healing process are the overwhelming impressions that remain with the Archdeacon of Bermuda, the Venerable Ewen Ratteray, after his two-week visit to South Africa.

He has just returned from the second International Conference on Afro-Anglicanism, held this time around at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town.

The first conference, held ten years ago at Codrington College in Barbados, reflected and arose out of the realisation that there had been a demographic shift in Anglicanism, as the church counted burgeoning numbers, particularly in Africa.

"There's been phenomenal growth and, at the last Lambeth Conference in 1988, the non-white bishops outnumbered the white bishops for the first time, so the agenda changed somewhat and led to the Decade of Evangelism. That was brought about by the initiative of the Africans and Cape Town was the biggest gathering of Anglicans since the Lambeth Conference.'' This year, over 200 people from about 25 countries gathered, just one year after the first free elections established `the new South Africa'. And this year, the principal patron of the conference was one of the greatest leaders of that country's struggle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"Anglicanism is growing very fast in Africa -- unlike the west -- as those of us who were preaching soon found out,'' says Father Ratteray. He was invited to preach at the church of Christ the Mediator at Mitchell's Plain, and learned afterwards that it was the largest parish in the diocese. "I was astonished to see about 700 people turn up at 7 a.m. and 400 for the next service.'' Asked how he came to attend the conference, Fr. Ratteray explains that he came across an advertisement in a magazine called `Anglican World'. "I thought it looked interesting, so I asked the Bishop if I could go, and he said yes. The deadline had closed on 1st November but the conference people said it was okay for me to attend. I wasn't chosen to go,'' he emphasises, "I happened to see the advert and applied to go. And I told the Bermuda clergy in December that I was going. In fact,'' he adds, "when I got there, I found out that more people could have attended, and I wish more people from Bermuda had gone. We are suffering from tunnel vision here and we need to take the blinkers off, get out of the tunnel, and see the bigger picture. A lot of this, of course, comes out of our isolation.'' This was brought strongly home to Fr. Ratteray when he discovered that not one single African he met had a clue where Bermuda is: "They could only relate to its position in terms of its distance from New York. I spent a weekend with a family where I preached, and obviously, we talked a great deal about South Africa, but they also wanted to find out about `Bermooda', as they called it.'' That congregation was `coloured' or `so-called coloured', as the Africans say, "But what a range of colour! I met someone whom I thought was white and he was designated as black, and a man who was much blacker than I am, who was `coloured'.'' This was important in the old South Africa, as `coloureds' were given better-paying jobs. "One of the sillier tests was the pencil test in your hair: if it fell out, you were okay! So I would have been out of luck! I was talking to a `so-called coloured' and asked him what they called themselves now and he said, `African'. But if for 40 or 50 years you've had certain advantages or disadvantages, things can't change overnight. Archbishop Tutu was talking to us about the `wholeness' of humanity and he said `A person is a person through other persons'.'' Fr. Ratteray admits he was astounded by the sense of forgiveness that he experienced in people from all walks of life.

"You would expect forgiveness from a Christian, but others who are not also have this reconciliatory spirit. Mandela, in particular, came out of prison with no bitterness or hatred. He could so easily have come out as a raging bull but he didn't. He has emerged as a calm and careful statesman.'' One incident that surprised Fr. Rattery was on his way home when he met a woman at the airport who asked if he was South African. "When I told her `no', she said, `Well, I am, and I can say that with pride now'. This was because as a white, she had been perceived as an oppressor, whether she was or not.'' There is an urgent need for this healing, he observes, because there are still traces of the old regime, most noticeably, and oddly, he feels, in the fact that although there are now black policemen, they all wear the same uniform which, largely through media exposure, became the image of apartheid.

On his way to Johannesburg airport at the end of his stay, he asked the taxi driver about some of the practical differences between the old and new South Africa.

"He told me the three main things are that people can travel freely about now -- before, you had to have permission -- there is freedom of speech, so you can say what you like, and third, you can live where you like, provided you have the money!'' Another surprise for the Archdeacon was the feeling that, when he arrived in South Africa, he had a real sense of "coming home.'' "I hadn't really thought about it before, but at the first service, the Dean of the cathedral said, `Welcome home' and I experienced a real sense of belonging. Part of my heritage is African, and part is Scottish. Ratteray is a Scottish name! It seemed to me that most of the Africans I met had western names and wore western clothes. In one of the addresses, one of the speakers made the point that `Dressing like an African doesn't make you an African'.'' The week-long conference left little free time for sight-seeing, or socialising, although there were two receptions given by the mayors of Bellville and Cape Town.

"We began every morning at 6.30 with Eucharist, and sessions, including bible studies, lasted late into most evenings. It was very hot and quite an exhausting pace.'' The theme, "Afro-Anglicanism: Identity, Integrity and Impact in the Decade of Evangelism,'' however, provided some dynamic talks and discussions.

Fr. Ratteray was especially impressed with the first Keynote Address on "Identity'' which, he says, explored the positive and negative experiences of being both Anglican and of African origin. The biggest negative was the sense (and reality) of exclusion that black people all over the world had experienced. But, adds Fr. Ratteray, "We didn't spend all our time on that.

There was such a strong sense of unity among everybody there and the feeling that the difficulties we have all encountered to some degree or other has been a strengthening influence -- `out of adversity comes unity and strength.' Why are we Anglicans and not something else? Anglicanism has a wide attraction, there is a sense of order and form that we can all share.'' He cites the services, especially the closing one, which were "nicely'' balanced, with the familiarity of traditional hymns such as "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,'' interspersed with African tunes, and the service itself conducted in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa, just three of the 11 official languages of South Africa.

"Most of the people there were of African origin,'' explains Fr. Ratteray, "a smattering of archbishops, some bishops, priests and some lay people, so it was fascinating to meet such a cosmopolitan collection of people you'd never normally get to meet.'' Not least of whom, of course, was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chief celebrant and preacher at the closing Eucharist in St. George's Cathedral. He also entertained all the delegates at his home, Bishopscourt, for a garden party on the last day. He attended one of the sessions, when the Keynote address was being given by the new Bishop of the Windward Islands: "I think he came to support an old friend, as they had been students together,'' explains Fr.

Ratteray.

There were also `mosaic' sessions, when representatives gave progress reports on the church in their particular area, such as Africa, the US, Britain, the Caribbean and Latin America.

One of the disturbing sessions, he says, was the discussion on being a Christian in a Moslem area -- as is the case in many African countries.

"Christians in these countries are not allowed to apply for certain jobs and not allowed to attend state schools. This was clearly seen as another form of apartheid -- practised by Africans against other Africans.'' They also heard the now exiled Archbishop of Rwanda lamenting the loss of over one million lives in the recent massacres -- and complaining that much of the aid earmarked for his country had not been distributed.

"I talked with him -- with difficulty, as French is his first language -- but I think the overall message here was that the troubles are not so much tribal, as about greed, power and who's going to be in charge, just as it is in Bosnia, for instance.'' After the conference, Fr. Ratteray spent a week in Johannesburg, a city with 30-50 percent unemployment and an accompanying high crime rate. "The streets and even the hotels were crammed with security people and police. I was warned constantly, by blacks and whites, to be careful and I didn't feel safe there.

Unlike Cape Town, which is a beautiful and safe city.'' After the conference, he visited a safari ranch where there was also a show of tribal music and dancing: "The movements and the blowing of whistles certainly reminded me of our gombeys!'' Bermuda could learn a lesson from S. Africa He visited Soweto, just 20 minutes from downtown Johannesburg, but a world away from the often palatial buildings of the city. When the driver explained there were three kinds of housing in the townships, Fr. Ratteray hardly expected to see "millionaires' houses, huge and luxurious.'' But they exist, alongside middle class "reasonable'' homes and, of course, the third type of housing, the shantytown, where home is no more than a tin or wooden hut.

"He took great pains to show me how people rent houses and then sub-let their garages and yards for people to live in. One man, called Chris, took me into his home. This was one room in which 11 people live, but sometimes, as many as 17 families will live in a yard. Chris is looking after nine children who have been abandoned. He's trying to form a home for them.'' Nothing prepared him, however, for his trip round the shantytown section.

"This particular one had 3,450 `dwellings', with 90 portable lavatories that are emptied only twice a week and there are only five stand-pipes for water.

There are no drains, and you can imagine what the alley-ways between the huts are like when it rains -- and when it rains in Africa, it really rains! Everything floods into the huts...We talk about being `hard-up,' `deprived,' even being in `dire straits' here and we don't even know what poverty is. These people cook with paraffin. There is no electricity at all.

The only lighting is the huge security lights on the main roads.'' Fr. Ratteray says he feels that one of Bermuda's difficulties is that "we have never endured the suffering that these people have endured. This has brought them to a very high level of humanity. We have no idea of what repression is, compared with the evils they have suffered. The list is endless, but just imagine not being allowed out at night, having to get permission to move around. Tutu had to get permission to live in his house when he was appointed Bishop of Johannesburg.'' The hospitality experienced by Fr. Ratteray was perhaps summed up by a lay Anglican, called Kelvin, who took a week of his holiday to attend the conference. "He invited me for coffee to meet his wife, but when I got there, he had supper all arranged, mountains of food, so I ended up with two suppers that night! And another lady in the congregation just came up to me and gave me a travel book on South Africa. It's beautiful, but unfortunately, written in German, so I can't read it! But everyone was so very kind and generous.'' Fr. Ratteray believes that one of the reasons why the Anglican church is so strong in Africa is because it was at the forefront of the fight for freedom.

"When Bermuda made changes in the late '50s and early '60s, the church here was a follower rather than a leader of change in desegregation -- in things like Sunday schools, choirs and pew rents.'' One of his enduring memories of the `new' South Africa, was what he calls a small incident, but "a living parable. Chess is very popular there, and in one of the malls, people always gather round this huge chessboard with quarter-life size figures to watch whatever games are going on. On this particular day, I saw a young white man and a young black man playing, totally happy and absorbed in what they were doing, and the crowd was absorbed in the game as well. I thought to myself, `So this is the new South Africa -- and praise the Lord for that!'' When he preached at that Sunday morning service in South Africa, Fr. Ratteray says he told the congregation that in Bermuda, our memories are now too long and that we Bermudians hold on to past hurts and injustices rather than letting go. I said we should note how South Africans have related to change compared to the way we have related to change, and I told them, `We can and ought to learn from you'.'' HANDS ACROSS THE SEA -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu greets Bermuda's Archdeacon, the Venerable Ewen Ratteray, at his home in Cape Town.

SMILING THROUGH -- Children in Soweto take turns collecting water from one of the five standing pipes. In the background is one of the tin huts which is `home' for many of those who live in the township.