CHRISTMAS for Brisbane’s thriving Sudanese Catholic communities is a time of faithful worship and prayer, accompanied by vibrant singing, dancing and fine traditional cuisine.
“I would describe it as being very joyful,” Daniel Zingifuaboro, a member of the St Bakhita Choir that enlivens the St John Fisher Church in Tarragindi where the Sudanese communities meet regularly for Mass, said.
“We have a long tradition in Sudan and South Sudan where we celebrate Christmas with joy with lots of singing, happiness, visiting our friends, staying with the family together, and sharing together as a community. It’s usually a very joyful feast for us.”
Singing and dancing “in our own special way” was a sign of coming together and a special part of celebrating Christmas, chairperson of the St Bakhita Catholic community Mary Kenyi said.
“Culturally we love singing and dancing, and that is a big part of our faith,” she said.
Many cherished traditions have been transported from their African homeland to Brisbane and remain intact.
One of those traditions is to celebrate Christmas as a family and a community.
St John Fisher Church is always packed full for Christmas Mass. Marquees are set up on the church grounds for festivities that follow the worship.
The weeks of Advent leading to Christmas become a busy time of preparation.
The St Bakhita Choir spends many hours rehearsing hymns and Sudanese songs, and cooks from every family start gathering traditional ingredients needed to prepare dishes that reflect the huge variety of Sudanese cuisine.
“I mean, in South Sudan itself, we’ve got about 64 tribes, and those tribes have different languages with different traditional food,” Daniel Zingifuaboro said.
Some of the favourite dishes included sweet and savoury pastries, chicken stew with vegetables and greens, and Ful (cooked fava beans flavoured with lemon juice and garlic, and served with cheese, olive oil, chopped parsley and tomatoes) served with pita bread.
There is also a variety of decadently sweet desserts.
Christmas is also a time for faith reflection and renewal according to Sudanese community member Gabriel Ukuno, a former community leader.
“Back home, children will really be getting prepared. The family will buy new clothes and their house will be painted and everything will be new,” he said.
“Because there’s a new child (Christ) coming into the family.”
Mr Ukuno recalls the strife of Sudan’s civil war that ran from 1983-2005 and claimed two million lives.
It was the reason he came to Australia more than two decades ago.
“My own brother was assassinated in front of me,” he said.
“I believe that it was God who actually saved me from being killed as well.”
Daniel Zingifuaboro was a seminarian in South Sudan, but could not continue his studies to become a priest because of the civil war.
Instead, the 52-year-old father-of-four came to Australia and says there is no question where “home” is today.
“Of course there is a saying home is home. But for me now Australia is home and that’s where I belong … I have to contribute to the society and also to the Catholic Church that has brought me up in faith,” he said.
Most South Sudanese now living in Australia arrived between 2001 and 2006 under a humanitarian program organised by the Australian government as a response to war, drought and famine.South Sudan achieved independence in 2011 with a referendum that saw nearly 99 per cent of voters in the predominantly Christian and animist south choose to secede from the rest of mainly Islamic Sudan to the north.
