A New Year, A New Academic Year at SPCHS

Hey students and teachers at St. Peter Claver High School, Dodoma!

What Counts?

Was thinking today about how silly so much testing is, and then I remembered this:

Merry Christmas!

It has been forever since I have posted any updates.

I was moved to post this update after seeing a very moving picture on the Facebook page of Sean Kenney, a man who recently returned to the US after volunteering in Dodoma for two years.

This photograph captures for me so much. First, notice the school bus -- the gift of so many friends of Saint Peter Claver High School. The bus is being used for its intended purpose -- to transport our students for their weekly community service.

And notice the groups of our students in their uniforms working with younger students. This is the program that Sean spearheaded along with the Ivrea sisters -- to get our students into the local village to provide weekly tutoring for the children there. The learning conditions are abominable, and it is my hope that we can manage to accept two students from the village on an annual basis in the coming years.

Third, notice how dry the place is. In good years Dodoma is semi-arid -- the good years don't follow one another as often as they used to.

Fourth, notice the unfinished structure in the distance -- Tanzanians don't live beyond their means; they build as they have the money.

Finally, this is all happening at the local church. Our students are formed to be men and women for and with others in light of Chapter 25 of Matthew's Gospel (vv 31-46).

If you haven't made all your charitable donations for this year, please consider helping us out at St. Peter Claver High School. In addition to assistance with school fees for students, there are a number of other projects that would certainly benefit from your generosity.

Donations can be made online. Click on "international missions" and then write SPCHS in the comment section.

And thanks to all those who have so kindly contributed this year. We'll soon have a bakery up and running, providing healthier food for our students but also generating an income for the school by having a retail arm.

God bless you in 2013!

PS: I myself will be moving on to John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, where I'll be teaching in the Department of Education and serving the Jesuit community as the superior.

Dough for Dodoma

On Sunday afternoon my family and friends will gather at Dale's Bar and Grill in Maumee, Ohio, for their annual fundraiser for St. Peter Claver High School. (From 4 - 6 p.m., if you can make it!)

South African bakers

This will be my first opportunity to attend and to thank folks in person for their past support. In the first year, they raised more than $10,000 for books for the school library -- and covered the shipping of 40 computers as well. Last year, they raised funds for livestock. The school now has 8 cows and a bunch of pigs with more on the way (along with chickens, rabbits, and goats). This year, they will be raising funds for the building and equipping of a bakery. The baked goods (mostly bread) will be used to for the school but they will also be sold at a retail outlet.

 In some earlier posts I noted all the things I was thankful for. I am so thankful to so many for their constant support. Some have been able to help us financially, which has been a great help, indeed. Others have volunteered their gifts. Still others have kept the Dodoma project in their prayers. To all I say Asanteni sana! Thank you very much.

I want to thank especially my friends Rob, Pete, and Tom and my sister Toni. A special shout out to my sister Kathleen, who not only has designed the invitations the last three years but also designed the school's logo. Also, Grax Anderson (St. John's Jesuit HS, '78) has kindly provided Dale's (otherwise closed on Sunday's) for our  use.

There are many others who have helped out with this event and with other such things, but I wanted to name them specifically.

The World Needs Africa

I couldn't say it any better than the Superior General of the Society of Jesus:

Thanks, Continued

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I thank God for the people that were in my life in Tanzania.

Where to start? Certainly with Sossy. I met Sossy within days of that phone call from Rome. He happened to be in the United States, so I flew up to Berkeley from Los Angeles in order to meet him and the equally wonderful Deogratius Rwezaura, then a graduate student at the Jesuit School of Theology. My initial excitement was only confirmed in my talk with Sossy about the need in Dodoma. He seemed like someone I could work with, a fact that was confirmed over the course of our three years together. Not that everything was always smooth, mind you. We had our differences but the respect that we have for one another helped us to manage those moments. It was a delight to see Sossy during the recent colloquium in Boston and an even greater delight to spend a couple of days relaxing with him after the meeting.

There were other Jesuit companions in the community in Dodoma, of course. Michel Ruasha could not have made me feel more welcome to the community; his departure from the parish was not easy for me.

I am very thankful for having had the opportunity to live and work with Martin Waweru Kamau. I’ve recounted a difficult time in our life in our community at the parish before those assigned to the high school moved the 17 kilometres to Ihumwa. I was in part implicated in the difficulty. In any case the tension – the details are unimportant, really –  in the community went unnamed and unaddressed until at a community meeting this outstanding young Jesuit so many years my junior called the community to greater growth by naming the issues and inviting us to address them. Thank God he did. We worked well together – and lived well together.  I can say that one of the best years of my life was the one spent living in two apartments – Martin, Brother Vincent, Kizito, and I.

What would I have done without Kizito? He was an ear for me in some difficult times and never gave me anything except good advice – which when ignored led me down some much rockier roads than I would have had to have traveled had I listened. He taught me a lot in his gentle way. Talk about a man without guile!

Among the people I most admired were our domestic employees. They worked so hard on our behalf. The love of Rose Anthony for the Jesuits and her devotion to  work were inspiring. And her joy was infectious.

At my farewell party, I told the story of our day guard Kikwete. This older gentleman had worked on the security team for our contractor. At one time there was a reduction in force among the guards; the supervisor informed him that for a certain amount of money (about half a month’s salary), Kikwete could keep his job. Kikwete responded by saying that he had too much integrity to engage in such a practice: he’d go home before paying such money. He went home and within a couple of weeks we hired him as our employee because we knew from this incident that he was a man of integrity. He exemplified hard work. Dotto the night guard was equally inspiring. This young man worked through the night and then went to the government secondary school during the day. And inspiration.

The volunteers were such an amazing support. I was supposed to be their support person, but they served me as much in that role as I did them! Their own generosity and desire to be with the people and to serve the nation was inspiring.

And the Ivrea sisters modeled for me what religious life at its best looks like. Jesuit life is not their life, but we could stand to learn from them how to live a more communal existence.

Teachers are liars. They say they don’t have favorites but they do. The challenge is to treat everyone fairly. I had my favourites. One was Esdory Richard, who wants to be a Jesuit. I hope one day I can call him a brother. Another is Christopher Massawe. Christopher arrived at SPCHS without much English. After the first marking period he came to my office inconsolable because of the poor marks he’d received for the previous term. I explained – with Kizito translating because his English was so poor – that it would all work out, that he had to give it time, but that he had to be more actively involved regarding his studies. From that day he showed up every day for extra help from teachers, attended an intensive English program for English language learners during the June break, etc. He finished his first year with B’s. The third is a young girl named Brigiter –  pronounced "brighter," and she is! She comes from a poor, single-parent family. She’s receiving substantial help for her fees, and she never missed an opportunity to thank us for the chance she was receiving. Finally there is Calvin Massawe, who combines maturity and real kindness. He really understands our mission. These four stand for so many others – and they’re going places!

Those are just some thumbnails of folks I’m thankful for. They stand for many others unnamed here.

As I wrote, I’m thankful to have had them in my life.

Next, I think I’ll recount some moments I’m particularly thankful for.

Thanks

Auden is among my favourite poets, and among his poems "Thank You, Fog" is my absolute favourite.

Thank You, Fog
by W.H. Auden

Grown used to New York weather,
all too familiar with Smog,
You, Her unsullied Sister,
I'd quite forgotten and what
You bring to British winters:
now native knowledge returns.

Sworn foe to festination,
daunter of drivers and planes,
volants, of course, will cause You,
but how delighted I am
that You've been lured to visit
Wiltshire's witching countryside
for a whole week at Christmas,
that no one can scurry where
my cosmos is contracted
to an ancient manor-house
and four Selves, joined in friendship,
Jimmy, Tania, Sonia, Me.

Outdoors a shapeless silence,
for even then birds whose blood
is brisk enough to bid them
abide here all the year round,
like the merle and the mavis,
at Your cajoling refrain
their jocund interjections,
no cock considers a scream,
vaguely visible, tree-tops
rustle not but stay there, so
efficiently condensing
Your damp to definite drops.

Indoors specific spaces,
cosy, accommodate to
reminiscence and reading,
crosswords, affinities, fun:
refected by a sapid
supper and regaled by wine,
we sit in a glad circle,
each unaware of our own
nose but alert to the others,
making the most of it, for
how soon we must re-enter,
when lenient days are done,
the world of the work and money
and minding our p's and q's.

No summer sun will ever
dismantle the global gloom
cast by the Daily Papers,
vomiting in slip-shod prose
the facts of filth and violence
that we're too dumb to present:
our earth's a sorry spot, but
for this special interim,
so restful yet so festive,
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Fog

Though these past weeks have not been spent in the English countryside during winter, they have been a "special interim, so restful yet so festive." Much of the time was actually spent alone. It was only in my early thirties that I learned how to be alone, and now I can say with the famous eighteenth-century historian of the eighteenth century, Gibbon, that "I was never less alone than when by myself."

The days have given me time and space to think about these last years. There is only one word, really, that captures my present attitude and disposition as I consider them: gratitude.

I never tire of recounting that March morning when I was awakened a little after 6:00 a.m. by a phone call from the Jesuit provincial, my friend Tim Kesicki, SJ. He was calling from the office of Fr. Joe Daoust, SJ, at Jesuit headquarters in Rome. They had a proposal for me: Would I consider helping to start a high school in Dodoma, Tanzania, and then do the same for a teachers college?

Without that request, I would not have had the graces of the last three years. As i was preparing to leave, I had the chance to visit with a Jesuit friend of many years. I first met this man when I was a scholastic studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and he was a priest on the faculty at that time. He asked to see me before I left for Tanzania, certain that due to his failing health he might not see me again (I can report that he is still with us, doing okay). During our visit he said to me, "Marty, I have never been asked by the Society to do anything remotely challenging, anything at all close to the edge. What a grace for you in your Jesuit life to be asked to do so." And he was right. I've never felt more like a Jesuit than these past years.

I've jokingly told people that it was my version of a mid-life crisis -- half-jokingly. The mid-life crisis is about identity formation. The existential question one faces at different periods of life is "Who am I now at this stage of life?" In fact the question is better asked as "HOW am I now at this stage of life?" What I was facing before agreeing to move to Tanzania was a life spent coasting, really. I did not need a sports car or a paramour, but I did need something to give me a sense of being a bit edgier. The mission to Tanzania fit the bill. And I'll be forever thankful for the opportunity.

To be continued...