Letters from Nyumbani

Unlike in the United States where all of our ordinations take place at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, each class is ordained at one of our parishes in either Uganda, Kenya or Tanzania. This year’s ordination took place at our historic parish, St. Jude Tadeo, in Kyarusozi, Western Uganda – one of the places Holy Cross has been serving and evangelizing the longest in East Africa. 

Today marks the end of my first week on Pastoral Year here at Mtakatifu Felicita Catholic Parish. My fairly simple days have consisted of shadowing our priests for Masses in the villages, shopping trips to town, funeral and burials at peoples’ homes, and orientation and meeting our parishioners and neighbors. 

Sherehe, pronounced “shey-rey-hey,” is the ubiquitous Swahili term that gets clumsily translated to English as “party.” It might also be festival, celebration, or thanksgiving. You can’t go very long in this part of the world without running into one. 

I recognized Furaha from one of our church outstations on the edge of the parish boundary where she sings in the choir, so I greeted them right away after Mass. They told me that they began walking at 3:00 am to get to Mass and to meet with Father, which I knew couldn’t possibly be good news.

Christmas Eve this year, I was not sitting around the fire with family or huddled in at midnight Mass as usual—instead, I found myself with my brother seminarian, Katongole, in the pitch black night at 8:30 pm on a horribly muddy road trying to get to one of our most far-flung outstations, Nyasoro.

One of the most oppressing experiences of any Mzungu or white person in East Africa is begging, all the time. Not only from the kind of folks who might typically beg from you: homeless, hungry, etc. But just about anyone who sees you has the idea that a Mzungu has pockets overflowing with cash they’re just waiting to give out.

After Mass and breakfast last Tuesday, I organized my bag with rosaries, candies, prayer books, and most importantly the Eucharist. I strapped it down to the back of my bike, grabbed some water and my sun-hat, and set off to visit the sick and elderly of one of our villages, Mang’ore. 

When they heard me speaking Swahili with locals, they were shocked: “How is your Swahili better than ours after two months here, when we have lived here most of our lives? What is your secret?” I told them that, unlike them, who live in a big city where people speak English and work in offices all day, I am – as they say here – “deep in the village.”