Bird-Bent Grass Venema, page 11
meerde”—her voice rises to reflect this elevated status—“and
we were just Hervormde . . .”
Mom has been speaking Frisian or Dutch almost exclu-
sively throughout this exchange, and her voice descends here
to convey the relative denigration, and then she takes on the
persona of a self-satisfied Gereformeerde congregrant, per-
haps the pretty curly-haired girl or, more likely, one of her
parents: “‘What can you expect of those Hervormde people?
They’re not nearly as pious as we are.’”
“So you were, in a sense, defending your whole religion,”
I venture. “Exactly,” Mom repeats in crisp English, and then
she laughs exuberantly. “We’d better stop,” she says; “heaven
knows what else I’m going to say!”
Venema (FA).indd 88
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
c r o s s w o r d s 89
crosswords (8)
For someone who despised the look of her own handwriting
and disliked the physical work of writing, Mom was busy at
it an awful lot of the time. By late March 1987, both the Stella
group and Winnipeg-based MCC-ers were mobilizing oppo-
sition to two proposed government bills, the first to restore
the death penalty, the second the harsh Bill C-84, the Refugee
Deterrents and Detention Bill.
Letter #26 from Mom and Dad 21 March 1987
If you’ve received my previous letters you will have read that
I attended a “Bible study” on capital punishment, which our
not-so-beloved Brian Mulroney will be introducing debate
on in Parliament soon. I’ve further involved myself in action
because at our latest Stella meeting, we practised letter
writing to MPs and MLAs on three topics: the return of
the death penalty, Canada’s new “unimproved” legislation
regarding refugees, and human rights for homosexuals in
Manitoba.
It was an interesting and helpful exercise, though I find
it very difficult to write with so many people around me,
because of course the conversation does not stop and people
throw out helpful bits of information as we go along. At the
same meeting there was information on another meeting
with the purpose of organizing opposition against the death
penalty, to be held at the MCC Manitoba Office. Since that
is quite easy for me to get to, I went.
There were approximately twenty-five people there
including Reverend C. de Haan; he was a minister of the
Venema (FA).indd 89
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
90 b i r d - b e n t g r a s s
Canadian Reformed Church, now a prison chaplain for
years already. He was a great friend of Pake de Jong’s and he
spoke at Pake’s burial service. I didn’t recognize him until
we were introducing ourselves and then I looked closer and
said (to myself), Ferrek, dat is Dominy de Haan!9 (Not very ladylike, but you know I’m not ladylike. Sandy laughed
so hard when I told her she insisted that I include it in my
letter to you, which I, obedient mother that I am, am doing
forthwith.) I had a chat with him afterward and he gave me
a ride home; I asked him in for a cuppa tea, but he didn’t
have time. Too bad.
Cornelius de Haan had completed his theological studies in
the Netherlands with distinction and was sought after by the
Dutch immigrants who’d established a Canadian congregation
of the Gereformeerde Kerk (Article 31) in rural Manitoba in
the early 1950s. The “Article 31-ers” had broken from the Gere-
formeerde Kerk in 1943 to form an even more dogmatic version
of Dutch Calvinism, and it didn’t take long for the Canadian
congregation to determine that Reverend de Haan wasn’t a
good fit. Deemed resistant to authority and too friendly with
the unchurched, the good man was dismissed and spent the
next fifteen years working only sporadically. Neil de Haan
was one of Pake’s closest friends and interlocutors, in great
part because he preached a theology of expansive love, centred
on the Beatitudes’ radical revision of human priorities. At
the Stony Mountain penitentiary, where he was chaplain for
the last several decades of his career, de Haan inspired enor-
mous affection amongst the men incarcerated. He was, for my
mother, a star in the firmament.
Letter #26 from Mom and Dad [cont.]
The meeting was held to plan strategies for our opposition to
the reintroduction of the death penalty. The focus will be on
1. a letter-writing campaign 2. prayer vigils 3. media coverage.
Venema (FA).indd 90
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
c r o s s w o r d s 91
I will limit myself to letter writing, which, as I explained,
will be very unsuccessful in my home congregation, but not of
course at Stella, where it is already underway.
Ultimately, opponents of both the death penalty and the refu-
gee bills claimed measures of victory. The first was defeated in
the House of Commons on 30 June 1987; passage of the second
was delayed for over a year. In the three decades since, there’s
been little talk in Canada of bringing back the death penalty,
but in 2015 another Conservative federal government passes
Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act, which dwarfs Bill C-84 by
several orders of draconian magnitude. In the meantime, the
LGBTTQ*10 community has experienced a slow but steadily increasing breadth of rights, including, in 2004, in Manitoba,
same-sex couples’ right to marry.
Letter #26 from Mom and Dad [cont.]
Kathleen, I swear I don’t know why I got myself so involved
in all this. It all seemed to “ just happen.” I think I’m pretty
brave to walk into a meeting where I’ve never been before and
might not have seen one familiar face. I almost feel like Attila
the Hun. (Well not quite, it’s meant as a figure of speech,
or, as we university-educated people say, “as a metaphor.”)
Actually I don’t even know if Attila the Hun was brave or just
cruel, so it might not even be an appropriate metaphor.
By late March 1987, my mother’s Letters #5, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 23
have all been irretrievably lost. Until #40 goes missing, though,
everything she sends arrives, and when I read her letters now,
I’m grateful to remember how articulate and funny she was
in English. Mom would have loved being expert in the liter-
ary and cultural references that twinkled through her writ-
ing and conversation, fully aware that she might be making
extravagant mistakes, eager—in the safe space of family—for
the ensuing hilarity. Attila the Hun.
Venema (FA).indd 91
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
92 b i r d - b e n t g r a s s
crosswords (bonus)
At 7 a.m. on 18 August 1986—a deliciously sunny morning in
Nairobi and seven months before Mom walks into a meeting
at which she may know no one—I begin my first working day
in Africa by fainting twice and breaking my glasses. By 1 p.m.
that afternoon, an efficient optometrist in the city’s cosmo-
politan downtown has repaired the frame and enough time
remains to wander through a vast English-language bookstore
nearby. A stylish young sales clerk finds me amongst the sci-
ence textbooks, admires my hair, and asks whether I have to
cut it to keep it short like this. When I say that I do, she tells
me, “That is just like us. I think you must love Africans very
much.” I like the symbolic heft, beginning by breaking open
the frame(work) with which I’ve arrived.
By mid-October 1987, though, I’ll have lived at Ndejje
for fourteen months and will still have learned only enough
Luganda to know when I’m paying a European premium for
milk powder. The reopened college has offered three full
terms of instruction and, as more and more students return,
sometimes feels like a real school. The country and the region
are getting back on their feet, but slowly. Students often arrive
late in the term because they’ve been busy finding money for
school fees, or they abandon the program because tuition has
suddenly been hiked. Many of them struggle with a range
of illnesses almost certainly brought on by trauma from the
war. Funding from the Ministry of Education is not always
forthcoming and not always forthcoming on time. William
Mutema continues to be overworked as deputy principal and
is frequently away chasing money through dreary government
Venema (FA).indd 92
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
c r o s s w o r d s 93
offices in Kampala. Our dauntingly imperious, shrewdly well-
connected principal is rarely present at LIC, busy at interna-
tional meetings or in Kampala. To diffuse my frustration at
her long absences, I dream up irreverent titles and regularly
refer to her as “Mrs. Kabaka” (Mrs. King), “Mrs. Katonda”
(Mrs. God), or “Her Eminent Immenseness.”
When Daniel Kiggundu arrives, though, freshly graduated
from the National Teachers College, I make a new friend and
drop East African agriculture from my teaching mandate. I’m
still responsible for physics and some chemistry, but can con-
centrate more time on mathematics, a subject I thoroughly
enjoy. Frances and I are increasingly familiar around Nde-
jje hill, befriended by the community’s elders and members
of the local church. We juggle scruples against sore muscles
and hire a young woman to help us with domestic work. As
friendships deepen with our Ugandan colleagues, we are
simultaneously more fully at home and more intimately con-
fronted by our privilege in a community and a country and
a continent structured by global inequalities. Problems with
mail’s progress and Walter’s theology continue, and then my
health slides sideways.
Letter #27 from Mom and Dad 30 March 1987
On Saturday we had four of your best buddies over for
dinner, to wit, Sharon, Tracey M., and Lil and Roxanne.
The purpose was not merely for so mundane a thing as
eating (although I made beef bourguignon and it went
over very well. Lillian called it “stew” but I know she really
liked it), no, the higher reason was the viewing of your
pictures. We had a great time. Roxanne and Lillian brought
flowers and Sharon and Tracey both came with wine. You’ll
probably get reports from all of them if and when the post-
office people decide to start doing what they’re paid for!
Venema (FA).indd 93
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
94 b i r d - b e n t g r a s s
Letter #21 to Mom and Dad 2 April 1987
You’ll be interested to know that we’re starting a garden, Dad!
Well. Let me not exaggerate. We haven’t done much but solicit
advice, and Robinah will do most of the actual work (and
then we’ll loll about in paunchy splendour enjoying the fruits
of her labour). Naturally there’s more to this old exploitative
tale than meets the eye, namely that when we agreed to pay
Robinah twice what our Ugandan colleagues said they’d pay
for domestic work, we hadn’t realized that this apparently
generous amount still comes nowhere near what she needs
to save for sewing school. But her aunt marched in yesterday
to clue us in, the gist being that Robinah will be working for
us till she’s ninety if she has to buy sewing school supplies out
of the money she saves. [. . .] It was Frances who hit on the
brilliant idea that we could employ Robinah for extra hours
every day if she could work on a garden.
Letter #27 from Mom and Dad [cont.]
These days Walter has at least one hymn with “blood” in it
every week. He has another new habit now too; with love, he
is always saying, “Jesus, we love you so much,” so much that
it makes me wonder whether he realizes “love” is the hardest
thing in the world, because if you don’t do love, then you
don’t have love.
Letter #21 to Mom and Dad [cont.]
According to our colleagues, though, bush clearing is simply
too heavy for a young woman, and so Sekijobba Tomas,
one of the college porters, has been breaking his back on our
behalf, a sweet and gentle man who insists we can pay him
what we think is fair. Arghhhh. What we think is fair!? The
Uncle Menno Financial Safety Net is a lovely thing, but
entirely obscures how Ugandan money translates into a real
human being’s time and energy.
Venema (FA).indd 94
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
c r o s s w o r d s 95
Letter #27 from Mom and Dad [cont.]
(Whenever I hear Walter preach, I think how differently I
would do it if I had the chance.)
The satisfaction of integrating more and more closely into the
community at Ndejje is offset—at first just a bit—by recur-
ring bouts of mysterious pain. In April 1987, Frances and I
travel to Nairobi during school holidays, in part to consult
with a doctor recommended by our MCC Kenya colleagues,
an expedition with mixed medical results.
Letter #23 to Mom and Dad 2 May 1987
Safely home at Ndejje, and three of the neighborhood kids,
grandchildren of the doughty Mr. Mulenga, local tailor and
church pillar, have just left, after formally welcoming us
back from Kenya. Cute as buttons they are, but they don’t
know much English and our Luganda barely extends past
the greeting stage. I’m patching together what might be
appropriate questions to ask children (and kicking myself
for not making copies of my wild animal photographs) when
Frances thinks to offer them a back copy of Maclean’s. Bull’s
eye. They’re thrilled by everything, especially a photo of a
huge Chinese crowd during the Queen’s visit, and quickly
set to work finding pictures of really important muzungu.
“Mistah Fishah!” they whisper excitedly at one of the
business pages, flip to sigh “Meessus Reeeed” with heartfelt
affection, then turn to a fashion page, which prompts a
glance upward and utter delight: “Meeez Francees!” [. . .]
After rereading your #27–29 (waiting together in
Kampala when we returned), it seems safe to say that you’re
getting my mail, I’m getting my mail, we’re all getting my
mail, hallelujah amen. I’m also feeling much better and
the pills (which I keep forgetting to take because I’m feeling
much better) are almost gone.
Venema (FA).indd 95
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
96 b i r d - b e n t g r a s s
The at-first modest but unpredictably intensifying pain I’m
experiencing leaves doctors in Kampala and Nairobi equally
stumped. In the meantime, Henry and Dana leave Winnipeg
on their way to see me, at a leisurely pace via multiple Euro-
pean countries. It hardly seems possible but it is a fact that we
relied almost exclusively on the vagaries of international post
to plan this trip and finesse its itinerary, as we would again
for my parents’ visit in December 1987. I’m eager for every
opportunity to get to know my colleagues better, but the more
we converse, the more frequently we encounter differences of
opinion, experience, and the luxuries of ideological choice.
“Ente yange ezaadde, ” I announce in Luganda to launch my
1987 Father’s Day letter, knowing my farmer Dad will enjoy
the claim that “my [entirely imaginary] cow has given birth.”
The letter sobers quickly, though, as I recount an intense dis-
cussion with Daniel about nuclear weapons that ended, to my
regret, with my friend’s confirmed preference for deterrence
over disarmament.
It was in conversation with Nakato Rose that I was most
frequently buoyed by connection and rattled by difference.
Venema (FA).indd 96
2018-01-16 9:31 AM
c r o s s w o r d s 97
perfect correspondence (8)
I mention Rose for the first time on 9 March 1987 in an unnum-
bered “bonus” letter to my parents and—until she leaves Nde-
jje for an upgrading course in June 1988—I mention Rose in
almost every subsequent letter I write. I often save extended
accounts for Lil and Roxanne, who are keen to know about
the friendships I’m forming with other women at Ndejje . . .
Letter #7 to Lil & Roxanne 4 June 1987
Hell and damnation womyn, the %!#* toilet is making like
it plans to clog up again, not good, since I’ve recently been
promoted to Shit Scooper and frankly, the job stinks. Oh
God, oh God, oh God, practically as I write, a live cockroach
touched my bare skin. Cockroaches the size of skittering
