto rocks, depending on one’s chance. People had dressed up to attend the service, but without hesitation plunged their knees into the mud in humbleness of heart to the whole purpose and penitential spirit of the day, Good Friday.

Everyone stood up and we began walking. The congregation scattered loosely behind the central wooden cross continued in procession with somber song. We repeated the above prayer service 13 more times through all the stations of the Way of the Cross. The procession journeyed maybe 5 km weaving through the town of Kege and surrounding farms. Along the way, Maggie and I were quite a novelty and many young children scrunched in close to walk with us. As we walked and prayed, all the people that we had seen on our drive joined group by group. By the end the congregation grew from 200 to 750. Maggie and I could only feel very touched at how passionate people were about being present on this holiest of days. People had walked hours in order to walk some more. They desired to be present to Jesus and walk with Him.

During the final stations, the procession turned up the valley wall, symbolically mirroring the ascent of Calvary. The pitch was astoundingly steep, demanding your hands to push up on rocks and pull on small trees. This was the way to celebrate the Way of the cross! It was quite the sight to see this large group slowly scurry up the rocky slope, suddenly stopping along the way to pray a station. Maggie and I climbed too. Everyone around seemed very concerned that we were not going to make it. Tiny children and old women would extend their hands at tricky boulder locations to us! At one moment, I made the tinniest of slips on some loose gravel and 100 people all gasped in unison.

We arrived all together at the top of the slope and everyone sat down amongst the brush and rocks. The procession now flowed into the celebration of the Good Friday service which Fr. Sixtus started over the megaphone. A few minutes later, the sky flipped from sunny to stormy and it poured. It poured hard. Everyone huddled under the few umbrellas that people had brought. Maggie and I soon had 7 children piled in tightly under our umbrella. The liturgy continued and everyone did their best to listen to the megaphone above the sound of the rain.

After communion had been distributed under umbrellas, the rain and the liturgy both ended together. There were smiles all around – both from the happiness of having completed the 3 hour procession and from a humorous knowledge of having endured together the sun, mud, steep pitch and thunderstorm. Roasted dry peas were passed around in celebration.

This story is not original or unique. It is the recounting of a scene which is played out in countless unknown places in the developing world – a scene where people who live in extreme material poverty gather together and turn their hearts to God. The people did not come to hear a theological lecture on Jesus’ Passion or to participate in the Easter journey out of obligation. They came simply to walk because they love Jesus and want to express their gratitude for the love He has shown them.

In front of this kind of faith, I could only but feel humbled.

– Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia

Dear St. Daniel

13 May, 201527 February, 2015 by Maggie and Mark Banga

Dear St. Daniel,

In the last couple years as I have serving here in Ethiopia, I’ve been diving into some of the thousands of letters which you wrote. In your words, it is clear that you loved the African people so much. Being here in Africa myself, the place where you gave your whole life, you are a great faith model for me because it was your big love that fueled your tenacity to persevere amidst every kind of hardship. Where did such a love come from? At a time when most everyone else in the western world disregarded Africa and saw only insurmountable destitution, you saw a sister and a brother and potential. When others saw selfish opportunity, profit and a source of slaves, you saw Jesus in their faces and the dignity of a fellow child of the Father in heaven. As boats left the harbour packed with slaves destined for the ‘civilized’ world, you sent African men and women to Europe to study at university with the firm confidence that they would return to their homelands being the best architects of their own people’s liberation and development. How much opposition you must have faced? I guess you wanted for all Africans to savour the freedom you found in God’s love, a love which you obviously felt so strongly yourself.

– Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia

Easter in Ethiopia

30 March, 201526 February, 2015 by Maggie and Mark Banga

Walking through Holy Week here in Ethiopia requires you to take off your shoes and feel the rocky soil between your toes. Ethiopians don’t celebrate Easter in a mere cerebral way; instead they need to feel it more physically. They manifest their spiritual journey of the week with tangible expressions which are at the same time profound yet plain: joyous palm waving as the King enters on a real donkey, 10km long stations of the cross processions in the blazing sun which literally scale up the hill of Calvary, vivid dramatic reenactments to supplement the liturgies, four straight hours of prostrations and prayers on Good Friday to enter into the Passion with one’s body. Yet the faith expression is marked with a humble simplicity – processing through the mud alongside herds of cattle, unadorned crosses made with two pieces of wood joined by a nail, Easter Sunday baptisms from a plastic bowl in a mud-walled chapel. All is beautiful and meaningful, in the same way for Jesus’ Passion to be fully redemptive, it also needed to be physical.

Palm Sunday Processions:

Good Friday Way of the Cross:

Easter Vigil and Sunday:

Mark & Maggie Banga

Comboni Lay Missionaries serving in Awassa, Ethiopia

Yes means No

15 September, 2014 by Maggie and Mark Banga

Borana Culture Ethiopia — Borana Culture, Southern Ethiopia

“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ The boy answered, ‘I will not.’ But later he had a change of heart and went. The father went to the other son and said the same thing. This boy answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?…” Matthew 21:28-31

After the reading of this parable at mass one Sunday in the rural mission of Dadim, the parish priest Fr. Anthony, a Nigerian missionary, dove into his homily with confidence. A vineyard here is unimaginable amidst the arid red earth of southern Ethiopia, so he changed the details of the parable to something the people could relate to in their daily life. Dadim is a pastoralist region near the border of Kenya, where cattle and camels roam free and the life of the semi-nomadic Borana people surrounds tending their livestock. So Fr. Anthony equated the story to a son being requested to take the herd to water. The story however was the same: first son said “No” and then went; second son said “Yes” but did not go. He asked the congregation “Which of the two did the will of the parent?” The parishioners were unanimous in agreement: the second son. The parish priest, a little confused, painstakingly explained the story again. However, the congregation had not misunderstood. They were clear in their answer – definitely the second son was right.

In their culture, ‘No’ is never voiced, never uttered or even whispered. To insult someone by refusing a request in word, especially the father, is the ultimate in disrespect. The only reply ever is “Yes”. But must your “Yes” mean “Yes” among the Borana? The answer seems to be no. One can agree to a meeting time and place and never show up, one can agree to certain work and never do it, one can agree to stay but instead leave, or leave but instead stay. It could be that they really do mean “Yes” with good intention, but then there are so many factors in their challenging lifestyle that could abort their plan that most “Yes’” are in fact never fulfilled. To say “No” is so grave that even doing the appropriate action afterwards cannot right the original wrong.

A consensus between the priest (who had only recently arrived) and the parishioners was not reached. For the Borana it was the initial attitude of the first son that made him wrong. What audacity for him to say “No” to his father. Missionary work is plump full of these types of perplexities. This moment reminded me about the differences in culture and the challenges of communicating the Gospel message within the context of culture. Perhaps Fr. Anthony also learned an important lesson for his future work with the community in this area, though surely he still hopes that a “Yes” really will transmit into an action and commitment.

– Maggie

Maggie, Mark and Emebet Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia