Dividing The Time By The Spoon

Since my comeback to Kiabakari at the beginning of October, I have this prevailing feeling that the time has become densely congested, packed with numerous activities and challenges, all thrown at us at once. It feels like if the time has become a jelly which is so thick that one can divide it by the spoon...

Sitting Allowance

The Members of Tanzanian Parliament may be in hot water discussing the constitutionality or not of their sitting allowance and other benefits, dragging the whole society into the heated debate. But in my little remote corner of Tanzania and the world, I ask myself only one question this morning - will my body give me enough sitting allowance to attend the important meeting of the parochial council with some crucial agendas that cannot be postponed or moved ahead bit further...

Taking It Easy

I used to commit the same crime in regards to dealing with malaria. Forgetting that the motto of this beautiful land, so many times heard and repeated - 'Haraka haraka haina baraka' (there is no God's blessing in haste) or 'Pole pole ndio mwendo' (Going slow is the right speed), is full of wisdom and maternal care of Mother-Africa, reminding me to take it easy and go slow when needed. Just like now when I got hit again by malaria and - frankly saying - should be firmly lying in bed, taking it easy and letting drugs to do the job and the body to regain the full strength...But...

Chapati

Expecting Mare and Mare to come back from school safari to Serengeti any moment now. They went with some forty plus children, two sisters and two pre-school workers this morning to visit one of the most famous wildlife parks worldwide. Of course, muffins and sandwiches went with them as well...

Again

Don't feeling well for the past two days. Checked my blood this morning and found with malaria again. Not a good news. Yet another round of strong medication to fight parasites in my body. I wonder how long  my liver will continue to accept this kind of merciless abuse... It's a price, I guess, you gotta be willing to pay for being a long-term missionary in Africa. So be it.

Hit Again

Thought I was careful enough to sleep under the mosquito net and keep the house off limits to mosquitos. Nevertheless, for the last two days I've been feeling strange and the condition got worse and worse as hours passed. This morning I went for checkup in our health center and found out that I got hit again by malaria...

Now You Know

When I post that I happen to have malaria sickness, you may not know exacty what I am talking about. After watching this video, you will know what it's all about. Thank you, Paweł, the CEO and President of our Foundation Kiabakari, for pointing to me this video clip which I gladly share with you in this post below, while I undergo treatment for the disease shown in the documentary. Stay blessed!

Opportunity

As the famous saying goes - "Troubles are opportunities in disguise", I guess it's quite right. At least as far as my ay today is concerned. Grounded home with malaria, fever and recurring from high blood pressure, I found myself in dilemma what to do with a sudden gift of free time I would spend working and doing different things today. The health trouble became an opportunity in disguise to do something else. So I spent the most of the day reading the 'Light of the World' (the latest book-interview with the Holy Father Benedict XVI) and in the meantime working on crude ideas for my new book I am going to write and publish this year - Holy Rosary meditations based on the Rosary Garden paintings themes (the Rosary Garden was my last project before I was transferred from Musoma Cathedral back to Kiabakari in 2006) and anchored in our daily life which I intend to present at a certain angle which I will not disclose at this point of time. Thanks be to God then for this unexpected opportunity to set in motion various things I would not even think of due to the lack of time and pressure I feel racing against the time with the ongoing projects in my mission...

No Words...

Malaria not giving up and this nasty depression, that comes in a 'welcoming package' with it, keeps hold of me, filling my soul and mind... I don't like it, I resent it, but it simply won't go...things are moving around, people talking to me, I need to react and work, make decisions, trying to function somehow...but I'm absent...I'm somewhere else...

One of my favorite poem of all times comes to mind. I just feel like Giordano Bruno in times like this...can't find words to explain...can't find way to make communication and be understood... I don't like this...but I know I'm helpless and it won't help till malaria goes away and this condition of feeling 'down' along with it...

Bear with me while it lasts...


Campo dei Fiori by Czeslaw Milosz

In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori

baskets of olives and lemons,

cobbles spattered with wine

and the wreckage of flowers.

Vendors cover the trestles

with rose-pink fish;

armfuls of dark grapes

heaped on peach-down.

On this same square

they burned Giordano Bruno.

Henchmen kindled the pyre

close-pressed by the mob.

Before the flames had died

the taverns were full again,

baskets of olives and lemons

again on the vendors' shoulders.

I thought of the Campo dei Fiori

in Warsaw by the sky-carousel

one clear spring evening

to the strains of a carnival tune.

The bright melody drowned

the salvos from the ghetto wall,

and couples were flying

high in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burning

would drift dark kites along

and riders on the carousel

caught petals in midair.

That same hot wind

blew open the skirts of the girls

and the crowds were laughing

on that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.

Someone will read as moral

that the people of Rome or Warsaw

haggle, laugh, make love

as they pass by the martyrs' pyres.

Someone else will read

of the passing of things human,

of the oblivion

born before the flames have died.

But that day I thought only

of the loneliness of the dying,

of how, when Giordano

climbed to his burning

he could not find

in any human tongue

words for mankind,

mankind who live on.

Already they were back at their wine

or peddled their white starfish,

baskets of olives and lemons

they had shouldered to the fair,

and he already distanced

as if centuries had passed

while they paused just a moment

for his flying in the fire.

Those dying here, the lonely

forgotten by the world,

our tongue becomes for them

the language of an ancient planet.

Until, when all is legend

and many years have passed,

on a new Campo dei Fiori

rage will kindle at a poet's word.

Warsaw, 1943

  "The Scream". The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway

An Extra Added Flavor

It's Friday again. A recollection day as usual in the shrine. With some extra added flavor. So many intention to pray for, so many heavy thoughts, so many unanswered questions. So much stress and frustration creeping in my soul.

I do not surrender. I know I must be patient with God and myself, and with people around me. I must pray and do not get tempted to ask God divine questions - when and how He will answer my prayers? These questions I will not ask Him. I have asked them before and got punished. These questions even Jesus Himself did not dare ask His Father.

So I keep faith and pray and endure this time of trial. Fridays are good windows of opportunity to exercise this attitude. And this is precisely what I do always on Fridays, and today is no exception.

But there is this extra added flavor. I woke up feeling sick today. One of the worst days in recent months. went for a sick call to Bibi Monica, attended to people in the office and started the recollection day with Lauds and Rosary, midday prayers and Angelus, now going for the Stations of the Way of the Cross. But today my own body is my worst enemy. Like a heavy cross that grows heavier and heavier with minutes passing by. And now I'm pretty sure malaria is coming thick and fast. Nausea already, can't have anything in my mouth. Depression - which is a standard feature of my malaria periods is encompassing my soul and psyche. I feel sad and lonely and worthless. How I know well this condition. Hopefully this malaria won't be as bad as last August, when I was out of equation for almost a month with depression at its highest and helplessness killing my soul. I was lucky to survive then. I dread the very thought of that horrible experience returning. But who knows?...

It would be most unfortunate to get sick seriously today when I have so many things to do yet, and tomorrow an important meeting of Lay Parish Council and exercise in the afternoon of Baptism Mass which will be on Sunday at 9am with school kids baptized in the Shrine.

I'll go and check blood for malaria right after the Stations of the Way of the Cross. If I manage to finish it with this nausea intensifying with every minute, arrrgh...

Thank you, o Lord, for this cross. This is the only personal gift I can offer to you - something out my body, soul or psyche. Something which is truly me. May this hammer the wall of impossible surrounding Kiabakari for so many months since the beginning of this year, where everything stuck and nothing is going forward in development of this place. Please, accept this gift. And bring down that hateful wall...Amen.