Alas

My internet connection here is soooooo sloooooow that I won't be able to post any pictures or video of our opening days until I (1) find the time to drive the 14 kilometres into town and (2) find the time to post them once there (the connection there is only slightly better).

Look for them!

In the meantime, I must say that these days have probably been among the most challenging in my life! At times I feel invigorated by the challenge and at other times -- to be honest -- I feel utterly overwhelmed. We are starting the school under-staffed which makes things more challenging than they should be. In part this is my fault, especially regards a secretary. I didn't want to hire a secretary when we were working out of the parish offices because there would have been no room -- and now I have to wait until February 13th!

I'm also struggling with being a boarding school. Who is responsible when for the children? I'm posting this now as a break. My day started at 5:30 a.m. to prepare for 6:30 a.m. Mass. I managed to eat lunch standing up and even managed a twenty minute nap and a twenty minute dinner, but other than that I have been busy with school business until 9:00 p.m. All the days have been like this -- and my companion Kizito has been just as busy and I know Sossy (who is splitting his time between duties here and at the parish) is equally busy. We pray that the pace changes before it kills us.

What is keeping me going is having met our students. What a wonderful group they are, full of promise. And how much I am enjoying being with these young people!

Today we chose student leaders, following a talk by me about leadership. I asked students to share examples of leaders who led with the interest of others in mind -- the answers were telling: Nelson Mandela; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Julius Nyerere; and Jesus Christ. After some talk about the characteristics that distinguished these leaders, I announced the dorm prefects and the classroom captains. Young Sixbert, who is not so confident with his English, came up to me with another student complaining of his unworthiness (and the other student was pushing his own candidate). I assured Sixbert that he was chosen because the obvious qualities of leadership were apparent and that he had the support of all the adults -- I added that the fact that he didn't feel up to the job was itself a commendation!

More stories to come. Thanks for all the support.