...and we're back!

After much scrambling, a little improvisation, and a lot of luck, Mom and I arrived safely at Mazzoldi House around 10pm on Sunday night (that's 3pm EST- 27.5 hours after we left the house).  I have often been informed that flights will be delayed, but I have never been told that my flight was leaving 2 hours earlier than planned.  All should marvel at how quickly the Pressimone family mobilized to get Mom and I to the airport in time for a 2:20 flight.  There are costs, though.  I am certain I will continue to realize the little things I forgot to throw in a bag during the fracas for the next 5 weeks.

And I don't want to sound like a commercial, but I am never not using a travel agent again!  I booked our flights through Liberty Travel (Nancy at the Berkshire Mall branch, tell her I sent you), and the moment that Delta started changing our flight times, she called my house, gave me the details, listed the options, and worked her butt off to get us on a plane to make all of our connections.  She totally rocks.

Anyway, we're here now, and have already hit the ground running.  Fr. Kamanzi took us to the Major Seminary at Langata and showed us around Karen.  Mom has been in a state of awe since we got off the plane.  I can't wait for her to share with you some of her experiences!

Now I am off to brutally slaughter this jet-lag that has been dogging me all day.  Tomorrow, the activity really picks up as we visit all of the AJAM (Apostles of Jesus AIDS Ministry) sites.

Be well!

My Day in Maziba

I have never seen rain like on the morning we planned to go to Maziba, Father Kamanzi’s village.

Yes, there are rains down in Africa.

Yes, I blessed them.

During the rainy season, the dirt roads turn to mud, making the more remote villages almost inaccessible. Luckily, it is still early in the rainy season, and the clay-like-dirt is stubbornly resisting its mud-metamorphosis. Fr. Kamanzi, his brother Honoratus, his nephew Prudence, a young girl named Antia, Fr. John, Wanjara the driver, and I all piled into the Toyota Prado and made our way to the parish out-station for Mass. Wanjara carefully navigated the road, switch-backing down the steep embankment, until we arrived at the church.

The church was almost entirely funded through the generosity of American patrons, friends of Fr. Kamanzi. There is no electricity (though they do have a generator for special holiday Masses), no toilet facilities, but there are walls and a roof and an altar, and it does quite nicely for the local community. The rains continued unabated, but Fr. Kamanzi assured me that it never rains in the afternoon in Bukoba. Sure enough, by the time Mass was over, the rains had ceased and the sun was shining. At the end of the liturgy, I addressed the congregation, expressing my sincere thanks for be able to worship with them, and to the choir for their extraordinary music. I was then presented with gifts from the people in appreciation of my visit: beautiful hand-woven baskets and images painted on rough fabric. When the presentations were over, I expressed my eternal gratitude and the choir sang the closing hymn. Following the liturgy (2 hours- short by East African standards), Fr. Kamanzi introduced me to the leaders of the community and made me pose for pictures with children. Before long, we were on our way again.

We drove just a few kilometers further before we could go no further and parked the car. The last leg we did on foot, scrambling as gracefully as possible up a steep rocky incline. All around us, mud houses and their happy inhabitants, half-hidden among the banana trees, peered out at us. In what seemed like no time at all, Fr. Kamanzi was calling “Karibu, Jo!” We had arrived at the place of his birth and the births of his brothers and sisters, the place where his parents had lived, died, and were buried, the place I had waited for so long to see. And it was wonderful! The little house looked like a modern mansion compared to its neighbors. It’s walls were sturdily built grey cement, not the reddish mud I had begun to expect, with windows, doors, and cement stairs leading up to the entrance. When you consider that all of the building materials had to be carried by hand/ on head up the hill we had just climbed, it's a true testament to the human spirit.

Inside, Fr. Kamanzi invited me to sit, and the small room soon filled with well over a dozen of the Who’s Who of Maziba. I shook many hands, learned and quickly forgot many names, and listened to the men speak alternatively in Kiswahili, Kihaya, and English, switching so effortlessly and rapidly that I could barely keep track. Fr. Kamanzi’s siblings were all there, too. The 5 remaining children of Anatoli and Constantia back in the home of their childhood: Gereon, the eldest, followed by Honoratus, then Fortunata, the eldest girl. Clare, who follows Fortunata, passed away in 2002; Maula follows Clare, who is in turn followed by Clotilda, who passed away in 1996. Speratus Kamanzi is the youngest of the seven children. Fortunata and Maula had been at the house all morning preparing a lunch of rice, machoke (bananas), cabbage, tilapia, carrots, sweet juicy mangos, and countless other dishes I can’t even recall. After the meal, we returned to the living room, where I once again shook a lot of hands and learned/forgot a lot of names.

As the days activities began to wind down, Fortunata and Maula presented me with another gift- a khanga with the image of the late, beloved first President of Tanzania, Nyerere. Together, they wrapped material around my waist and draped it over my shoulder. Attired like one of the women of Maziba, I embraced both of them, wishing to high heaven that I could express how deeply moved I was in their language, but all I could do was clasp their hands and smile my beamiest smile. After a slew of group photos in front of the family home, we paid our respects at the graves of Anatoli, Constantia, and Clotilda, and we departed, carefully picking our way down the rocky path. We piled back into the Prado and made our way back to Bukoba.

Thus ended my marvelous day in Maziba.

It's Not a Boulder, It's a Ledge.

I have observed that, overall, the roads have significantly improved since my last visit in 2010. Work on the Great North Road, which is the main route from Nairobi to Arusha, was completed in Kenya, and we were only diverted onto side dirt roads three times in Tanzania for roadwork. This is an unbelievable improvement! Coming from Nairobi to Bukoba, I was super impressed by the quality of the roads. We only encountered the occasional pothole, except for when passing through towns, when they became more frequent. My seatbelt was fastened for a bumpy ride (thank you, Bette Davis), but it was quite luxurious- I was able to read in the car and even occasionally nap (not that I wanted to; the scenery was so amazing I didn’t even want to blink!). Of course, these roads were major highways, by African standards. Once you get to the villages, you are driving on dirt roads, except for when you’re driving on dirt paths or are not able to drive at all.

As I mentioned before, Fr. Kamanzi took me to his village, Maziba, to see where he was born. To say that the road was treacherous is an understatement; our driver, Wanjara, is nothing short of a superhero. The road to the village is a recent development. Fr. Kamanzi and his brothers convinced the villagers that the road would aid their homes in untold ways, and they engineered the road themselves. In fact, building the road became a project of the whole community. The government didn’t step in until after the road was completed, and only to do the minimum to assist with maintenance. Armed with simple tools and the wisdom of Fr. Kamanzi and his brothers, the people created a road that snaked down a dangerous, rock-strewn hill to the very heart of Maziba, some 7 km long.

The entire region has an impressive population of rocks and boulders, some of which simply could not be maneuvered around, so they were faced with somehow removing them without the help of heavy machinery or modern explosives. I think their solution was rather ingenious. They placed 10 large rubber tires on the rocks that had to be removed and set them on fire. After the stones became red-hot, they poured cold water all over them and the boulders cracked and shattered into pieces small enough for the people to move them.

Now that’s street smarts! Ziiinng!

Once Upon a Time

I met Fr. Kamanzi in August of 2006. I remember the moment very clearly: he was wearing a fantastic purple shirt and was all smiles. It was his first time back in the office since April, when he had returned to his home near Bukoba, Tanzania to mourn the death of his father, so even though I had been a Campus Minister for a whole month, I was meeting the college chaplain for the first time. I was a little nervous, considering how much we were going to be working together and how (relatively) ignorant I was about things like “catechism” and “liturgy” (I can say this now, right?). But he greeted me with smiles and an embrace, and all of my fears were assuaged. Looking back, that was probably one of the most important moments of my life. Who could have known then where I’d be now?

Almost since that first meeting, I have wanted to see where Fr. Kamanzi came from. He told me about his place, his family, his heritage, and I wanted to see it, to see if imagination could possibly equal reality. In 2008, Fr. Kamanzi was recalled to Nairobi to assume leadership of the Apostles of Jesus. A profoundly humble man, he never in a million years thought he would become the Superior General of the order, but, as I told him the other day, he is probably the only one who didn’t see it coming some day or another. And so, on a Friday in February, Fr. Kamanzi was yanked out of our arms at Alvernia and sent halfway around the world. Thankfully, in this age of modernity, he and I were able to stay in touch, and I was able to visit him at the Generalate in Nairobi with my friend Dave. Together, we visited many of the missions of the Apostles of Jesus around Nairobi, Kenya and Arusha, Tanzania.

But I still hadn’t seen where he came from.

Back then, Fr. Kamanzi and I agreed that the next time I came to Africa, I would not go home without seeing his place. Through some good fortune and more than a little divine providence, I did come back, now as an employee of the order, as close to being a member as possible without having to take any vows. And Father Kamanzi held good to his promise (as he always does). When we first started discussing the itinerary for this trip, it was always a priority to travel to the Lake zone of Tanzania. While I was excited about the whole trip, nothing made me giddier than the prospect of seeing where Fr. Kamanzi came from. This was the focal point of my entire trip.

As I got closer and closer to actually seeing the place of Fr. Kamanzi’s origins, I started to get scared that I had somehow built it up to impossible heights in my imagination. I had been looking forward to this for almost 6 years, and now I was actually going to meet Fr. Kamanzi’s brothers and sisters and see the house where he was born. However, within moments of arriving in Bukoba, all of my fears were proved unfounded.

Bukoba is paradise. Nestled in a bay of Lake Victoria, in the shadow of soaring cliffs of gray stone, it is a breathtakingly beautiful place. I kept taking pictures of the exact same view, hoping that my camera could somehow capture the raw beauty of the area. Fr. Kamanzi’s birthplace, Maziba, is about 40 minutes south of the town, down a series of increasingly rough roads, buried in a hillside banana tree forest. The road doesn’t reach the home of his father; we had to hike the last kilometer or so. And it is perfect.

And the people! I was so nervous about meeting Fr. Kamanzi’s family. I have heard so much about them and seen so many pictures over the years, but I had no idea what they would think about me. They were wonderful! His older brothers, Gereon and Honoratus, greeted me warmly in English (though Honoratus is more comfortable speaking German). I was happy to make a non-verbal connection with his sisters, Fortunata and Maula (and am now more determined than ever to master Kiswahili so that we can communicate next time I come!). Seeing all five of them together (there were 7, but two of their sisters, as well as their mother and father, have passed away) reminded me so much of being with my own siblings. They were so overjoyed to be with each other!

I am going to be sharing more from my time in Bukoba and Maziba, but for now, suffice it to say that Bukoba has made a sparkling debut on my list of Favorite Places in the World.