Unauthorized Stories

In the blogosphere, there are stories and then there are unauthorized stories. A little while back my daughter brought to my attention that she and her brother discussed my telling of unauthorized stories. I had to chuckle at that, but at the same time take to heart the concern of family members that I not spill everything. Oh, I wouldn't do that.

But last Sunday, CBS Sunday Morning News did a story that reminded me of one of these unauthorized stories. CBS did a lovely segment on a Polish priest named Piotr Nawrot who went into the jungles of Bolivia to find lost Baroque music. If that description piques your interest, you can follow the link here to watch the whole story.

Every mother hopes to raise her children with a minimum of psychological trauma to their young minds. I certainly did. But something I did when they were in their early teens, or maybe younger, apparently seared them--at least they tell it that way. My children are now past their childhoods, my son in his 30s and my daughter in her 20s, and I believe they emerged from their childhoods unscathed--mostly.

You see, I love, make that LOVE, the movie "The Mission." This movie, starring a whole host of top notch actors including Jeremy Irons and Robert de Niro, tells the story Jesuits missionaries in South America. Intent on spreading Christianity, and also part of the Spanish colonial outreach, the Jesuits went into the heart of South America, straddling what are today parts of the countries of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and set up 30 missions. The story of these missions is in itself fascinating, but to follow it I would wander away from the intent of this blog. You can follow the link to learn more.

I loved the movie so much that I thought it was a "must see" for my children. Since it came out in 1986, I likely had my son watch with me either the first or second time I saw it. He was in his teens then, so that timing fits. I was so ecstatic about the movie, I probably paid little attention to his reaction. I don't recall that he expressed any opinion about the movie, during or after watching it.

Since I had the movie on VHS, I could watch it again and again. When my daughter was somewhere in her teens, I said--you HAVE to see this movie "The Mission." And proceeded to persuade her to sit down with me one night to watch it. Later, she was talking with her brother. Now, I don't know exactly how that conversation went, so I won't recreate it. But apparently at some point, perhaps she said something to him about the movie. And her brother laughed and said--oh, did Mom make you watch the movie, too. A knowing shared moment between my children--the trauma that their mother put them through. Haarruummmpppphhhhh. I do not inflict trauma on my children--I introduce them to. . . culture.

Oh well, so they don't share my love for this marvelous movie. I will hasten to point out, the movie is not for the faint of heart, or stomach. The final scene is absolutely wrenching. In history, the Jesuits over-stepped their bounds. They were frequently doing that, and to slap down their influence, the Pope agreed that some of the territory where the missions were located had to be handed over from Spanish colonial control to Portuguese colonial control. The process was not pretty.

Now, what is the unauthorized part of this post? Well, telling this story of course. But, I contend that these are not just stories about my children. They are my stories too, even when the punchline is on me. So, how can they possibly be unauthorized?

“The Living Record of Your Memory”*

OK, I admit it. . .the inspiration for this blog came from my brother. He recently wrote about the mission station where my parents lived when my brother and I were young children.

I confess that my memories of Sikalongo Mission are very dim. Additionally, they are episodic. My brother has visited this mission far more recently than I was there, having seen it in 2003. And my father will be sure to correct any mis-remembrances that I have.

Photo of me and a much loved doll. I recall losing a doll on the train--by the time I remembered that I had left it there, the train was gone, and with it the doll.

So, here goes. This is what I remember about Sikalongo Mission. It is located near the town of Choma, Zambia, in the southern part of Zambia. Choma is sufficiently small to not be shown on all maps, but it is due east of Livingstone. When I lived there with my parents the Kariba Dam had not yet been built on the Zambesi River, but if you were to visit this location today, you would be very near the resulting lake, Lake Kariba.

My mind’s eye recollection is that as you approached the mission on the dirt road leading to the mission, you would be going up a long hill. At the bottom of that hill there was a dam. This place figures in one of my recollections. There were a couple of mission houses, and then the main mission house, on the left. If you walked away from the main mission house, toward the schools, you would come to a mission bell, up on a kind of scaffolding.

Other buildings that I remember are the milk house (I don’t know if that is what it was called, but there were milk cans in there), the out-houses (the source of another story) and the pig pens. I do not remember the church—which is most curious, since attending services there would have been a weekly feature in my childhood. I do remember sitting in church, somewhat drowsily, listening to services in Chitonga. Mother would run her fingers up and down my arm, tickling me and lulling me.

My 2nd birthday. You can see a kerosene lamp on the bookshelf, and a pressure lamp hanging overhead. No electricity in those days.

Mainly, I remember stories. Stories from this time of my life frequently involve animals. During this time is when I first became attached to pigs. I don’t know why, other than that we had them on the mission, and I could watch them in all phases of their piggy lives. Many of the animal stories I remember involved the natural wildlife that we would have encountered—crocodiles, various antelope or giraffes, and baboons. I never saw a lion in the wild, nor an elephant. The memory I have involving the dam on the outskirts of the mission had to do with a crocodile getting caught in one of the pools by the dam, and since it couldn’t get out, and kept thrashing about threatening anyone who approached it, it had to be shot. And of course there were snakes to be reckoned with.

There was the time one evening that my father reached for his slippers. He had been reading in the living room, and with the lamps (with no electricity, the lamps were either kerosene or pressure lamps) turned down low, he thought he saw his belt inside the slippers. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a snake. As I recall the story, my father initially considered using a gun to shoot the snake, but decided not to put holes in the walls (maybe my mother influenced that choice). Someone brought a shambok, a whip made of animal hide, and I believe one of the African men used it to break the snake’s back. The general rule with snakes in Africa was “kill first, ask questions later.” Of course, many people associate snakes with Africa and expect you to have some kind of encounter. Snakes weren’t really everywhere, but since a fair number of snakes in Africa are poisonous, you learned to be respectful.

My 4th birthday. I assume this photo is in the main mission house at Sikalongo.

Another story involved me and the out-house. Since we did not have indoor plumbing then, the bathroom was an out-house. Generally, you were well-advised to check the seat before you sat. But I was a child set on the next play time, and forgot. Smack—I sat down right on top of some kind of wooly caterpillar that had as its defense mechanism to eject all its spiny prickles, right into my . . .(hey, you’re ahead of me and you already got the picture!). The cure was a painful amount of time spent with my lying stomach down on my bed, with my mother removing prickles with a tweezers. Thank goodness there were no digital cameras then for virtually instant photos!

Mother and me with my many dolls! In front of mission house at Sikalongo.

I sometimes wonder if these stories are embellished by my memory. I have become more suspicious of recall. I am older, so the distance between my present recollection and that long ago event only increases with each passing year. And, of course, it is impossible to cross-check everything. The very nature of memory is such that a stand-out event for me may have passed unnoticed by most everyone else.

*Source of title--Shakespeare's Sonnet 55 "Nor marble, nor gilded monuments"

A Charmed Childhood

I was born in California just before the end of World War II. FDR was still president, but would die two months after my birth—as my son would say: “Correlation does not imply causation.” The timing was entirely coincidental. My parents were living in Waukena, in the San Joaquin Valley, California, where my dad was pastor of a small church as well as a school teacher. He was a member (and still is) of a denomination which had a strong peace stance and qualified for a draft deferment. His service during World War II was to be part of the civilian patrol in California that watched for Japanese aircraft (since the perceived threat of invasion was high) and reminded folks to keep their black out curtains drawn at night.

The place I was actually born was in Tulare, nearby Waukena. Other than my birth, the only other “famous” association of which I am aware for Tulare is that it provided the name for rabbit fever, tularemia. My dad loves to recall the day of my birth (a Tuesday) and a malfunctioning car and a freight train that threatened to block the road, nearly keeping him and my mother from getting to the hospital in time. I don’t recall these details myself.

When I was just shy of two years old, my parents were ready to go to the mission field in Africa. They had actually been approved to go several years before, but World War II altered travel plans. My dad had grown up there, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as a missionary child himself. Due to a combination of circumstances, traveling to Africa by ship was out—there was a travel backlog post-war, and some concern about the North Atlantic still being treacherous. Eventually, the travel plans for my parents worked out to be by airplane. Of course, today that is not at all unusual, but in 1946 it most certainly was. In a somewhat large party of missionaries, my parents with me flew from New York City on December 12 and arrived at their destination, Bulawayo, then Southern Rhodesia, on Christmas Day! Imagine traveling for that long both in distance and time with an almost two year old.

Photo of Dorothy's grave courtesy of my brother

My childhood recollections begin with the birth of my sister. I was three when my sister Dorothy was born. My parents were assigned to a mission station in then Northern Rhodesia, just outside the town of Choma. She was born in March, and died in November. I state the brackets of her life at the outset, not out of insensitivity, but to state the facts straightforwardly. The cause of her death was malaria. At that time, quinine was the prophylaxis for malaria, and everyone took it. That is, except infants. I don’t know if my mother took it or not during her pregnancy, because quinine is contra-indicated for pregnant and nursing women, and for infants. While there are medicines available now for infants, at that time there were no others. Unprotected, my sister was bitten by a mosquito, and developed malaria. At first, her symptoms were general, not specific to malaria. She was seen by a doctor several times, and only on the last visit, did he do a blood test that confirmed she had malaria. My parents had planned to take her to a hospital, traveling by train some miles away from Choma. They had just gotten on the train, and it had begun its journey when Dorothy died. My mother told me that Dorothy screamed, arched her back, and then went utterly limp and died.

I remember seeing Dorothy in her simple coffin. I remember that when my parents brought her back to the mission station, she was laid on a bed, and I thought she was sleeping. I also remember that days before she got sick, I had been swinging her on a baby swing, and was pushing a bit too hard. Mother cautioned me, but I didn’t listen. Predictably, Dorothy bumped her head because of my carelessness. For some years, I thought I played a part in her death, a very natural conclusion for a child to draw. When I told Mother many years later about that, she was amazed that I had carried such an erroneous memory for so many years.




The next major event in my life was the birth of my brother. Since I wrote a Sibling Stories account of that birth, it would be most unfair to repeat the story. Or actually stories, as I have quite a few about my brother. Soon after his birth, I went off to boarding school. In preparation for that momentous event, I needed a hairdo that I could care for. Up to that time, I had braids. So, my mother placed a rubber band at the top of each braid, and one at the bottom, and snipped above the first band. Then she sent a braid off to each of my grandmothers. I learned later that one of my grandmothers cried when she saw the braid. I always assumed it was my paternal grandmother (who was a soft touch if ever there were one). But it turns out it was my maternal grandmother who, in my childhood memory, was always stern and foreboding.




Boarding school was quite a change for me. The school year then ran from January through December; since my birthday is in February, I was actually 5 about to turn 6 when I went off to a church run boarding school. The school, called Namwianga, was a mission run school, located some fifty miles from the mission where my parents were stationed. So after they took me to school, of course they left. I so distinctly remember first nights, when all the boarders arrived at school. Since we all slept in dorms, segregated by age and sex, we could hear each other in the dark. All around the dorm, I could hear sniffles, and soft crying. I was homesick enough that I wrote daily letters to my parents. To have them mailed, I dutifully gave them to the matron who collected them and mailed them once a week. When I ran out of writing paper, I stopped writing.

Photo of jacaranda trees at Namwianga School

from http://dlgregersen.blogspot.com/2006/10/arch-of-beauty.html

I remember almost nothing about the school, except that I learned to knit there, using hair pins that were straightened out. And, since I believed in fairies at the time, I made little fairy houses and stocked them with bits of food. The fact that the food was always gone in the morning confirmed my belief in fairies.

A few of the more vivid memories I have from this time of my life involves our family travels. We went on vacation, traveling to South Africa. I have seen Capetown several times in my life, and would love to see it again. I remember riding the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. We also went to the beaches along the Indian Ocean. When we returned to the United States (for my parents to have a furlough, and to go around to churches to give mission talks), we traveled this time by ship (much more exciting for a child than plane travel). We left Capetown, sailed to Southampton, England, and then to New York. Along the way, we stopped at the Canary Islands, and at Cherbourg, France.




When we returned to Africa, my parents were assigned to a mission in Southern Rhodesia. It was during this time that my sister was born, written about in Sibling Stories II. Even though she was 12 years my junior, it was great to have this sister. I suspect I saw her as a real live doll. Since I went off to boarding school, this time a government run school in Bulawayo, I didn’t really spend much time with her. My brother was at a different boarding school in Bulawayo, and I do recall visiting him on Sunday afternoons. Boarding school was not a luxury, but a necessity for us to continue our education. The location of the various missions was always about a day’s journey from the nearest towns, and hence schools, so boarding schools filled the need. Missionary children were not the only ones attending such schools—children of farmers, government workers, or anyone who lived away from town attended these schools. Sadly, I do not remember any of my friends from those days.

I do remember being something of an exotic creature as far as the Rhodesian girls were concerned. I was an American, which gave rise to the occasional taunt. The school I attended was structured like many British schools of the time, with the school sub-divided into “houses.” These internal units competed against each other every school year, with points awarded for things well done (example—getting high marks on an exam, or winning a sports event) and points subtracted for failures. One time, I was called up before the house council for getting a bad mark on an exam. To berate me, the head girls mocked my shortie pajamas, and called me a rich American. Quite a shock to a missionary child whose parents earned very little.

In Form II (the rough equivalent of 10th grade), I was picked as head girl for my form in my house. One day, some girls were bouncing on their mattresses, as the beds were stripped each week to remake them with clean sheets. One mattress went plunging through to the floor. Since I was theoretically in charge, I was held accountable. The matron swept into the dorm, and demoted me for something I had not done.

The main Matopo Mission house in S. Rhodesia

At this point in my childhood, my parents returned to the U.S., as my father was being moved to the administrative head of missions. They came home “early” for a vacation, and then returned to Africa. That is when the decision was made for me to stay home.

I have reflected often on my unusual childhood. By American standards, I missed out on many things. When my husband and I were talking once about our childhoods, he recalled growing up watching television, such as the Howdy Doody Show. I had no exposure to television until I was a teenager. One of the first things I remember seeing was the presidential debates in 1960! (Kennedy vs. Nixon in case you are too young to recall.) During the brief times that I attended grade school in the U.S. (the times my parents were home) my teachers were very happy to have someone with international travel in class. I would imagine that today with the degree that the world has “shrunk” through constant exposure to news on CNN and the Internet, a child like me would not seem so rare.

A couple years ago, I was asked to write an article for a small historical journal published by the church in which I was raised. I chose as my subject “Third Culture Kids.” I mentioned earlier in this post that my dad had grown up as a missionary child. Obviously, I and my siblings did too, and my brother continued the family tradition when he and his family spent time in Zambia and Zimbabwe. So my birth family had three generations of missionary children. I focused in the article on characteristics of third culture kids (TCK) and how things have changed over time.

Briefly, a TCK is someone whose parents are from one culture, who then lives in another culture, but is constantly suspended between the two. The result is creation of a third culture. Belonging to neither culture fully—the birth culture or the host culture—TCKs adapt by moving seamlessly between these worlds. Such children are not surprisingly highly adaptable. They are also mostly quite responsible, but they can be very naïve as to social mores of American culture when they return. My family evidences much of the characteristics of TCKs. With the changing times, children spend far less time away from parents than I did.

After my research, it was great to have a name for what I experienced.

One time, not long before she died, my mother expressed some regret to me for having “left” me in the U.S. when she and my dad returned to Africa. Since I am a parent now, and have seen my children go through the teen years, I do understand why she felt this regret. But, I told her—I like who I am. I am happy with myself, and believe that what I am has resulted from all the experiences that shaped me, including being alone. So, I told my mother—put it out of your mind. I had a charmed childhood.

Where All the Women are Strong. . .

In the past several weeks, I have had a couple of women credit me as influencing them at some point in their lives. In one instance, a high school girlfriend told me that I was one of the first "progressive" people she had met. She reminded me that as someone who grew up in a Navy family, she had never been around anyone with progressive ideas. The second instance was a chance encounter with a former colleague in a restaurant. We had worked together almost 30 years ago. She was ebullient, reminiscing of our working days together. Then she said--"you were one of the first women I knew who had everything--career, family and home--and kept it all balanced. I really admired that."

Well, I had no idea that I served as such a role model. But these encounters made me reflect on the women who had been my role models.

I grew up with strong women. Among the missionaries were three types of people--at least so classified by my childish brain--men who were married, women who were married, and women who were not married. I didn't know it at the time, but these women were going against the norm of the bland 1950s.

In an era when women were largely defined by being married and having children, these women were different. My guess is that for a good number of them, they might have wanted to be married but were not asked. They redirected their lives--they went to college, became teachers, nurses, doctors, administrators. I don't doubt that some of these women also heard God's call and decided to go into mission work. Perhaps they were asked to marry but when they learned the man asking wanted to stay on the farm, or wherever, these women demurred. They believed their lives held a different path and purpose.

As a young girl, I had a favorite missionary "aunt" (we missionary children called all women aunts) who was a registered nurse. I adored Rhoda. It seemed she could do everything. Having never married, she had an independent career. She was not all work--she could also knit, smock, tat--she knitted various sweaters and smocked dresses for me. When my sister died (written about previously), she helped other women line a simple wooden coffin with fabric.

One time, on the mission station in then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), someone brought a dog to her. The dog had been in a nasty fight with another dog--and its side had been ripped open. Rhoda operated on the dog, stitching it up. My recollection is that, in spite of the heroic effort, the dog did not survive.

When my parents were moved to another mission, this time in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Rhoda was also there. She was the sole medical provider in the small mission clinic. She delivered many African babies--and, given the quasi-colonial atmosphere of the times, she would sometimes allow me to name the babies.

I do remember one specific medical emergency. The mission station was near a major road, and one night word came that a bus had overturned. There were multiple injuries. As the only medical provider, Rhoda was the one who worked to remedy the severe injuries--crushed limbs, crushed bodies.

The marvelous role models of strong independent women who made their mark in the world through their vocations greatly influenced me. I never doubted that I would go to college, that I would have a career. While I certainly hoped to find a life mate, and to have children, the example of these women helped me know that my personal definition did not come only from being someone's daughter, wife or mother. I could be a strong woman in my own right.

Brief addendum: my best role model of a strong woman has always been my mother--some day, I will have to write about her.

The Power of Stories

Sometimes stories stay with us for a long time, and with their magical power weave a spell over our psyches.

As a child of missionaries, I remember being transfixed with the story of Jim Elliott, and the other men with him, who died in the Amazon jungle. I don’t recall the precise year—probably late 1950s. For reasons completely unfathomable to me, I suddenly began thinking of him several months ago. (As I write this, I realize a possible reason—these events occurred in January, 1956, 50 years ago.)

Truth is, I couldn’t recall his name. But with the Internet, ferreting out such information takes just a few clicks of the mouse combined with a little savvy intuition.

It did not take me long to find several sites that recounted the story. The bare bones details—eager young college student burning with zeal—at Wheaton, no less—exhibits early some of the leadership qualities he will display later in his life. He meets and marries a young woman named Elisabeth and soon they are off to the Amazon jungle to carry God’s word to those indigenous people who have not experienced civilization much less hear God’s word.

Jim and Elisabeth team up with several other couples, young husbands and wives equally eager for the spreading of the gospel. They have, among their number, at least one experienced pilot. So for a few weeks after they reach Ecuador, they fly up and down a portion of the Amazon River. They have selected the particular target tribe precisely because that tribe had so little contact with the outside world.

The missionaries are powerfully motivated by the ringing words of Christ’s so-named Great Commission—“Go into all the world.” Well, this is certainly part of “all the world.”

It is equally clear they are mindful of the incredible danger involved in forcing contact with native tribes untouched by outside forces. So Jim puts a pistol handgun in his pocket. The plan is—if anything begins to go wrong, he can fire over the heads of the natives and scare them.

Having spent a couple weeks buzzing the natives and dropping gifts from on high, the men—for that is who is going to make the first contact—decide it is time for a face-to-face meeting. No more deus ex machine.

They land, and soon a few native men emerge from the jungle. It seems there may have been some initial pleasantries exchanged. But then, suddenly and without warning, arrows and spears fly. One after another the five missionary men die.

And never a shot is fired. The pistol stays dormant in Jim’s pocket. By the time I read this detail from the laudatory Internet account, revelation hits me full force. He wanted to die! Why else fail to carry out the pre-planned warning shot?

This belief of mine is like a thunderbolt. When I first heard this story, as a child living in Africa with my missionary parents, I thrilled to the details, even as I was horrified at the possibilities. Of course, I romanticized the story. Might I lose my parents to belligerent natives?

I have a mind’s eye picture of the photographs that appeared in a contemporaneous Life magazine—the smiling men alive, the small insignificant plane, the placid imperious Amazon, the bodies strewn along the banks or floating in the river.

For weeks, I fixated on the story, struck by the unnecessary tragedy of it all. I mouthed the names of the men. I noted the coincidence of family details—that Jim and Elisabeth’s baby girl was born in the mid-1950s, making her close to my sister’s age. I grieved as though these were lost family members.

So resurrecting the story recently renewed my old fascinations. And then I came upon that one unrevealed detail—Jim Elliott had a pistol in his pocket that he never fired.

Perhaps he was right to want to die. I doubt that he really sought to leave this life—to leave behind Elisabeth and their daughter. But, deep down, he may have sensed the consequences of his death. When the wives waiting back at camp did not hear the planned-for radio contact, they knew something was wrong. They tried to no avail to raise the men. Then a search party headed out, and soon the grim scene was discovered. All dead—all young men gone. Eventually, after the bodies had been retrieved, other missionaries did contact the natives. They even determined who had shot the fatal arrows—and redoubled their conversion efforts and succeeded.

While a student at Wheaton, Jim Elliott had written: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Could it be that is why he wanted to die?

As I said at the outset, stories stay with us a long time. This particular one has held me in its thrall since I was a child and even today I am both attracted to and repelled by the details.