These are extracts from my Diary while living and working in Africa. The menu at the very, very bottom of the page takes you to prior months, all the way back to the day I arrived in Africa in January of 2007. Please read, learn and enjoy!
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3rd October 2008:
I am discovering my talent for gardening & I enjoy it. I have a little gallery outside my room & I have many little pots of pretty plants. I water them daily & they are growing well. Sometimes I place them in the chapel or in front of the little alter I have in my room or on the ledge of my window & it brightens up the place.
This rainy season Marie Jeanne planted some maize & some lady fingers in the little place we have near the hostel & since no girls are there to disturb them, they are growing beautifully. Also Sr. Clara re-arranged the whole garden. She planted roses & light green hedges. All the other trees- the neems, the mangoes, the eucalyptus &the smaller plants like bougainvilleas, she pruned. There is a lot of light entering in now because everything is clean.
7th October 2008:
My friend Pauline who is an English teacher invited me to her house for the blessing of her new car. The parish priest had a very solemn ceremony. I was amused but also impressed how these dear African sisters & brothers of ours invite the Lord even in their daily mundane affairs.
6th October 2008:
The hostel is full & the girls had their first meeting where Sr Beatrice presented the community to the girls & after that each girl introduced herself. We had the same with the girls of the Centre when we had our first meeting with them on the 3rd
.
8th October 2008:
I have many little friends in the neighbourhood. Sometimes I take them to the chapel & introduce them to Jesus & Mary.
In every street corner, you can see women with twins begging. They approach you & say:” The twins want your blessings”. You are expected to give money or in kind but it has to be exactly the same for the two;” It is considered fortunate to have twins.
When I go for my morning walks, they keep shouting ‘toubabou, toubabou’ which means foreigner or white man. I smile & say ‘Africain, africain’ & they laugh. They are so cute with their chubby cheeks & mischievous looks, following me wherever I go. Their toys are sticks & stones & bottles. I remember my own childhood & how I gathered with my friends on the muddy roads of our village in Moira & played hop-scotch & robbers & police & what not.
10th October 2008:
Some of the customs & traditions practised here by the locals are really shocking to me. If a mother dies in child-birth, the new-born is buried alive with the mother as the child is considered to be the porter of evil for it has killed its own mother at birth. The Dad of one such child secretly brought the baby girl to the convent. She was just a day old. The sisters quickly bundled her off to another village & gave her to a childless couple. The father was a catechist & did not believe in this superstitious customs & thus the baby was saved. Today she is a grown woman, a nurse, married & having a little girl of her own. Her adopted father died young of an accident but her adopted mother who is very sickly lives with Ami Claire ( named after Sr. Clara who saved her) & is well taken care of. Sr. Clara insisted on telling her of her Dad & Ami Claire looked out for him & found him in her original village, very poor, re-married with several children. She keeps in touch with him & sends him money regularly & has brought one of her step sisters to the town of Bobo & is educating her. Ami Claire is the nurse of our community & we can approach her with any of our medical needs. We get free medicines from abroad & our Ami Claire sorts them out & we distribute them to the poor & needy who come daily to our door for help.
Nyuhu was another victim of that awful custom. Unfortunately he was already poisoned. A fertilizer was put into his milk. Ami Claire happened to be in the village then. She was still a youngster but having the experience of being saved herself, she rushed the little boy to the sisters who de-toxicated him. He was on the brink of death but finally he came through. Today he is a young lad – 12 years old, living with Ami Claire like her little brother. He is naughty & rebellious like all pre-adolescents & surely his past rejection has a strong influence on his behaviour. However he is intelligent, hardworking & also very affectionate.
