Dispatch From Mariannhill, Saturday, April 7

I’m sitting in the late afternoon on our balcony of the Tre Fontaine Guest House right next to the Convent of the Sisters of the Precious Blood just west of Durban along the eastern coast of South Africa. The balcony overlooks a typical garden-like African landscape with palms, hibiscus, and other exotic trees and plants located in a section called the Thousand Hills, which pretty well describes the contour of the land. The grounds are neatly groomed and immaculate, and I can just see a corner of the pool below the guesthouse. (Look on the Mariannhill link in the links section of the website)
Durban is the heart and capital of what is now the state of Kwa Zulu Natal, formerly Natal Province by the Afrikaners before the end of apartheid. It was the scene of the Boer War of the early 20th century, and center of resistance to apartheid. Ghandi landed in Durban in 1893 as a young Indian lawyer, and was thrown off a train and arrested in nearby Pietermartizberg, leading to his political and moral galvanizing of the considerable Indian population in the area. Nelson Mandela also comes from this area, part of which, Transkei, was one of the notorious "homelands’ set up by the White government to give the appearance of self-rule for Blacks. They only caused blacks to immigrate to the cities since the homelands had no industry or infrastructure. The Transkei It became one of the centers of resistance to apartheid.
We couldn’t believe what we saw as we drove up from Durban this morning. The whole Marriannhill complex contains a monastery, a convent, a huge cathedral (it’s the center of a Roman Catholic diocese, with a high respected Zulu bishop), St. Francis College (where generations of black students including anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko were educated), a vocational school, a liturgical arts workshop, an orphanage, an AIDS Hospital with 300 beds, and a number of small business enterprises to help local people generate work and income. It’s a huge mission complex, most of it built in the early 20th century, and all of the buildings and grounds are clean and manicured, making it look almost like an African resort.
Marriannhill was established in through the vision and untiring efforts of Franz Pfanner, its founder. He was an Austrian Trappist who came her in 1879. From the beginning he was committed to indigenous monks and training indigenous clergy. Mission work, both evangelization and the holistic improvement of the lives of the people surrounding the monastery, quickly became the core of the community’s work. The monastery thrived, at one point becoming the largest in the world with 285 monks. A problem arose when the wider Trappist order felt that Mariannhill was straying from the original Trappist commitment of solitude and prayer by engaging in too much mission work. Eventually this led to a meeting in Rome in the early 20th century at which the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries and its sister community, the Sisters of the Precious Blood, became a separate order, dedicated to missions among the poor, and eventually growing into a worldwide order. Now, fitting Pfanner’s vision, the community is largely indigenous, and obviously devoted to its mission to the Zulu people of the area. Its mission is "better fields, better homes, better hearts."
We arrived just in time for lunch, met a few people (including a number of North American and European young people spending anywhere from a few months to a year volunteering at the hospital, orphanage, and college), and then took a walk around the complex. After all our travels we’re looking forward to settling in for a week or so, and certainly plan on an early bedtime.
Sadly, like Johannesburg, the concern for security is all too evident here too. Electrically controlled iron gates open as you drive into the Tre Fontaine guesthouse, guards patrol a pole-gate at the convent, and barbed wire is wound around the bottom parts of the rain gutter drainpipes. There’s not only a front door, but also a high iron gate with an extra key to enter the building. We asked about taking walks to the various settlements in the vicinity of the complex, and were advised that it might not be safe for white foreigners. Our understanding is that much of violence comes from youths high on a cheap drug widely available here. I also wonder whether the sheer hopelessness that descends when so many are dying of AIDS doesn’t contribute to an attitude of anarchy. It’s no excuse, but living by the rules in a society must require some hope for the future, some sense that there is a future to live and work for.
Still, the Zulu people we’ve met here, which includes probably three quarters of the convent community, are extraordinarily friendly, open-hearted, and committed. We hope to meet some Zulu people through the community here and visit their homes and towns, so we can get a true sense of their community and living situation.