IN AUGUST 2020, I moved my life from London to Rwanda, East Africa. This is less surprising than it sounds. I had been working in East Africa for six years by that time, and made the plan in the January, when Covid was still a passing rumour rather than a life-defining event.
In my experience of working in East Africa, I had met interesting and dynamic people who, I knew, should be spearheading the change needed in their own countries and teaching the rest of the world. I wanted to work with them. When Kigali airport reopened once again in August, I returned to Rwanda with the view that, in a world of chaos, a little more wasn’t really going to make much difference.
Like anyone who has ever moved cities, states, or countries, I experienced the world as suddenly splitting into a before and after. You draw comparison with the place that you know better and evaluate the latter in its light. There are the conventional differences to be found here: from an island to a landlocked country and, with it, the practical learning curve about import and export supply chains. If butter is available now, that doesn’t mean that it will be next week.
There is what a minority and privileged white woman represents (“expat” rather than “immigrant”) and how to respond to very different perceptions of international politics, including tightly controlled facial expressions when someone hails President Putin as a hero. “Tell me more,” you hear yourself saying, unfathomably.
If you are fortunate, however, the binary thinking progresses into a new wave of learning, a reframing of the world, a kinder embrace of your own ignorance and what you think you know: a recognition that so much of your new learning has been said before by generations of people from this continent, but rarely listened to.
One of the unexpected places of tension related to the imagery of the Advent season: how to find an expression of expectation and hope which would fit this new space and context? In my second Christmas of living in Rwanda, I found a red candle, stuffed it in a duty-free Tanqueray bottle, and called it Christmassy, desperate for something familiar that would help me to practise the progression towards Christmas.
Katie GarnerThe improvised Advent candle
We know that many of our Advent and Christmas practices are Europe-centred and far from universal. As Brits, we have long marvelled at the notion of New Zealanders’ barbecuing their Christmas dinner in bright sunshine. Many of my generation were widely informed by “Saint” Amy Grant providing the full range of seasonal weather options in her 1980s classic, “Tennessee Christmas”: “Well, they say in L.A, it’s a warm holiday, it’s the only place to be.”
Yet much of the imagery of Advent, the season that we now use to anticipate the celebration of the birth of Christ — and his second coming — is inadequate for our interconnected world. This overwhelming image of light in the darkness looks very different from the glaring blaze of the Equator. A stanza of “In the bleak midwinter” is less resonant when you are wearing shorts.
THIS year, I have read a little more widely, thought a little more deeply, and asked different questions about Advent. I was curious to read the official line of the Church of England, given its prominent if, at times, controversial relationship with the global South: “In the northern hemisphere the Advent seasons falls at the darkest time of year, and the natural symbols of darkness and light are powerfully at work throughout Advent and Christmas. The lighting of candles on an Advent wreath was imported in Britain from northern Europe in the 19th century, and is now common practice. The Moravian custom of the Christingle has similarly enjoyed great success.”
Looking for references to other perspectives, I found the book Light from Afar, an Advent devotional by authors from Brazil, the Philippines, Ukraine, and South Africa, each offering a fresh perspective. Dr Sidwell Mokgothu, a Methodist bishop in South Africa, talked of the way in which economic norms and practices of the migrant labour system had influenced the definition of expectation: “Workers would toil in six- or 12-month contracts that would afford them an opportunity to visit their families in December. They prepared themselves for the great moment of travelling to people who had, for this whole period, been waiting for them.”
My Ugandan friend David, laughing while singing “Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Sno-ow o-n snow” down our Zoom link, said that Advent and Christmas imagery only truly crystallised for him during his first visit to Scotland. He explained that, for most in Uganda, Advent was a party season, much like everywhere else in the world. His words reminded me that even seeking specific African Advent experiences was still too small a narrative.
The more expansive story emerged from brilliant women. The first, the theologian and writer Fleming Rutledge, in her book Advent: The once and future coming of Jesus Christ, has the courage to plumb the depths of the season: “Midnight is the time of the church year that we are in.” She writes: “We need to understand the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism often arises out of denial of the real facts, hope, however, persists in spite of the clearly recognized facts because it is anchored in something beyond. This time of the church year is about hope.” Hope then, found at midnight rather than simply in the darkness, allows space for the coming of a new morning.
Katie Garner Women in Bukavu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
The second, a community of women in Bukavu, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the lead-up to Advent, I visited a group of women in Bukavu, in the contested eastern region of the DRC. While many African countries rightly seek to relinquish the stereotypes of war, violence, and extreme poverty, the situation of the people of eastern DRC remains desperate and overlooked. Ongoing conflict by rebel groups and factions, propelled by multiple drivers — economic, material, and questions of political power and land — leave this magnificent country and its people in perpetual uncertainty.
Although the country is wealthy, and the people are determined and dynamic, they are forced to live with either overt violence or the underlying and ever-present hum of potential threat and, with it, an economic crisis of instability that destroys the capacity to live life fully.
Over the course of three days, I heard stories of these women’s lives: the violence perpetrated against them, the husbands and sons and family members who had been massacred, and the way in which they sought to keep going — even, somehow, seeking forgiveness. Their immediate challenge, however, was how to live. The minimum amount for a person to live on is $1 a day, and most of these women did not have it. So, when I asked what they wanted people to pray for, I expected a very reasonable response to be money, food, school fees, better housing. They asked for peace.
“My prayer is that we pray for peace, that the country will find peace, because if there is peace, then people will go back to their villages and work on their land, and there will be food in the country,” one of the women said.
Katie Garner Housing in Rwanda
Rutledge writes: “The authentically hopeful Christmas spirit has not looked away from the darkness, but straight into it. The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it.” And, in doing so themselves, Rutledge and these women invite us to something beyond: a framework for Advent with enough space for the whole world.
This year, my Advent starts with the women of Bukavu. It will probably also include a white candle in a Lagavulin bottle, next to a jar of freshly cut spring flowers, and the reintroduction of an old favourite. I’ll sing it around the house, annoy the dogs, and disturb the neighbours: “And man, at war with man, hears not The love-song which they bring: Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the Angels sing!”
Katie Garner is a British writer, photographer, and strategist working in Kigali, Rwanda