Letters from Africa

October, 2008 - some more

The school registration is another whole issue. Every time I think we will get our final signatures on the application papers and then be able to give it to the Ministry of Education, there is another obstacle in the way. We have spent so much time, money and energy traveling to towns like Musoma, Mwanza and even Dar es Salaam but have not been able to bring things to a conclusion. We will have many angry parents on our hands if the girls cannot take their National examinations in the second year in our school.

I guess we are making a religious impact on the girls. In fact, it is wonderful to see so many girls praying in chapel in the morning, before school, after lunch, and in the evening. Actually our Muslim girls and Seventh Day Adventists are some of the most pious and spend the most time in chapel! 15 girls have started taking special catechism classes for three hours for three days a week to prepare for baptism in the Catholic Church. Some girls, who are baptized Catholics, have asked to be prepared to make their First Holy Communion or Confirmation. The trouble is that some of their parents do not even remember if they were ever baptized or not! 16 will be confirmed on October 12 and 7 are being prepared for First Holy Communion. I am hoping that some of our Catholics baptized in infancy will learn from the zeal and enthusiasm of the new converts! In fact those who express the greatest desire to be Sisters (or even Pope in one case) are the non-Catholics!

Our electricity and water problems continue. We keep hoping and praying for more rain and for fewer electrical power outages. Mkono has talked about drilling a well down the hill. That may be possible, but we would need to count on having electricity to pump the water up the hill to us. It seems to be getting harder and harder for me to keep washing up in a small pan of water and to deal with the lack of electricity just when one wanted to run things off on the copier for a class. I think I was able to deal with it better when I thought it was only a temporary problem, but it just keeps going on and on. One is all set to wash one's hair that night or to do laundry the next day when there is no water or electricity to pump the water from the water tank. Last night I had a meeting with the 16 girls who are to be confirmed soon. They were all sitting in the dark on the floor of the Staff Room and I was at the desk with a flashlight not even being able to recognize who was speaking at the time. Maybe I am just getting too old and tired and the lacks are getting to me more and more.

Need your prayers.
sister Stephanie CR