We often do not even notice the large ocean going vessels that travel along the coastline where we are in ministry but this time we were traveling down the long and rough road to the iSigidi community where we are privileged to walk alongside the new church pastored by Andile Mbhele. It is a rural community with a beautiful coastline on the Indian Ocean. Last Thursday was different though. As we crested the rocky outcrop in the road we noticed something very different on the horizon- two large sailing ships!
I imagined an earlier time in this lands’ maritime history.
Mariners were passing by this area in the 1500’s. In fact there is a shipwreck
off the coast where we live – the Sao Joao, a Portuguese merchant ship hit the
rocks in 1552. It had departed from India and was heading to Europe loaded with
pepper, Chinese porcelain, Cowry shells and cornelian beads as well as about
600 people on board. One hundred people died attempting to get ashore and the
rest made camp onshore. The captain led the survivors north along the coast
toward Mozambique. Ultimately, only seven Europeans and fourteen slaves lived
to reach Mozambique.
The land where the iSigidi community is has always been
remote, due to the large rivers and gorges heading inland. For many years it
has supported sparsely populated agriculturalists and herders. Imagine, what
they must have thought over 500 years ago when that first sailing vessel passed
the coastline here. “What could it be?” “Am I imagining something” I wonder if
they were afraid or just curious? I guess it would not have been before the
first vessel sent people ashore that they began to get some idea of what it
was. I am sure they could not foresee how the arrival of ships from far away
would change the world that they had known!
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