Visitors From Mount Saint Mary’s University – Part 2
- Fr. Jim Donohue, CR
- July 4, 2024
The Canadian Province made a generous contribution to help defray the flight costs for the students who traveled to Tanzania. This is just one of the many ways that the Canadian Province continues to support the Tanzanian mission.
After the tour of the pre-primary and primary schools, Fr. Maciej took everyone to see the new Resurrection secondary school. [Breaking news: as I write this blog, we have just been informed that the Resurrection secondary school has been approved by the Tanzanian ministry of education for opening in January 2025.]
The secondary school has a computer laboratory, and three science laboratories: physics, biology, and chemistry.
Fr. Maciej is explaining to Charles, Christine, and Matthew about the major sponsors for the secondary school. Fr. Maciej also secures donors for each student at the schools through individual sponsorships. People who sponsor a student make a commitment to follow through for all the years of the child’s education at the Resurrection schools.
The new secondary school is bright and inviting. There are many open spaces and an open courtyard to which all the classrooms and laboratories are connected. There are stairs but also ramps to move to the second floor. The students who are currently in standard seven (grade seven) will graduate in late December 2024, and then begin their secondary education at the new school in January 2025.
As part of the service element of the trip, everyone pitched in one day to help wash the new windows that were recently installed. I was in Butiama that day, so I was not able to help. I heard that it was not the easiest job but there was no complaining other than a few comments about how much everyone missed me that day!
There is still some construction going on, mostly outside the building near the washrooms.
Next on the tour was the gymnasium and the newly renovated athletic field.
Our plan was to expose the Mount visitors to “life in the parish” and “life in Tanzania.” Faith is a large part of people’s lives. The parish liturgies are quite different from those in North America. Of course, everything is in Swahili, but people participate differently in their body movements, their singing and clapping, their responses to prayers, and the way that they dress up for the biggest occasion of the week.
Saturday morning was a special event in the Buhemba Parish. Thirty young people were baptized and about 120 young people made their first communion. The young people prepared by meeting every weekday for an hour for an entire year!
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After some free time in the afternoon, the Mount visitors met the five Resurrectionist novices, who played and sang for them.
Everyone retired early because of the busy day and jet lag. We wanted to be well rested for the Sunday activities and for Monday’s trip to the Serengeti.
More to come on www.resurrectionists.ca
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