A Quiet Day?

Yeah, it was supposed to be a quiet day. An office routine day. As I am recovering from amoeba and fluctuating blood pressure, I wanted today just to stay home and be available to people coming to the office. And sure, they did come!


Right after morning Holy Mass, the representatives of the Catholic Women movement came in a big number to announce their intention to do a revolution in their attitude towards themselves and their movement, wanting to revive it and to celebrate properly the upcoming jubilee of 40 years of WAWATA (Wanawake Wakatoliki Tanzania - Catholic Women of Tanzania) which is scheduled for the last Sunday of this month. Then, to be side by side with me in the upcoming events - the final vows of the sister coming from our parish (December), Golden Jubilee of catechetical service of Benjamin Ndege (March 2013), my own jubilee of 25 years of priesthood (I will combine with my 50th birthday 0 April 22, 2013) and the ordination and the thanksgiving Mass of our seminarian Agostino Mapambano (July 2013). We will see if their resolve is firm.

Ok, once done with the conversation and planning with WAWATA, I met with the leaders of one of the localities in Kiabakari City, who came with members of one family asking for the Catholic funeral. They brought a letter from Mikocheni parish in Dar es Salaam, in which an assistant pastor asks us to bury the deceased in a Catholic burial. I was not feeling well yet, so I asked the seminarian to go with my secretary in the afternoon as they wanted to preside over the liturgy of the funeral.

After that we went to the health center to open the shipment from Crown Healthcare supplier from Dar, with the remaining items on the shopping list for the new delivery room which has been opened by the representative of the Polish embassy in Nairobi on July 17. The brand-new infant warmer system came, phototherapy light, two bassinets and three kick buckets. We unpacked, checked the shipment, tested it. Took some pictures as a proof. Tomorrow we will put Polish Aid stickers on the items from the embassy payment list (as some of the needed items which exceeded the funding from the embassy, I bought myself with the money I was able to secure in Poland). Then I will consider the new delivery room project done and dusted.

Then, around 11 am the funeral people came back again saying that the Prime Minister is coming right now with his entourage, as the deceased was a close friend of his. Eeek! We had to scramble to react to this sudden change of schedule, so I decided to get myself in shape and go to do the funeral personally.

We went there. But instead of the Prime Minister, it was his wife who came with a huge number of other officials, including our MP, District Commissioner, Deputy Regional Commissioner and others. Huge thing.  I thought - as they were supposedly in hurry to go back to Mwanza and then to Dar, that we will start with the funeral right away, so I could go back home to rest. Nope. First, food for everybody. Then funeral. So it took around two and a half hours to finish the food and the funeral. Out of which, almost one hour in the direct sun, with my short cut hair which did not help to prevent sun rays from operating on my Mzungu head skin.

We came back and I continue with other office stuff. Who knows what will happen in the remaining hours of the supposedly quiet office day in Kiabakari?