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In case you haven't noticed, I do have a youtube channel. Not so much will be posted until the promised national improvements re: connectivity occur. But if you have the inclination to see watch what has already been posted...

My Aching Back

This morning Bart Murphy, sj, picked me up here to go for a bike ride. He explained to my friend Berger Hanson, a volunteer from Denmark here at the school who lives next to me, that it would be a short, easy ride because he is after all a 73-old with asthma.

It was a short ride – about half the ride he intended – because my back was so strained on the hills. And I confess to being a little winded, too (it’s a hilly route). It was in total only about 8 kilometres. It was in the village down the road that I decided to give up. I figured I’d wait for Bart to return, and I was content to do so. My red-faced, sore-backed self provided great entertainment for a group of men sitting under a nearby tree -- good-natured laughing at the mzungu.

It took me awhile to cool down once we returned. It was a time when turning on the water for the shower I did not think to myself, “I wish there were hot water.”

The other news is that after three weeks of letting my beard grow (it’s been seventeen years since I last had one), I shaved it off. Much better.

"Why there?"

Forewarning: I'm posting this (having written it beforehand) even though what follows is a little "preachy."

I had an interesting experience at teatime this morning. A young Lutheran volunteer from Germany who arrived here at the language school last night with three others for what will be a two-week crash course said to me upon hearing that I am preparing to work in Dodoma, “Why there? I’ve heard there’s nothing there.” (It just occurred to me that Dodoma is in the minds of many the Oakland of Tanzania: “There’s no there, there.”) I answered that it isn’t a matter of what is there or not there but rather a matter of who is there. And there are in the Dodoma region 1.8 million people, most of them poor, most of them young, most of them without access to adequate formal education.

My move to Tanzania, as many readers of this blog know, is really very much a part of a renewal of my own life as a Jesuit, inspired by a number of things, among them our recent General Congregation, a simple moment with a brother Jesuit at Loyola Marymount (which I’ll return to later), the talks of our Superior General, and in particular a letter of his from the earlier part of this year in which he reminds Jesuits of two things that mark our Society: its universal nature and the availability of its members to go anywhere in the world.

It is with these two things as a backdrop that I was happy to read this morning a letter of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, to Gian Andrea Schenaldo, a citizen of northern Italy who wrote to Ignatius pleading that a favorite priest of the Society might stay there rather than be missioned elsewhere. Ignatius’s response, in part, follows:

Of course, our Society bends every effort to help and further the salvation of souls, impelled thereto both by charity and by our own Institute; moreover, the grave needs of souls throughout the world goad us constantly forward, adding the spurs to those already running of their own accord…The members of the Society need to be free and unencumbered, so that they can fly off to any place on earth where greater hope of God’s glory and the salvation of souls beckons us, not settling in any particular place (unless we have a college or house there), but working for different people over limited periods of time, gratis and without being bound.

It was 25 years ago that Fr. John O’Malley, a member of my Detroit Province of the Jesuits, helped us recapture this original charism of the Jesuits with his essay on Jerónomino Nadal, an early Jesuit who served as a sort of promoter of the thought of Ignatius and of our foundational texts. Nadal in his writings underscored this notion of availability and mobility. And I thank God for the grace at this time in my life to embrace this charism of ours and thank him as well for allowing me to cast my lot with such wonderful folks as the folks here in Tanzania.

Now about that moment with my brother Jesuit…. As we were leaving the community’s Tuesday evening celebration of the Eucharist, where we’d just sung all the verses of a hymn, he said to no one in particular – and to everyone in general – “Some of the younger of us have forgotten that we are not monks.” This is a reference to St. Ignatius’s insistence that we Jesuits not be bound to pray the liturgy of the hours in choir as monks do so that we could be freer to attend to apostolic duties.

My brother Jesuit’s comment brought a smile to my face. Why? Because the other constitutive characteristic of monastic life is the vow of stability, the vow that one will stay attached to his monastery forever (her, of course, for nuns) -- and this man hasn't ventured far from LMU in his many, many years there. What occurred to me about my Jesuit life – I cannot speak of anyone else’s, of course – is that I did not want university tenure to become my own personal vow of stability.

[Incidentally, after the incident narrated above, I found myself doing a substitution exercise with the text of our Constitutions (a thinking/reflecting exercise introduced to me by my friend and mentor Jason Raley – a shout out to him and my Santa Paula family – and one which I commended to my own students). First the text as it appears:

Because the occupations which are undertaken for the aid of souls are of great importance, proper to our Institute, and very frequent; and because on the other hand, our residence in one place or another is so highly uncertain, our members will not regularly hold choir for the canonical hours or sing Masses and offices. (586)

And here is my subsitution:

Because the occupations which are undertaken for the aid of souls are of great importance, proper to our Institute, and very frequent; and because on the other hand, our residence in one place or another is so highly uncertain, our members will not accept any sort of tenure (whether actual or virtual).

Yikes!]

Tenure can be an important apostolic tool, surely; and I was happy to work toward it in order, in fact, to make myself more apostolically available over time. Tenure has one principal purpose: to protect the academic freedom of faculty members. It also serves as the journeyman’s card in the academy. Relative to academic freedom, Jesuits have that by virtue of our vow of poverty (“So fire me; what do I have to lose? I seek neither, riches, glory, nor power” is about as free as you can get!). The other aspect, the journeyman’s card, I think, is the important aspect of tenure for a Jesuit. Okay, I’m blathering and have gotten a little preachy. Forgive me.

In any case – to return to what I set out to write about in this post: The young German man said, “Why go to Dodoma, there’s nothing there?” And my answer: Because there’s nothing less than a corner of the Kingdom of God there, that’s why.

A Change in Layout

Regular readers will note that I've changed the layout a bit today. I've put "about me" under "you can help," so that "you can help" is more readily available for readers to click on. If you haven't had a chance to click on it, you can -- and send your friends, too. Every little bit will help, believe me -- and big bits won't be refused!

Thanks to all who've already shown such great support -- financially, spiritually, and otherwise.

Asanteni Sana!

Nilikwenda mjini

I played hooky this afternoon and I went into the city. And I did by using the local transportation system, the dala-dala. Those who know me know that I'm not the bravest when it comes to trying such new things. I not only managed fine, but had fun doing it. Incidentally, I counted 30 people (including infants and children) in the vehicle, which I imagine was built for 16.
The dala-dalas don't have good shock absorption, so the accompanying photo is the best I could do. Notice the fellow on the left, handing holding up his head -- that's they typical pose as you wait forever at the terminal in the city for the return trip -- they don't leave according to schedule but rather when they're packed. It's hot and miserable. I ended up walking with him from the street toward the campus -- Kevin works in Tabora, but he's home for the weekend with his wife.
Sossy kindly had delivered to me this late afternoon my camel (water holding backpack), my lectionary, sacramentary, and alb -- and a missal in Swahili. The folks at the Salvatorian Institute down the street have kindly invited me to concelebrate Sunday Masses with them, even to the point of encouraging me to practice part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
Take good care all.

Line-Dried Clothes

Every time I pick up a towel or put new sheets on my bed here, I think of my mother. Marcella was a big advocate of using the clothesline. If it was dry outside, the clothes were out hanging. She especially liked to hang towels and sheets. The difference in absorption between a line-dried towel and a machine-dried towel is amazing. (Incidentally, one of the things my mother could not understand is why any neighborhood association would restrict clotheslines. What an odd aesthetic.)

So I raise a glass of Kilimanjaro to Marcella.

******

I’ve been asked by some folks to give an example of what I’m talking about re: the verbs and the various affixes. I’ve come across a great example.

Hawa ni walimu wanaowafundisha wanafunzi.

These are the teachers who teach the students.

The verb is wa + na + o + wa + fundisha

wa = subject, they

na = tense, present

o = relative, who

wa = object (them –the students)

fundisha = verb stem, teach

What greeted me today...

...on the way to the refectory. Just on the heels of posting about Kadeghe's encounter.

Haraka Haraka Haina Baraka

Literally that's "hurry, hurry there's no blessing." And that is among the things I'm learning here: to slow down, to be willing to wait, to put people first. What's the rush? This approach to life can easily be misinterpreted by folks as some sort of lack of devotion to work. Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth.

Take for instance Elihudi, the young man in charge of laundry and the maintenance of the common room. He starts work around 07h30 and works until about 21h00 or thereabouts. Is it constant, his work? No, because he stops to greet people, ask them their news (Habari yako?), practice some conversation with us students, etc. The same for the mamas in the kitchen -- and just about everyone else here, too.

[And, incidentally, the notion of a five-day work week is foreign (though ours is a five-day school week).]

There's a lot of hard work goin' on in these parts, let me tell you. And it's not a bad reminder that working my brain a little hard in learning the language isn't so tough, really.

usiku mwema,

Marty

Our Lady of Sorrows

This Catholic feast, which always follows on the heels of the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, has special meaning for me this year because of the mothers I see. It was Pascal, I believe, who said that "Christ will be in agony 'til the end of time." And one of my favorite artists of the last century, Georges Rouault, made the connection between this agony and the suffering of the poor. One need only read Matthew 25 to see how Jesus himself makes the connection.

This is a feast for all those mothers who must witness their children suffering. They sow in sorrow; may they reap in joy.

FYI, Kadeghe just came in the common room and non-chalantly noted that he just almost stepped on a cobra. I'll avoid walking on unlit paths. (As I mentioned in an earlier posting, though, traffic is something to be more careful of.) Incidentally, there's a weekly rotation of teachers; that means that Kadeghe is not teaching me and instead Moreto is -- an excellent teacher, too.

Is there no one who could have warned me about all these prefixes in Swahili?

Finally

For two weeks I've tried to upload on youtube the last part of Bishop Joseph Mathias Isuja's comments about OLQP. He is the emeritus bishop of Dodoma, and his words -- the words of Simeon ("Now Lord, let your servant go in peace, for my eyes...") -- are moving. The Our Lady Queen of Peace Educational Centre is the fulfillment of his episcopal dreams for the children of Tanzania. His thanks at the end is heartfelt. The first part will have to wait -- last night's upload of a 56-second video took two hours! For the other two, you can either click here for Part II and here for Part III. (I remain a fan of Flip, incidentally.)

I spent part of yesterday morning with Bart Murphy, who showed me a bit more of Morogoro, including the agricultural university located at the base of the mountain. Among the interesting things happening there is the training of rats for land mine detetection. Mind you, these are not Norway rats but rather super-sized Tanzanian rats that could be confused for a small dog.

I went to the Salvatorian Institute for Mass this morning and will spend the rest of the day reading the NYT on line and studying.

And that's all the news that's fit to print!

28 Years

It was twenty-eight years ago that I entered the Society of Jesus with 14 others. Many of the fifteen of us remain, beating the statistics re: perseverance in religious life/priesthood.

I don't have a lot of memories of our entrance day except this one -- forgive me, Jim O'Leary, SJ, for telling it.

Jim took a long puff on a cigarette before going into a Mass for us and our parents/families. He was standing with his parents, my mom, my Aunt Rita, and me. After taking that puff, he exclaimed as he flicked the butt into the flower pot (such was done in those days!), "Well, that's my last cigarette." Chapter Two of this vignette takes place after Mass. My mother, my aunt, and I were standing outside, and Jim came up to us: "Mrs. Connell, can I bum a cigarette."

Incidentally, Jim, whom I haven't seen in some years, remains among the top five funniest Jesuits I know. An example of his wit: In theological studies preparing for ordination there was a decree from the superior of the scholastics that under no circumstance were they to step foot in a bar. Jim, a good Irish lad known to step foot in a pub now and again, was heard to say on the way out of the meeting where this was decreed (so it was reported), "Any establishment that sells a bag of chips is a restaurant in my mind."

Happy Anniversary classmates!

Usiku mwema. (Good night)

Bye-Bye 805

805 is the area code for Santa Barbara and Ventura. It’s the area code for the phone number I had for seven or so years, and it’s the area code to which I have an inordinate attachment. When I moved to LA I could have changed my number –and probably should have done so. But I couldn’t bring my self to do it. Keeping 805 was a way of keeping a little of Santa Barbara and the people there (and in Santa Paula!) with me.

I kept my number and my ATT SIM card until I had one here – just in case of emergency. The idea was then to contact ATT and cancel my service. For some reason I couldn’t get my phone to work with ATT once I did that. The call to ATT customer service just would not work. I know it took only a few moments, but I’m so thankful to my sister Julie for taking a few moments out of her very busy day to take care of this small matter for me. What a wasteful thing it would have been for the Jesuits to continue paying for an unused service. It’s the sort of thing I’d like to think I could otherwise do on my own, but given the circumstances it is nice to know there are folks on whom I can rely.

Another example of such – among many – is Dr. Marty Schreiber, father of my Jesuit friend Fr. Martin Schreiber. I’d forgotten to ask my GP in LA for “just in case prescriptions” (there is a problem with counterfeit prescription medication here). Marty Schreiber was kind enough to take time out of his busy day at the Cleveland Clinic to write some prescriptions for antibiotics, etc., that I might need.

Well, off to afternoon class (though I’ll be posting this later after class). I’ve turned a corner re difficulty. Imagine a verb containing a subject prefix + a tense prefix + object prefix (those last two I'd call infixes, but I go with the flow) + verb stem and you get a sense of the jumble of my mind right now. Incidentally, I wrote “I” because of the fact that my program is at this point a tutorial, given that I began out of sequence. My teacher this week has been Kadeghe, who had to suffer with me screwing up his name the first days (the parish in Dodoma is referred to by its neighborhood name, a shortened form of “airport”: k/ndege – not so nice to be called “airport” by your student). I’m not only learning a lot of Kiswahili from Kadeghe but also a lot about Tanzania, schooling here, etc. He’s Maasai, so I’ve learned a bit about his people, too (and he’s promised to take me to the Maasai meat market to get some good roasted goat!).

Jina Langu ni Martin...

Naitwa Martin. My name is Martin; I'm called Martin. Now that isn't the sum total of four days, but it's part of it. We're going at a fast pace here, covering three tenses in three days "a" "me" and "li". Kiswahili uses prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. And there are 18 different noun classes! I'm reassured at every turn that at the end of three months I will have mastered the grammar -- I just hope the vocabulary and some fluency come with it. (That is, I hope that my Kiswahili is better than my French -- I carry on a perfectly fine correspondence with two French friends with me writing in English and their responding in French.)

I have a great teacher, whose name I still butcher. Unfortunately, his name is too close to the name of our parish in Dodoma, which means I'm forever calling him "Airport"!

There is a group of lay Salvatorian volunteers from Germany who are finishing a one-month crash course; they head out on Saturday. Also leaving on Saturday are a German family (parents and two young sons) who are evangelists from some "free church" group. That will leave, really, four of us: a Spiritan priest from Nigeria headed to Arusha, Tanzania (said to be the quickest growing city on the continent); a Japanese evangelical, a young man headed to work in the southern part of the country, and a Korean woman, preparing to work in Dar es Salaam.

The Internet situation is not quite what I'd hoped. I'd really hoped to post the comments of the emeritus bishop of Dodoma, Bishop Joseph Mathias Isuju. I taped him speaking about how OLQP is the fulfillment of his dreams for Dodoma. It's a great piece, the middle part of which made it up to youtube --you can see it on the sidebar-- but the third and final part is golden. At somepoint, you'll be able to see it.

I haven't been off the campus this entire week, and there's not so much to photograph here, so haven't tried to post photos. I did take a picture on my iphone of a Redemptorist --a priest from Bihar working in Kenya (living off campus with the Fransalians, so I forgot he's among our number)-- a picture of him with a chameleon from the garden. There are such things in these parts (unlike, I think, Dodoma) as well as some nasty snakes (cobras). But as I told the folks very worried about this: The chances of being in a crash with a bus or truck in this country are, I'm very certain, much greater than poisonous snakes, etc.

Now I'm off to study the "li" tense. I'm picking up a bike from Bart Murphy this weekend; that will give me a chance to get some exercise and make my way occasionally into town--about six miles I reckon on the back road (See the above for why I'd take the back road rather than the Morogoro-Dar es Salaam road!). Oh, one thing I forgot to write in my earlier post about him:He's the cousin of Liam O'Connell, an Irish Jesuit whom I've gotten to know because he spends summers in Santa Barbara. Liam was a great host when I visited Limerick two years ago.

That's the scoop from here.

Not quite, though: I received a report from the Detroit Province Jesuits about the donations to OLQP during the past month. Thanks so much to folks for their care for the young folks of Dodoma.

God bless.

Companions

Fr. Bart Murphy, an Oregon Province Jesuit who has been living and working in East Africa for twenty years, picked me up a little before noon today to give me a tour of the area. He lives and works at the Salvatorian Institute, just a stretch down the Morogoro-Dar es Salaam Road. He teaches church history at the institute, which was set up for the intellectual formation of candidates for priesthood from religious congregations (who receive their spiritual formation in houses of their own congregations located in the environs of the institute.)

After a tour of the facilities (which included his pointing out a bike that he's had repaired for my use during these three months here) we drove around the area, ending up in the downtown. But first we drove a little ways up the peak against which the city rests (high enough to see a troop of monkeys) to get a view of the city--Morogoro is next to the Uluguru range of mountains.. The place had once been a school run by the Holy Ghost community but it was nationalized in the early days of independence and has since served as a teachers college. The downtown is a bustling place with great energy. Hate to put down my new home, but there's an energy in Morogoro's downtown not present in Dodoma's. This might, in fact, have to do with what seems to be a higher standard of living in this area. Morogoro not only has agriculture (sisal plantations and other crops); it also is a university town. Of course with the University of Dodoma on the ascendency (not to mention OLQP!), a similar energy might be found in Dodoma in the future.

After walking around the downtown area we headed to lunch. The first restaurant we went to asked for 10,000 TSH for each of us for a buffet. Bart negotiated them down to 6,000 TSH but was told that would be a la carte. He told the host that it was too much and that we'd go down the road. I expected the host to cave in, but he didn't. We did go down the road a piece. I had chicken and chips (chipsy mayei is a popular street food here, incidentally--as potatoes are sizzling away in a frying pan two scrambled eggs are poured over the top; this is then cooked into a solid omelette, stuffed with potatoes) and a Sarengeti (a lager).

Returned about three o'clock and enjoyed a little siesta and then sat down with Marie Antoinette. Poor thing; it's 1790 and not looking good. (My friend Mary ruined the ending for me in a comment on an earlier post.)

Morogoro

I'm now in Morogoro, a municipality (and region) located between D'Salaam and Dodoma. I'm at the language school located at the Lutheran Junior Seminary. I arrived yesterday afternoon after a four-hour bus trip from Dodoma. The bus trip was uneventful. It was uncomfortable, however. I had too much in my backpack which I had to keep on my lap because I couldn't fit it overhead. The bus driver kindly dropped me off at the front gate here.

Folks at the center have been very welcoming (you'll find in the course of reading this blog that this a theme in Tanzania!). My room is comfortable-- I'll post pictures soon (though I'm having trouble posting in general [that fibre optic cable can't come soon enough to Tanzania!]). It has a bed with mosquito netting, a nightstand, a built-in desk and built-in wardrobe, plus a couple of chairs. The mosquito netting is a requirement, of course, because of malaria. I'm told that the Jesuit novitiate was once located nearby but because so many novices were coming down with malaria they relocated it to its present location in Arusha where the elevation decreases the risk of malaria.

It's hot and humid here, but it cooled down nicely last night; and there was a very nice hard rain in the evening (I'm remembering what Bro. Vincent told me yesterday: "In the tropics rain + heat = green; you need both.") It is greener here than Dodoma, that's for certain.

Today will be quiet. I'm finally finishing Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette given to me by my friends Christopher and Rosario Baldwin -- the queen's just been arrested.

That's the scoop from these parts.

Tripped on Tripe

Never expected to try it and avoided it every time I’d been offered, but yesterday I ate tripe. I noticed meat served in a sauce at lunch. It was in thin slices, slightly curled, it seemed, from cooking. The first time I saw meat served in this way. When I got to my place at table (meals are served from a buffet), I noticed the meat was “honey-combed” and guessed immediately what it was. (What I found out later was that it was goat trip – I love goat, but never imagined eating that part of the goat!)

I managed to finish eating it – thankfully peas in a tomato sauce were also served with rice. Not a horrible taste by any means. I was happy to find out that Bro. Vincent avoids the stuff; I’ll be in solidarity with him. (Incidentally, the meat dish at lunch was made up for at dinner when we had delicious duck.)

Other than that my day was filled yesterday with reading school handbooks and continuing to work on ours – a nice occupation while waiting to get up to speed on curricular issues, government mandates, and all the rest.

Last night folks came in from the villages as they do on every first Thursday of the month. They keep a vigil through the night, part of their devotion to the Sacred Heart. I woke up at midnight to their singing, at 2:00 a.m. to their singing; again at 5:00 a.m. This morning Malasi commented that they prayed for us while we slept. I responded that while I appreciated that, it worked the other way around, too: It could be said that we slept for them while they prayed, no? It really edifying -- especially to see these folks bright and cheery at 6:30 a.m. Mass. AND, they'll all be off to spend their days laboring as usual.

Today I head to Morogoro. Thought I’d be delivered there by one of the contractors from the building site headed to D’Salaam, but the site meeting was cancelled. So I’m taking the bus.

And that’s the news that’s fit to print – and the news otherwise as well!

Call Me

Do you remember that song? It was performed, I believe, by Shirley Bassey . (Okay, I didn’t really know that; I just googled it.)

Malasi gave me a SIM card last night. We immediately tested it by having him call me, and it worked. What we didn’t try is the other way around, which when I tried it later didn’t work. This afternoon Sossy and I went to the vending office and discovered the problem: I’d protected my i.d. – not allowed. So now I have mobile service.

Though I don’t have a message service yet, and though I can’t SMS, and though I don’t have tons of time in the prepaid account, you can, as the song goes, call me. For my number write me at the gmail account listed in my profile.

I spent much of yesterday and today reading the standards of the various subjects in the prescribed national curriculum. Former students and my colleagues at the SOE LMU and in the TEP at GGSE will appreciate how I felt as I looked at the matrix complete with a pacing column for each of the subjects. Scheduling will pose an interesting challenge because not every subject meets every day. (So for instance Form I –the first year of the ordinary level in the high school) has three forty-minute periods of chemistry, four forty-minute periods of biology, six forty-minute periods of mathematics, seven of English, etc.

I also spent time beginning to work on the student handbook. Thanks again to the folks at UDJHSA, Georgetown Prep, and Episcopal HS in Alexandria, VA, for sharing their handbooks with me. Having the handbooks from the two boarding schools is helpful. (I especially like the rule in Episcopal’s –a co-educational boarding school as ours will be – that students are never allowed in unlit areas.)

Two days until I leave for Morogoro. I’m not nervous at all about setting off to that city (it’s lovely, but very hot and humid in the coming months. Incidentally, the afternoons here are very hot and dusty these days, but there’s little humidity, a nice breeze, and it cools down so much at night that I close my windows [as much as they close]; by 4 in the morning I have pull the top sheet over me to keep warm). I am beginning to feel a bit intimidated by learning the language. As Steve Martin used to say about the French in his stand-up act: “They have a different word for everything!” I do want to become fluent in Kiswahili, so I’ll work hard at it and push myself. Push myself doesn’t mean furrowing my eyebrows; relative to language study it means for me to dive in and not worry too much about making mistakes.

Finally, because I don’t know whether I will be posting before the weekend: A shout-out to my sister Kathleen and future brother-in-law Steve who are getting married this weekend. Only good things to the two of you as your lives unfold together!