This day today was quite a tough cookie to chew on...
An early start to the day - as always on Saturdays in Kiabakari. Confessions in the Shrine, Holy Mass with Eucharistic adoration, then meeting with catechumens from primary schools in Kiabakari to go through their files, check their data, correct mistakes, ask some relevant questions, finish the office stuff and give them a green light to proceed for last steps before their Baptism on last Sunday of May.
Then after a quick lunch with Chairman and Secretary of parish council along with a Chairman of Board of Catechists in the parish, we set off to Mwibagi outstation, the last one before you get to bridge on Suguti river, which is a border between Kiabakari and Bunda parishes.
It's only 11 kilometers from Kiabakari, and the early afternoon was quite pleasant with rays of sun warming damp countryside after yesterday's fury of thunderstorm.
In Mwibagi we met catechumens from three outstations constituting the Kyanyari center in our parish - Mwibagi, Nyamkoma and Nyakiswa. Altogether more than 130 catechumens- children, youth and adults.
We went through the same process as in Kiabakari, then after three hours of painstaking scrutiny, we concluded with a Holy Mass of Ascension Solemnity which we celebrate tomorrow in Tanzania. It was a wonderful celebration, though I was completely exhausted mentally going through proofreading and correcting the misspelled names which is quite common feature around here. But it is so important as people - especially parents of those young Tanzanians - tend to forget how important it is to get the data right from the very start. So many problems are caused later on with wrong names, bad spelling, or messed data, when they want to get job, go to school or get a passport.
Ask volunteers who worked in Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Health Center what I mean! It is a world of pain to get registration system right and file people's names properly. Mission Impossible IV (or whatever the correct number of the sequel is)...
Got back home late in the evening and now, after spending the whole day with impressive number of people, I can cherish the moment I like so much and it is so rewarding...sitting alone in a sofa, sipping cold water, enjoying calm evening and lower temperature, watching Genesis playing live in Rome on DVD, immersing myself slowly in memories and thinking lazily how to tackle efficiently and professionally the very next day...
Saying I sit alone does not mean you are not welcome. To the contrary...Come and join me, I may even get up and find for you - in a secret place in the fridge - a bar of chocolate which is there waiting precisely for an opportunity like this...
Oh, how I love this song...it cleanses me and washes away all of my tiredness...Shhhhh....listen....
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