First Love

Today was my turn to help in Zanaki Parish (mother parish of Kiabakari, which was for a long time a center in the old vast Zanaki parish, then detached from it in 1991 when I started to work on Kiabakari center in order to make it an independent parish which happened the following year). The parish priest of Zanaki, Fr. Piotr Pawlus is on his vacation for three months in Europe, so we - his neighbors - come in turns to help with Holy Masses in the parish while he is away. My duty is to go there once a month and today was the first time I fulfilled my obligation.


After the morning Mass in Kiabakari at 7 am, I drove to Magorombe (the place where the Zanaki mission is located is called Magorombe) for 9 am Mass and then at 11 am at Chief Ihunyo Girls' Secondary School. There is another high school in the neighborhood - Chief Oswald Mang'ombe Boys' High School, but contrary to girls at Chief Ihunyo, they are allowed to attend a Sunday Mass in the parochial church, while girls' are forbidden to leave the school, apparently for their safety, so the parish priest - asked by the school staff, decided to go there every Sunday and celebrate a Holy Mass for them.

So, I followed the suite and right after finishing the Holy Mass at 9am at the parochial church, I drove up to Busegwe village where Chief Ihunyo is located (some 6 kilometers on the way to Butiama) and celebrated a Holy Mass for girls there.

Both liturgies, though distinctively different, were beautifully prepared by the communities. I enjoyed particularly the opportunity to celebrate a Holy Mass in the mother church of my missionary career in the Diocese of Musoma at Zanaki mission, where I started my missionary adventure at the side of late Father Karol Szlachta and spent there almost two years before I moved to Kiabakari after completion of the construction of mission headquarters at Kiabakari (17 November 1992 was the day I moved officially to Kiabakari from Magorombe).

Yet, whenever I come back to Magorombe for a Holy Mass or just visiting Father Peter,  I feel particularly good. Lots of memories, fond memories...The beginnings, the first Christian community there, everything began there...I learned so much there from Father Karol, from local community and from myself - being tested sometimes to the limits, braking barriers of my phobias, fears, uncertainties...Doing everything for the first time...first Masses, first outstations, first confessions, first marriages, first parish feasts etc... How grateful I am for that place, my home parish, my first love...Zanaki Parish...Magorombe mission, people making the fabric of that society and community...

I shared these feelings with the community gathered for the Holy Mass today. Because this is true, this is genuine... I love and respect that place very much. I wish the parish priest and Christian community all the best, praying for them daily and offering a Holy Mass for them as well weekly...

The place has changed dramatically throughout these past years. Especially since the arrival of Father Peter, who toiled very hard to restore the splendor of yesteryear of the mission and its surroundings. The rectory itself, once the best rectory among all mission run by Maryknoll missionaries, then dilapidated and ran down, has become once again a small villa with beautifully restored interior and exterior and gardens. The same with the parochial church.

The only thing remains the same, as the mission was built on marshlands. The whole area turns during rainy seasons into flood area drowned deep in water and mud, making it sometimes impossible to reach the mission by car - particularly this year it was horrible due to severe rains in a rainy season. When first Maryknoll missionary arrive in the area looking for a place to built a mission in the territory belonging to the ethnic group of Wazanaki people - chiefs did not want him here, so they - avoiding direct blunt refusal - granted him permission to built right there where the Zanaki mission is located - in Magorombe marshlands, hoping that Fr. Arthur Wille will be unable to built in such a horrid conditions. But he did it. And now people have to walk a kilometer or more from Butuguli village, from the plateau down to the marshland navigating their way through walter and mud during rainy seasons!

This is how my mission looked like back in 1991, when I lived there with Father Karol. You don't want to know how it looked like inside! And mice running freely from one sofa to the other where they had their nests, and we were sitting there watching as they run...

And this is how it looks today (literally today as I took the following three pictures today). Spot the difference. And the interior is the far cry to was there back then. A beautifully appointed house in al details, to say in short.

Finally, the parochial church in Magorombe, right after today's Mass at 9am. I took this picture on my mobile while walking toward the rectory.

This is a place where I learned everything and did everything for the first time... First trips to the outstations of Zanaki Parish...

first interactions with local people and home visits...

first motorcycle trips to remote outstations, riding bike alone with a rucksack on my back with all priestly tools necessary to administer sacraments, to celebrate a Holy Mass, to provide some basic office services...

"If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!" (Ps 137:5)

Nani kama Mama? Nothing compares to Mum!