Ashram wearing a Colorado T-shirt.
There is a sense of Freedom I feel here. Life is really hakuna mata - no worries. I feel I don’t have to think or worry about anything. I am present to the people and the children and I can be me. I pick kids up and throw them in the air. I joke around with the kids and adults. I act goofy, I help kids go pee, I feed them I put them to bed and life is good. I took a group of boys who are ten to 12 for a bike ride to lake Victoria and I said they can go swimming so they took off all there clothes and jumped in having the time of there life and I didn’t feel I have to worry about anything. It is just life. I love it. They cry they get into fights they have problems but we deal with it and life goes on.
The kids are always calling me, hanging on me, wanting me to pick them up. They fill some sort of void in me. Religious life is not difficult for me at all out here. I don’t even think about it.
In America I felt I wasn’t free. I was walking on egg shells. I felt at the seminary I was under a microscope being watched by faculty and especially other seminarians. I feel the public watches you if they know you’re a religious. One can’t live in fear but one has to be able to be themselves and not worry about it. Why couldn’t I feel that as a religious in America?
People here are very social. Everyone talks to everyone. As a 7 in the enneagram this is a very 7 society and I fit in very well. Tanzanians or east africans must really struggle in America. I think individualism and privacy is very important as oppose to here. How do you talk to someone if there door is closed or even having the transportation to get somewhere. One can walk every where around here. People are out an about every where. I think the national past time is just sitting around hanging out. But in America that is laziness. One must be doing something.
I am proud to be Catholic over here. People take pride in being Catholic and are very active in the community.I do believe the churches that is all denominational churches are doing more for people than the NGO’s. But that is my opinion. being connected to religion I think offers something more to people that NGO’s cannot do. It is something deeper. I think it gives people hope.
Fr. PolyCarp has an interesting thought for me today. “God is Just because the people here in East Africa are poor but it is green here and plans are growing. None of these people could survive in Milwaukee. Truly I tell you they would all die in the cold. God is Just giving us good weather .”
There are plenty of things that I do miss. For example cheese and good beer but I can tell my body doesn’t miss it. I stepped on a scale the other day and I think it read 79Kg which I believe is about 174 pounds. So I have lost almost 20 pounds since I have arrived here. My underwear does feel looser but I feel I don’t look skinnier or any different. I walk more here but I feel I am a lot more active in America doing sports and other physical activities.
I do miss having easy access to internet and TV more for sports purposes though. Unfortunately out here I don’t really know what is going on in the world. Newspaper, internet, and TV help with that. A crisis is going on in the world and one has no idea it is happening.
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