Welcome to Zambia Saturday Blog!

Welcome readers to this my first blog! I am an Australian "missionary" Franciscan Sister and have been living and working in Zambia since 1995- mostly in rural Luapula. My home base when I'm back in Australia is Melbourne, and conscious of so many friends and family members who readily welcome me into their lives I recently decided to open a blog page for easier access and regular contact instead of private and more limited means. These last six months I have moved to Lusaka; it was from there I went on home leave, and back to Lusaka I came in January this year.

Saturdays are good! I decided that today when I pulled up at the corner of a busy side road, having spied nice bananas, on the lady vendor's small table, and leaning out the car window said, "Please Mayo, ten "pin" of bananas and two basela (gift)!" The woman smiled, having recognised a regular customer, and ran to cut and package. "Ah no! Mwisakamana na plastik!" (Don't worry about the plastic bag) to which the little girls passing by, parroted back, "Mwi sakamana" and pointing and giggling at me and my funny accent, began dancing and laughing. It is Saturday before Palm Sunday and I'm feeling grateful for the small encounters of life; for sunshine and Saturday drivers who amicably pass me by for bananas, (he was eating a banana himself I noticed!) and for my life here in Lusaka.

Palm (Passion Sunday)

I've barely been back in Zambia two months since burying my father in Nathalia, where we grew up. Nathalia is a small country town in Victoria's northeast. I'd arrived into Melbourne mid November and had been bracing myself to seeing my father after two years away in Zambia. He had Alzheimer’s for several years now, but as my younger brother Mark told me in a previous phone call, "He's very vague Marie, but the good thing is that even though he hates not being home, he knows that whatever decisions we make for him, he knows we make them out of care and love for him."

What a blessing, I thought, remembering how we'd both ended up in tears last time I was home, as I had vainly tried to demonstrate how he was unsafe driving any longer, as he could no longer work out how to get back to where he and Joyce, the love of his latter life, had moved to the retirement village down the road. That meant the end to independence and a bitter loss. This last year too had been rough with Joyce in hospital then rehab following a bad fall and broken bones. My father died two days after Christmas; and though we were surprised by its suddenness, his dying was like watching a window slowly closing on the familiar and humourous face we'd watched all our lives.

Grief

Grief is a subtle, pervasive ingredient in my life. Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me, why so sad, when I'm getting on with life, learning to adapt to city life, opening counselling contacts, getting stuck into development work- but it's there like an unwelcome visitor (as Joyce Rupp refers to Loneliness) arrived on my doorstep, suitcase in hand and ready to stay!

So, this first blog page is launched in tribute to Francis Michael Bourke, born 1922 in Nathalia, joined the army and RAF, played for Richmond, farmer in Yalca, hotel proprietor, athlete and mad golfer, father and husband twice over. We celebrated two funerals- one in Mount Waverley where he spent the last 25 years of married life and the other in beloved Nathalia where we buried him after celebrating the "Life and Adventures of Francis Michael Bourke."

Marie Bourke, Lusaka, Saturday 31st March.