THE COVID MONTHS | BOOM BOOM BOOM
Phil Smith remembers the call of the drum in the middle of the night.
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
My fingers gently twitched, my brow furrowed just a little…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
Sharp intake of breath followed by long exhale…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
I burrowed my face into the damp pillow it had been resting on for the past five hours… ‘What was this which was calling me back from the deep?
I opened my eyes and turned to the ceiling. The night wore on, heavy with humidity and the smell of my own perspiration. I turned towards the dim glow of my digital watch…3.47am. I searched for my sandals in the darkness, brushing my arm against the cool mud and wattle walls of this hut in which I lived. No bed to climb out of, only a rug to crawl off. They had laughed when I produced my travel pillow…’funny English man’. In the pitch of this night I was hot, thirsty, groggy…
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
I knew that sound, the resonant boom of goat skin pulled tightly over a hollow wooden cone. I knew the drummer also, my friend Isaac the parish priest. I pulled on some dirty jeans, a soiled t-shirt took a swig of warm water and stepped out into the night.
On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.
All around me was silent. The doors were closed, the little cooking fires which only hours ago were aflame, were cold. I love those fires, sitting outside my hut each evening watching as families and households sat around them boiling rice. The smell of wood smoke on the breeze…beacons of light signalling that someone was home. Not now. I was alone.
In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide,
save that which burned in my heart.
The ‘boom’ was coming from the church, sat on the edge of the village, some fifteen-minute walk from my home. I left the enclave of huts and took to the road. The going was rough, red stone and dust littered my way. I reached down to pick up some of these stones, remembering the young boy who had taught me weeks ago to arm myself at night against the wild dogs that roamed.
‘Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…Boom…
The sound became louder as I drew closer. And then I heard a new theme wound up with the rhythmic booming of Isaac’s drum. Voices, wailing voices, singing voices…boom…boom…boom.
On the hill ahead of me I saw a small flicker of light through the window of St Luke’s church. As I came closer still I saw shadows flickering against the wall inside. A long wattle and mud construction, the tiny windows kept the searing heat of rural Ethiopia out and the cool shade in.
I reached the portal to the church, an arched entrance with no door. I swallowed loudly, adjusted my glasses and entered the gloam.
In the middle of the structure a body lay still, dressed in bright yellow garments, lying on green branches. In the corner I saw the familiar face of Isaac lit by a single candle. My friend, with whom I had eaten, laughed, sung, debated, argued, travelled and cried with in the two months that I had known him. I saw him in the shadows, his face like the thunder which bellowed from his drum. Around the motionless body in the centre of the church, fifteen, maybe twenty people stood or kneeled singing, wailing, crying…boom, boom, boom. I was gently pushed out of the way as another mourner walked through the portal and took his place amongst the gathering crowd.
Unsure, I followed him and kneeled down beside him aware of the rough ground beneath grinding against my kneecaps. The arms of the woman to my left brushed against my own. The boom of the drum shook my rib cage. The smell of the night and the drenched bodies around me filled my head. I trembled, the hair on my neck stood up on end; ‘I know that face’.
I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
I don’t know how long I knelt there for. When I stood up the sun had risen and the shadows of the night were dispelled. My legs ached. Dust clung to my face mingled with sweat and tears. I turned to see Isaac sat on his stool, now at rest. The crowd had dispersed and on the warm wind I could once again smell the small fires kindled. The cooking pots had re-emerged. I was exhausted.
Afterward
The Nuer people live in southern Ethiopia as refugees, originating from southern Sudan. I had visited southern Sudan with Isaac once, illegally crossing the boarder in a wild and remote patch of desert in order to visit Isaac’s brother. For almost five months I lived among the Nuer in the Gamebela region of southern Ethiopia, a hot, humid and beautiful land.
This past year in the UK we have had reported to us on a daily bases the savage death toll of the Covid-19 Pandemic. There are so many death tolls in this world, hidden to most but those whose lives which are directly impacted by the loss. At times I have struggled to hear the daily statistics as I stand in my far-off kitchen; sometimes turning the radio off, sometimes arguing with the reporter or the statistician who collated the numbers. ‘What do you want me to do with this information?’ I ask.
I have worked with children, young people and adults who have lost to death people they love. And I have sat with people from all walks of life struggling to allow themselves to grieve, sometimes years after the death itself. Once, as I accompanied an elderly woman into her own death, her final moments were taken with grief for herself as she mourned her own loss for this world that she loved.
I worked recently with a year group reflecting on rituals and practices from around the world to provide people with a means to mourn, to express their grief. We asked ourselves how can therapy mirror such creative rituals so as to support clients to find outlets for grief and healing? How do I, how do you, how do ‘we’ live with death?
As I struggle with the loss of people I do not know, and live with my own grief for those who I love and have lost in my lifetime, I find myself back in Gamebela, wailing and beating my own drum.
Poetic Quotes taken from The Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross
Gembela’s Church