I was privileged to accompany our General Superior to the blessing of the newly built convent in the little village of Rushooka in south west Uganda. Google can find the nearest town called Kabale.
We left from Rome, Italy and had a midnight stopover in London. Having slept on the plane I was awakened as by a welcome mat, of the sun glistening on Lake Victoria as we circled to land in the airport at Entebbe near the capital, Kampala.
The sisters greeted us and took us on a dusty red road to the city of Mbarara where their diocesan bishop resides. We stayed at a Catholic hostel built for missioners and others travelling in the country and then continued on the same road to Rushooka. Since the convent was not ready we slept as the sisters had for a year, in a hut very much like the best house in the village. The walls were made of sticks and mud and the room sister had lent me was filled with the low bed. She said not to be disturbed if things were crawling on the cross beams over my head. I hoped she didn’t mean a leapard and fell into an exhausted sleep. The next day I tried to wash in a basin as I poured water from a very heavy jerry can to rinse my tooth brush. We had breakfast and prayers in another mud walled room and then explored the village. Happy children followed me everywhere, especially when they could see the picture I had just taken on the tiny digital screen at the back of my camera.
We were all busy preparing the new convent and the entire village for the wonderful celebration to bless the new convent, constructed of local brick. On the big day the Bishop, Msgr. Bakjenga of Mbarara arrived. Mass was celebrated outdoors under a blue United Nations tarp. It rained briefly during the celebration and water had to be poked out from the recesses in our covering. Singing was joyful, in English, children danced and women gestured. Many new friends of the sisters attended and afterward the entire village had a great feast. In the convent the bishop and guests from far had a chicken dinner and all around the villagers sat with bowls of the banana preparation called matoke, enriched with meat and sauce.
We moved into the convent that night and had accommodations which were more familiar to us northeners, but water was still in jerry cans hauled by truck from a spring five kilometers distant. In the mud hut which served as an infirmary people gathered in the waiting room under a tree as the sisters treated various ailments.
The faith came to Uganda through the ministry of the so-called White Fathers and was nourished by the blood of the Uganda Martyrs, page boys who resisted the sinful commands of the king.
Since the sisters have come to the village, health care has become officially certified and is in a new building. Except in times of seasonal drought the people have food but they need cash for living improvements and for education. The sisters began a program of giving widows pregnant goats which began a herd for sale and for protein. There is a cooperative for raising pigs. A Sister taught sewing and nutritious cooking and another watched over the orphans cared for by the village. They now have a mill also run as a coop which grinds the grain they grow eliminating the expensive middle man. The success of ornamental sunflowers brought the idea of growing a variety that produced oil for sale and this is now another profitable enterprise.
As more women wanted to follow our charism and join our congregation we began a formation house in Mbarara where they could live and work while they completed their education. Now there are plans for a house in the capital which can some day give service and training to women who might otherwise be at the mercy of international sex traffickers.
The people of Rushooka were good Catholics thanks to the ministry of Franciscan priests who also inspired our General Superior to send sisters. All people need health care and education to live in freedom and human dignity. In our world this necessitates money. Water has been brought into the village. There are still jerry cans but they must be carried a much shorter distance. More and more boys and girls are able to go to school and receive even higher education. The health center is receiving the necessary requisites to fight the scourges of AIDS and malaria. Jesus healed body and souls and in this tradition the work goes on with missioners and local vocations.
For those of us who only visited for a time, every run of water and every hot shower is appreciated for the privilege it is and occasions a prayer of gratitude and intercession for the millions in the world who do not enjoy these, to us, simple pleasures.
