When the weapons are silent: peace appears, hope whispers, and dreams sprout

 

 

Pierre

 

When the weapons are silent: peace appears, hope whispers, and dreams sprout

 A full week, full of many little sparks of hope.

On Sunday I went to celebrate Mass in Samba Bougoulou, an interestinf name for a long village. I concluded the celebration with the blessing of the village elementary school. Last year we finished with 56 students, and now there are more than 200!

Before Mass, they brought me a baby just over a year old (we'll call him Pierre, but it's not his real name). I took him in my arms, because he was crying, and I blessed him: his mother died a few days ago, and his father is seriously ill. As I prayed, and tried to think about what to do to help him, I felt some warmth ... When I returned the baby, I noticed that he had peed...

Monday, October 18th was the day of the "official" inauguration of the school year. Although many of our schools have been open for weeks, this was the day the government chose to be the official start.  Educational leaders from all over the region came to Baoro, as well as teachers and pupils, for a celebration and various festivities. There was even an old soldier playing the trumpet!

Wednesday I went to Bouar, and from there, together with the Bishop, we set off towards the North. It is a very difficult area, the scene, for years, of clashes and tensions. The rebels moved there a few months ago, pushed by the Central African and Russian military.  The villages near the border with Cameroon and Chad (between Niem, Bocaranga, Koui, Ndim and Ngaundaye) are under tension. Many people cannot go to the camps, threatened by the rebels or the Russians. There are killings, looting, violence of all kinds and many inhabitants have had to flee, thus increasing the already high number of refugees and internal refugees. Just recently, I received data from the UN, which indicated over 1,437,000 refugees (internal and foreign): a quarter of the population of Central Africa!

We arrive in Bocaranga (210 km from Baoro), where we met the Capuchin fathers. The situation is difficult, and we tried to reflect together on what to do.

Some UN agencies, along with NGOs, are trying to help. Unfortunately they often cannot come to the area, because it is too dangerous.

Thursday morning we left for Koui - Degaulle, a village about forty kilometers from Bocaranga. Here we met the Christian community, the sultan (!), The deputy prefect and the mayor. But, above all, we rejoiced because the school was open! Despite the various rebels and soldiers looting it (using the benches as firewood!), the teachers and parents had the courage to open the school.

Seeing the schools open, listening to the teachers teach, and hearing the children shouting during recess: it was one of the most beautiful sights and sounds!

In the various meetings with the people who live, suffer and try to have hope in these parts of the country, we want to understand what needs we can try to answer.

We are planning to commit ourselves to the schools of the region. The teachers are almost all (more than 93%) volunteers, helped (very little) by the parents. To encourage them to stay in the villages and reopen their schools, we plan to give them a small monthly stipend (between 15 and 20 euros), which will allow them to have a small economic base, and to distribute school materials to pupils.

There are so many! There are about 250 teachers in the region, and between 13 and 15 thousand pupils.

But Providence is great!

Scuola Materna "Il Germoglio"
Ecole Maternelle "Il Germoglio"

Bohong

Bocaranga

Degaulle

Alunne
Des élèves

Scuola elementare a Degaulle
Ecole primaire à Degaulle

C'erano i banchi, un anno fa!
Il y a 1 an, il y avait les tables bancs!

Looking forward to going to school

 

 

Messa a Balembe
Messe à Balembe

 

Looking forward to going to school

Saturday afternoon, I went to Balembe, a fairly large village with a small Christian community. The chapel was a half-open canopy where we celebrated Mass. Basic facilities, few people, but for the Mission is the announcement of the Good News (the Gospel), which is for everyone. Also (or above all?), for the smaller and less equipped villages ...

Sunday I celebrated Mass in Bawi, always on the road (more or less paved) that leads to Bangui. Here the community was larger and more equipped (the church was made of concrete, with a tin roof). It rained a lot, but slowly everyone arrived (some soaked from the rain).

During the week I still went to Bangui, to follow the work of the construction site of the new convent. For now, everything is going well. Building the foundation takes a long time, but even though it is the most hidden piece it is the most important part of any construction.

Like school.

The government has set the opening of the school year on Monday, October 18th, due to various delays because of  the late final exams, and the inadequacies of the educational system.

But… even so, we are impatient to go back to school! This morning, as I was leaving for Bouar, I found many children on the road, running to school.

Yesterday, returning from Bangui, I stopped to take a look at the schools of Barka Bongo, Bawi and Mbormo. I was pleasantly surprised to find the classrooms full of children, both in kindergarten and elementary school.

Our school mechanics is also open. On Monday we welcomed the new first year students, and the "old" ones from the second year. In all, over sixty young people receive theoretical and practical training to become mechanics.

Since yesterday, more than 100 priests, nuns and laity, have been in a meeting with the Bishop for the annual "diocesan pastoral session". All 12 parishes of the diocese are represented, scattered by a radius of 200 km from Bouar, despite the insecurity in many areas. It was a beautiful moment of knowledge, information (every parish and every diocesan reality - Justice and Peace, Caritas, Schools, Seminaries ...) and discussion.
This meeting lasts 4 days, and will end on Sunday with a great Eucharistic celebration, which marks the diocesan phase of the Synod, on which we are working in these days.

Cantiere del Carmel a Bangui
Le chantier du Carmel à Bangui

Scuola materna di Mbormo
école maternelle de Mbormo

Raccolta dei prodotti agricoli per le scuole a Pate Bonambolo
Ramassage des produits agricoles pour les scolarités à Pate Bonambolo

Scuola Meccanica di Baoro
L'école de mécanique de Baoro

Di corsa a scuola!
Vite à l'école

Scuola di Kouisso Baguera
école de Kouisso Baguera

Session Pastorale du diocèse de Bouar

 

 

 

Expected and unexpected events

 

 

 

Expected and unexpected events

Sometimes things don't go as planned, especially here in Central Africa, and it is always best practice to expect the unexpected!

Saturday afternoon I left for Balembe, a village 45 km from Baoro, to meet with the Christian community there and celebrate Mass. But, despite having informed them of my visit, there was no one to celebrate with.

On Sunday I celebrated Mass in Zoungbe, still on the road to Bangui. The village was small, and everyone come out to participate.

Tuesday afternoon I returned to Bouar and met with the Bishop, who in recent days went to Bocaranga and Ndim, two cities where the violence of the rebels and military groups continues.  People are being threatened, and cannot go to the fields to work, nor hope to go to school, or be treated in the few hospitals or clinics that are in the area. Some NGOs and OCHA are seeing what can be done, and are trying to coordinate initiatives in order to help these isolated communities.

We also discussed with the Bishop the updating of the diocese's website, which an Italian friend created a couple of years ago: https://www.diocesebouar.org/

Over the past few days we have been reopening the village schools. The number of members continues to increase: we have over 1,200 children enrolled. For registration we asked for a small donation of 2 euros for the whole year (this barely covers a couple of months of a teachers salary, the rest is given through many good peoples offerings). This year we tried to propose a new form of payment: whoever wants, can pay with the products of the fields. Many brought corn, peanuts, or cassava, which were produced by them and more readily available to most people.

Yesterday and today, Wednesday and Thursday, 6 and 7 of October, I went to the most distant villages, in Bayanga Didi.

Everything was ready, and we were already 40 km from Baoro when they told me that it was not possible to go from the usual road, and we would have to take another one. Not quite a road, it was a path in the middle of the savannah, with grasses that were one and a half meters high, and very dense trees. It took me almost 2 hours to travel 30 km!

But, thank God, and with a little luck, I arrived at Bayanga Didi around 6pm.  We are preparing a kindergarten class. There are many children, and elementary schools, for now, are not running. Not being able (yet) to intervene in schools, we start with kindergarten. There are about eighty children that parents would like to enroll. This morning we had a meeting with the village leaders and the people of the area, to see how to organize the area for the children.

I was also planning a meeting with the Christian community of Yoro, 5 km away. But I couldn't go because there were some armed men, who were holding the people hostage ...

I left around 10:30, together with Marie, who is to be the nursery school teacher. I took her to Baoro so that she could do some training and begin to prepare for this new class.

https://www.diocesebouar.org/

Zoungbe

Pensando alla Scuola Materna - Bayanga Didi
A l'étude de l'école maternelle

Strada... per Bayanga Didi
Route... pour Bayanga Didi

Scuola di Pate Bonambolo
Ecole de Pate Bonambolo

 

Restart

 

 

Restart

The time continues for re-departures.

Between Thursday and Saturday, the catechists of the villages and those of the city underwent a period of formation.

On Sunday, September 26th we celebrated together, here in the parish, the opening of the Pastoral Year. I also took part in the solemn Mass at 9 o'clock, during which the catechists renewed their commitment to evangelization.

In the afternoon I accompanied some of them to Samba Bougoulou, 45 km from Baoro, to facilitate their return. I took advantage of the trip to see the chapel of Pate Bonambolo, where we have just finished the refurbishment work. The chapel is now bright, and has a painting recalling, in an African setting, the event of the Annunciation of the Angel to Mary.

On Saturday, September 25th I spent the morning with the teachers, the village leaders and the representatives of the parents of the pupils of our 9 village schools. It is the General Assembly: the meeting in which the villages sign an agreement with the teachers and with the Mission.

I was very worried about the reopening of the schools, because last year, due to the elections and the war, the number of pupils had decreased by 60% compared to the previous year. Precisely for this reason we had set, as a condition for the reopening, the achievement of a minimum number of students. And for now, thanks to God and to our commitment and that of our parents, the number of members has already exceeded one thousand.

On Monday and Tuesday I was in Bangui, to follow the work on the new convent, which is going well.

Today, Thursday, I was making Limoncello, and the phone rang. It was the bishop, who asked me if we could meet. I hurried to Bouar (about sixty kilometers), and he asked me, like Caritas, to do something for the populations of the northwestern area of the diocese, especially around centers such as Niem, Ndim, Bocaranga and Ngaoundaye. Here the presence of rebels and soldiers (Russians and Central Africans) is very strong, and the tension is very high. Just today there would have been yet another massacre in Bezere, between Bocaranga and Mann.
The population is threatened, and they cannot go to the fields. Many villages have been abandoned, and even some roads are dangerous due to mines.

For them, starting again will be very difficult!

Pate Bonambolo

Cantiere del nuovo Convento a Bangui
Le chantier du nouveau couvent à Bangui