Smiles and school

Smiles and school

Sunday, June 14, accompanied by not so severe malaria, I celebrated Mass at St. Anthony’s Chapel, who is our patron saint's day. I could see large crowd of devotees, dances and joy almost endless.   On Monday our friends from Prague, Association SIRIRI (Hana, Fr. Pavel, Ludmila and Vojtech), begin to meet the teachers at "Isidore Bakanja" school  to prepare a training session that is going to be held in September, in order to help both teachers and children how to learn and to teach while enjoying it. Schools here, because of lack of books and staff, are carried out usually by one teacher for a hundred children (in our school the students are “only" 30 to 35) who writes what he is teaching and then asks to memorize. Something is learned, but much is lost. In fact, just a funny example, when I enter into a class, children often greet me with a nice "Bonjour Ma Soeur" (Good morning Sister). There is so much work to do, and teachers are excited to learn something new about how to teach. Speaking of schools, we are reaching the end of the school year. Thursday morning I chaired the Council of Teachers at “St. Augustin” where we have students following Middle and High School. On Saturday we handed over the report cards. Thursday afternoon instead it was the turn of the Orphans Center "Arc en Ciel", which welcomes more than 200 children aged 3 to 14 years, supervised by the nuns (Sister Clare and Sister Solange), with the combined help of SIRIRI and  Parish of Cassina Amata (Italy). Sadly in a few months the Franciscan nuns will return definitively in Italy, and so for them this is the last celebration with the boys and girls of the Arc en Ciel. For this farewell children have indulged in sketches, recitation of poems, and dances. How can we not thank God for the gift of life and of children? Their eyes are overly bright. In their looks there is the depth of the world and the intensity of the sky. Their smiles are lives open to and bloom in a future which, we believe and hope (and we work to build it!) will be full of life! Here you have some pictures ... are a good number, but I would have made more if there was more room.