For a month now, I have been living in Ol Moran, a village that is a five hour car ride north of Nairobi. I am here to get to know the villages from which come many of the persons that we encounter in our work in Kenya. I am taking advantage of the occasion to continue to study and practice Swahili: here, people know little English and so we must use this language. The village of Ol Moran, where I live with Fr. Giacomo, a missionary priest from the diocese of Venice, is the most populated city around, with a few thousand inhabitants. The parish is 1000 km2, almost a third of the Valle d’Aosta: savannah, some land that is cultivated with corn, small clusters of houses. In this region, there are different tribes, some of which are still nomadic and depend on sheep farming.
Besides saying Mass for the communities that are spread throughout the territory, I accompany the sick and the elderly who come weekly together with a few religious sisters. These persons are happy and grateful that we go to visit them. For me, it is a precious occasion to get to know them and to understand the conditions in which they live.
One morning, I went with a few sisters to visit a mother who had given birth to twins in her home a few weeks earlier. Some of the parishioners had told us about her because she is very poor. She lives in a little mud house, typical of Pokot, a nomadic tribe of shepherds. She was alone with the twins: her husband had gone in search of work and another son who was four had been sent to beg for clean water. We brought her some produce and a few jugs of fresh water.
Ruth is the youngest person at the parish, given that she had just been reborn in faith.
The day after, we returned and accompanied the entire family into a care center, to wash the children and give them their vaccinations. The little boy had never been in a car and had never had a bath. A few parishioners from the place assured us that they would continue to look after the family, to help them, direct them to a school, to encourage involvement with the community of that place, given that they know barely anything about Christianity.
Among the elderly that we go to visit, there is Ruth, an 83 year old lady. The first time that we went into her home made of sheet metal she was in pain due to problems that force her to remain with a hunched over back. She told us that she had been baptised in a Protestant church in which, however, the sacrament is not valid. She married a Catholic and her children are Catholic. When we asked if she was interested in receiving baptism, she immediately said yes and repeated it the following time we saw her. One lady from the parish taught her some of the catechism in Kikuyu, the tribal language, because Ruth does not speak Swahili. We did not wait for the Easter Vigil, given her age and condition. In the span of a few weeks, we organized the baptism that I celebrated in front of her house, together with a few parishioners who welcomed her warmly. One lady joked that Ruth is the youngest person at the parish, given that she had just been reborn in faith. I am very grateful to have been a spectator and an instrument that serves these simple but great things. At times, I think of the first Christians who encountered people who had never heard anything about Jesus. The circumstances are different but there is something that provokes me and launches me back into life and into my priesthood, an essential element but one that still represents a newness in my life.
