We have a tradition of celebrating the important days of the Liturgical Year, but also celebrating the events of life: graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, and name’s days. The latter was a new experience for me. I was used to having a birthday, but I had never previously celebrated a name’s day. Your name’s day is the feast day of the saint that you were named after. My name’s day, for example, is July 25, the feast of St. James.
To celebrate, we usually have ice cream—strawberry is the favorite of most people—which is presented in the midst of singing and dancing. The songs that are sung include ones in Swahili, Polish and English. I don’t know why, but people usually try to keep me out of the dancing part. There is a small monetary gift which is included in a “hand-made” card that usually includes photos and notes that are either edifying or embarrassing! It is all in good fun.
There are some “overlaps” at times. We have two men named “Emmanuel,” so they had to share their feast day on Christmas Day. Our aspirant, Hillary, has his birthday and name’s day on the same day…ouch! And February 14 is a big day for us as we celebrated Valentino Chatanda’s name’s day, as well as Bryan Gigo and Emmanuel Ntula’s birthdays on the same day. (It saves money on the ice cream 
!)
We usually post videos and photos to our Tanzanian Resurrectionist group on What’s App, so we in the formation house in Morogoro also know when celebrations are happening in the novitiate in Buhemba.
More to come on www.resurrectionists.ca
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