Guest blog by Sister Maxyne Schneider, President of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, who is currently visiting missioning Sisters in Africa.
From Nairobi to the Kisii Diocese
The seven-hour trip from Nairobi to Kisii brought us on
Wednesday, October 7 from mile-high Nairobi down to the floor of the Rift
Valley, which runs from Israel and Jordan down to Southern Africa. The scenery of
the descent was breathtaking. At one point I was surprised to see a small troop
of baboons by the roadside.
As we crossed the Maasai territory of the valley, we were
in the midst of herds of cattle and goats and those who tended them. Lack of
rain left the area brown and dusty. As the afternoon progressed we saw saw
children going home, all in the various bright uniforms that are used by both
public and church-sponsored schools. The ascent into the high territory of
Kisii brought us back to green vegetation and spectacular views of fertile
hillsides.
Our Sisters' First Mission in Ichuni in the Kisii Diocese
Ichuni was the site where Srs. Cecilia James and
Bernadette were part of the early years of the first school for girls, a harambe,
i.e., a school created by the people rather than by the government. Arriving in
1971 and living in very simple housing, they taught 300 girls in that school
and taught boys in a neighboring school. Later on at various points they were
joined in community living by Pat Smith, Sue Landry, and Dorothy Pilkington.
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This is the house where Srs. Cecilia James and Mary
Bernadette
first lived and where other sisters joined them.
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As we had arrived in Ichuni we were met by a woman and
her family to whom both Srs. Pat Smith and Dorothy Pilkington had been present.
Beatrice was the first social worker with whom Pat worked in her ministry to
women of the Diocese. Beatrice's smile and the presence of her daughters and
grandchildren at the roadside as we arrived spoke of the importance of the
family's relationship with our sisters. So did the fact that two of Beatrice's
now adult daughters, Dorothy and Patricia, are named for them.
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Fr. Thomas Matoke, another priest, and a
seminarian
bring us to the old church, the one our sisters knew. |
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| The new church! |
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| Sr. Bernadette's bedroom. |
With Beatrice we went to the parish, meeting the current
pastor, Fr. Thomas Matoke, who delayed plans to leave for another engagement to
show us around. The house in which Bern, Ceil, Dorothy and Pat once lived still
stands, but is used only for storage. As you look at the photos of the exterior
of the house and of Bernadette's former bedroom, you may get a little sense of
the simplicity with which they lived. The original church still stands, but a
new church has been added to accommodate a congregation of 2000. As I saw the young children in the
schoolyards, I wondered if some might be the grandchildren of Bernadette's and
Ceil's first pupils.
After touring the church and school property, we were
invited to visit with Beatrice and her daughters and three of her grandchildren
in her simple home. Large posters on the walls spoke of the role of faith in
their lives, as did Beatrice's request that we pray together before we left.
Hospitality was extended in offering us milk from their cow tethered in the
front yard. The impact on their family was further highlighted thorough Pat's
receiving a few calls from Beatrice's son Nicholas, now a schoolteacher at a
distance from Ichuni.
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Beatrice, the first social worker with whom Pat worked in
the diocesan
outreach to women, is joined by her daughters and grandchildren
in
bidding farewell to Pat in Ichuni.
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Our Stay at Nyabururu
On Wednesday night we arrived at Nyabururu,about a
45-minute drive from Ichuni. Now a house of the School Sisters of Notre Dame,
this was a site where Pat Smith lived for several years when she was engaged in
other ministries nearby. Down the road is St. Paul's Teachers College, where
Sr. Mary Magdalene taught home science. One of the teachers, Elizabeth, left a
meeting in order to show Pat and me around. While she didn't know Magdalene
personally, having arrived just after Magdalene left, she said that she was
grateful for the teaching materials that Magdalene left; these had made her
first classes so much easier.
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Young students preparing for teaching stand at the
entrance to the campus
where Sr. Mary Magdalene taught home science. Her
classroom is still in use for science studies.
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When we left the College, Pat led us to the house where
Magdalene lived and to the small building where Bernadette taught at the
Upgrading Center, providing very basic schooling to sisters from an indigenous
congregation. Bernadette taught them home science once a week. The sign on the
door, "Home Ec," while faded, still remains.
The wider campus area that encompasses the college also
has other schools. Education, apparently a Kenyan goal after achieving
independence from Britain in the very early 1960's, is evident everywhere.
Religious sisters are, it seems, everywhere, as well. We met young sisters from
two different congregations on this property yesterday, all not yet born when
our first sisters came here.
Friday's Visit to Our Second Mission Site in Sengera
Later this afternoon we drove to Sengera, where Pat and
Sr. Kathy Gallagher were first missioned. Both began as teachers in the
school. Just before we left, I had a
conversation with one of Pat's first students, Amina, who had traveled two
hours from near the Tanzanian border for a farewell visit with Pat. She spoke
of how education was in those days, when women in their twenties who had not
had prior schooling had the opportunity to learn. Pat and her students, she said, were age
peers. The warm friendship begun then has remained through the years, and
significant life moments were often shared. Pat used her tailoring skills to
sew Amina's wedding dress. Pat was there in times of illness and times of
celebration. Again today I saw the testimony to Pat's fruitful ministry here
and I expand my thoughts to encompass the ministries of each of our other sisters
who served in East Africa.
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Srs. Kathy Gallagher and Pat Smith came to Sengera in
1973, two years after Srs. Ceil and Bernadette
went to Ichuni. What was a very
small school when our sisters arrived now has an enrollment of 600.
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Pat had not been back to Sengera in about 20 years. Some
things had changed greatly, while others had not. The dirt road, probably the
most rutted and rough that I had ever been on, had not changed. The boarding
school for girls where Kathy Gallagher taught math and Pat taught biology and
home science has grown to include a large campus and 600 secondary school
girls. (Pat recalls that the enrollment earlier might have been 100 or fewer.)
We were given a tour by the secretary, were surrounded by first-year students
eager for their pictures to be taken, and introduced to staff from the kitchen
to the library. They were so pleased to meet a teacher from the school's
earliest years. Most staff we met were not yet born when Kathy and Pat came
there in 1973.
We saw the exterior of the house where Pat and Kathy and
later Noreen Moran lived as well as the exterior of the former church; a new
large church has been built. The Catholic population and population in general
appeared to have grown substantially.
As we returned to our lodging in Nyabururu, heading
toward Kisii Town, we went into the campus of what is now Kisii University, now
a beautiful and expansive campus. Dorothy Pilkington taught in the Education
Department when the institution was Kisii College and had limited buildings.
This was Dorothy's second mission in Kenya and part of the 11 years she spent
in the country.
Impressions So Far and What's to Come
As I write this on Friday, October 9, I have been in
Kenya just over four days. While it gives me no basis for any in-depth
commentary, it does allow me to share the sharpness of first impressions. These
are among them: the depth of the impact that our sisters have had on individuals
and groups and the vibrancy of faith in the lives of those we have met.. As we
went to the outdoor market, I was keenly aware of how hard people must work in
order to support themselves and their families at the level that they do. I
have found myself challenged by the contrast between my first-world living and
the people's living with simple necessities
After meeting some truly beautiful and gracious people,
it could be tempting to generalize the experience, but even these few days have
shown that that would be a mistake. Beauty is not the whole of the reality;
other human realities are surely here, too. The need for safety is apparent
almost everywhere, from gates and fences around properties to refraining from
taking pictures with the iPad as we are in the marketplaces. Poverty is all too
evident, too, both in Nairobi and in this more rural area. It is a country both
of great beauty and of great contrasts.
Tomorrow we will leave Nyabururu for a three-hour drive
to Molo, where the SSND's will honor both Pat and one of their sisters as they
return home from their many years of service in East Africa. This will be one
leg of the journey back to Nairobi, where we plan to arrive on Monday.
We hope to visit in Nairobi the college where Sr. Pat Kane
established the Communications Department and where one of her protégés now
continues what she began. Perhaps this is a good theme for what this pilgrimage
of remembering has been: seeds planted have borne abundant fruit. We can be
proud and grateful for what our sisters have done in the course of 44 years.
Sister Maxyne Schneider
