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Health Care & AIDS Ministry in Africa
Health Care in general and AIDS Ministry in particular is one of the most visible and widespread apostolates of the Maryknoll family in Africa today. Overall it is probably Maryknoll's best known involvement and presence in Africa and a key priority in our missionary work. The theme of the August, 2000 issue of this newsletter was “HIV/AIDS in Africa” and we return to it again because of its importance, but now linked to “Health Care.”
When my 15-year-old nephew Jonathan Oglesby gave me a quick
reality check on the contemporary American scene he emphasized, “Life is
not a single picture. It's a ‘collage.’” So perhaps a “Health Care and
AIDS Ministry Collage” captures best our African reality too… the cover
of the January-February, 2004 issue of the Maryknoll Magazine on “New
Life in Africa” with the lead story “All for the Sick Poor” on the
Bugando University College of Health Sciences in Mwanza, Tanzania… Of
the more than 200 countries in the world, Tanzania has the least number
of medical doctors per person – one for every 25,000 people. Most of the
36 million Tanzanians are born and die without ever seeing a doctor… 25
million sub-Saharan Africans are HIV-positive… Rick Bauer quotes the
Catholic Bishops in Namibia who urge that AIDS be mentioned in every
homily… Matthew 25:36 is being rewritten today to say, “I had AIDS and
you took care of me”… The Catholic Bishops of Africa’s message for the 1
December, 2003 World AIDS Day was “Our Prayer Is Always Full Of Hope”…
Susan Weissart, MMAF mentions that in the time a person finishes reading
a long email message, more than a dozen people will have died of AIDS
somewhere in the world, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa… Ken Sullivan
and the school teacher Lukas Juma Gabrieli faithfully visit people with
HIV/AIDS in Musoma, Tanzania every afternoon… at least 11 million AIDS
orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa according to estimates by UNAIDS…
AIDS kills 400 people a day in Kenya alone… Every year in Africa malaria
kills more people than AIDS; the mosquito-born malaria parasite kills up
to 2 million people, most being children under the age of five… On any
given day one-third of the workers in factories in Kenya have malaria…
John Mullen and his team train volunteer health workers from Small
Christian Communities to visit the sick in their respective areas in
Mombasa, Kenya… an important part of our missionary ministry is praying
with, over, and for the sick poor in Africa.
I’ve Been Looking For You For Years
Imagine that you’re on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Tanzania near the Rwandan border at a referral hospital. It’s late at night in the camp hospital. The lights go out as usual – the drought causes a shortage of hydroelectric power – and you suddenly realize that a man is deliberately approaching you down a long hospital corridor. As a native New Yorker you brace yourself for a confrontation as the man stops next to you and asks in Swahili if you remember his name. Your mind searches for a connection, but you draw a blank and answer “no” as he pulls up his pants leg to reveal an artificial leg. The man continues, “You operated on me years ago in Mugumu and I have been looking for you for years to thank you.”
Then I remembered that the man’s leg had been badly mangled by a crocodile and was turning gangrenous. He could have easily died without proper medical care. With the regular mission hospital doctor too sick to operate, I removed the man’s leg and prepared the stump in a delicate eight-hour operation.
So he walks today.
True story, based on material by Father Peter LeJacq, M.M., and Linda Errante, Mwanza, Tanzania
Standing Before God With a Shining Smile
In Mwanza, Tanzania, I was making the rounds visiting the patients at Bugando Hospital. Joseph, emaciated from AIDS, held my hand not wanting to let me go. He had one request, "Could you please bring me some toothpaste?" The following day I brought him a small tube of dental cream, all I could find at the local store. I promised him I'd be back with a larger tube the next day. But when I returned, Joseph had died.
I picture him standing before God with a shining smile.
True story, Sister Catherine Erisman, M.M, Mwanza, Tanzania
What’s Hidden Behind Those Smiling Faces
By John Lange
Sophia Wairimu is a member of the choir at LungaLunga Catholic Church in the Mukuru slums of Nairobi, Kenya. I look out at the smiling faces of these spic and span choir people every Sunday. They are the picture of peace and joy. Last Saturday, I found out what great struggles and burdens are hidden behind those smiling faces.
We were visiting the sick in LungaLunga when we were led to the home of Susan Njoki, 27. Susan was renting this shack and was several months behind in her rent. It was dark and dank inside because of the lack of any window. Susan had no bed or furniture. She was lying on a thin mattress on the earth floor. Susan had no pots or pans that I could see, but that didn’t matter since she is not able to cook for herself. She is helped by her aunt, Sophia Wairimu, and a Good-Samaritan neighbor, to get the little food that she eats.
Susan is taking medicine for TB, but you can guess that AIDS is also there. We could smell urine and figured that Susan needed a bath and someone to wash her sheets. We felt the urgency to find Susan’s relatives. We asked our health worker if Susan had relatives. The health worker talked about two sisters, but said they were roaming about. She informs us of Susan’s aunt who lived not too far away. We are led to the home of our good choir member, Sophia Wairimu.
Sophia explained to us how she took care of Susan’s two children. Since Sophia has four children of her own to feed, she managed to get Susan’s children into a foster home run by an agency called GOAL that takes in orphans. Sophia carries Susan to a hospital every so often and struggles to fetch her TB medicine that is distributed at a government hospital at no charge. But the workers there are not very friendly or sympathetic. Frequently she is told to “come back tomorrow.” The GOAL people send one of their workers with corn flour for Susan, but most often the worker would steal the flour on the way.
Sophia really struggles to feed her own children and Susan. I asked her if she had a husband to help her and she gave the usual answer, “No, we separated a long time ago.” The two sisters of Susan were portrayed as kind of hopeless. The mother of Susan died this year. One of Susan’s sisters collected money from neighbors to help defray burial expenses, but took off with that money. The other sister did not attend the funeral because she said she had no shoes. So the entire burden of caring for Susan was on Sophia.
We spent about an hour encouraging Sophia to persevere and to try and bathe Susan as best she could. We would help her with corn flour to make porridge. Sophia’s home was no palace either and I wondered how she managed to live. I guess that she sells vegetables, charcoal, etc. to make enough to buy food, like so many of the single mothers in the slums. My, what a hard life! Yet she still manages to be one of those spic and span choir members whom I see every Sunday wearing that peaceful smile. I never realized the struggle that goes on behind that peaceful countenance.
He Ought To Be Giving This Speech, Not Me
“He ought to be giving this speech, not me.” These were President George W. Bush’s words when he referred to Maryknoll Father Edward Phillips sitting in the second row in the Dwight E. Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC during a speech on 31 January, 2003. Bush proposed that the United States devote $15 billion to fight the AIDS pandemic overseas especially in Africa. Phillips is the managing director of the Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi, Kenya’s Eastern Deanery AIDS Relief Program. In emphasizing that the United States will work with all kinds of faith-based programs involved on the continent of Africa, Bush said:
A fellow named Father Edward Phillips is here. Where are you, Father? Right there, yes. I thought you were Father Edward Phillips for a minute. [Laughter because he is dressed in a Roman collar]. He is in Kenya, works in Kenya. He obviously follows his faith. He leads an organization that provides testing and treatment in Nairobi. He's helped thousands of people every year. He ought to be giving this speech, not me, because he knows what it must feel like to play a significant role in saving lives. And that's what we're here to talk about today, how best to save lives.
True story, adapted by Father Joseph Healey, M.M., Nairobi, Kenya
Footprints of Hope
While most children their age show off a new pair of shoes, two Kenyan brothers, Franco age 4, and Kisenga age 6, proudly show off their new feet. As AIDS orphans, the tots lived barefoot in the gutters of Nairobi, Kenya where their feet were so infested with larvae that they could no longer walk. But after two months of treatment at St. Mary’s Mission Hospital their feet became as good as new.
The doctors and nurses at this Catholic medical center did even more for the siblings. They donated the secondhand clothes the boys wear and provided the loving attention they needed to recover from the psychological trauma of being abandoned. When the boys were fully healed, the staff found a home for them.
True story, Fr. Bill Fryda, M.M., Nairobi, Kenya, “Footprints of Hope” (Maryknoll, December, 2002)
Maryknoll
Websites with Material on
Health Care & AIDS Ministry in Africa
Name of Website |
Internet Address (URL) |
Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers Africa Region |
www.MaryknollAfrica.org |
Brother John Mullen's Website: Archdiocese of Mombasa CBHC and AIDS Relief Project |
|
www.geocities.com/BroJohn816 |
|
Bugando University College of Health Sciences |
www.Bugando.org |
African Proverbs, Sayings and Stories |
www.afriprov.org |
Remember: THINK INTERNET!
African Proverbs on AIDS Education
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito. African Proverb used on the stationary of the Catholic Bishops’ Office for AIDS Education in South Africa.
Mungu Ni Mwema (God is Good). Swahili (Eastern and Central Africa) Proverb on John Mullen’s website.
Better a curtain hanging motionless than a flag blowing in the wind. Translation of a Swahili (Eastern and Central Africa) Proverb. This traditional proverb takes on a new meaning in the context of AIDS education and awareness. It is now used especially to caution young people to stay with one partner (one curtain in the house) rather than "play around" with many partners (flag blowing to and fro). The main themes are faithfulness and a sense of responsibility in personal relationships.
The electric wires are still live. Translation of a Swahili (Eastern and Central Africa) Saying. It is a warning not to play with the 'live wires" of AIDS because they are packed with enough "voltage" to kill.
Memories of, and Tributes to, Dick Hochwalt
In July, 2003, I attended a Mass celebrated by Fr. Hochwalt at his parish, Buhangija in Tanzania. As he walked back to the center of the altar after the “Lavabo,” erect, hands folded as you might expect of a well trained altar boy, the thought struck me; “He’s certainly true to his word!”
Nearly 50 years ago in 1955 Dick had returned from his studies in Rome to teach at Maryknoll, NY. He taught a few classes in Liturgy to our class preparing for ordination. I remember him saying: “The Mass is Holy and our gestures should reflect that. Keep your hands folded around the altar!”
Our goal in being sent to the “Missions” in those days was clear: “Establish the local church”. It was also clear what that meant: “Establish a local clergy and more on.” Dick has moved on. Around the altar today, 8 December, 2003, for his memorial mass were 36 African priests, five Maryknoll priests and one Maryknoll Brother and their Tanzanian Bishop, all from Shinyanga Diocese in Tanzania.
There are not many expatriate missionaries who can say they’ve done as much to establish the local clergy as Dick. He taught in the minor and major seminaries. Many of Tanzanian bishops and clergy were taught by him; he probably paid more school fees for more boys than any of us; he served the Shinyanga Church as Pastor, Chancellor, and Vicar General; he was known for unequivocal loyalty to the local bishop especially when Bishop Castor Sekwa was dying of cancer for five years. Dick was visibly frustrated, even angry, when a priest did not live up to the ideal he set for priests in his own mind.
Dick’s whole missionary life was based on that principle, “Build up that local Church and move on!”
~ Father Dan Ohmann, M.M.
I would like to pay tribute to Dick Hochwalt's generosity to the poor. Dick came from a well to do family and had money. He never spent it on himself. He gave it away to the poor. Perhaps he gave too much; perhaps people took advantage of him. However, I would like to have his balance sheet in heaven before the Lord in this regard rather than my own. He will be missed by many of us. When Dick first came to Africa he was assigned to Busanda, Tanzania as my co-pastor. He was easy to live with, and I appreciated his knowledge of Canon Law. He was a terrific help in solving some of the complex cases that we came across. I think Dick appreciated the assignment too. Years later, and this happened on several occasions, whenever we happened to be together in the presence of others at some functions, he would say: "Moe was my first pastor." Not to be out done, I would add, "And your best." May Dick rest in peace.
~ Father Moe Zerr, M.M.
At the Memorial Mass for Dick in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania I recalled that although Father Hochwalt served in various teaching and administrative positions for many years, his heart always was in bush pastoral work. This was described very well by our then Regional Superior Father Michael Snyder, M.M. in our regional newsletter Overview in 1995: "Dick Hochwalt, who recently passed the 70 mark, is found regularly putting a safari bed with net and various sundry necessities on the back of his bicycle as he travels out to the villages to spend a few days among the rural folks of Shinyanga Diocese."
It is unfortunate that the “Official Biography” of Dick Hochwalt from Maryknoll, NY did not use some of the very interesting facts of Dick’s missionary life that are printed in The Buffaloes: A Story Commemorating Maryknoll Society’s 50 Years in Tanzania. We used the following in both the revised English and Swahili biography that was distributed in East Africa:
In 1966 Father Hochwalt was sent to St. Paul's Major Seminary, Kipalapala, Tabora Archdiocese to teach Canon Law and Moral Theology until 1969. His former students are working in many dioceses through Tanzania including Cardinal Polycarp Pengo, Archbishop Anthony Mayala and Bishops Aloysius Balina, Telesphore Mkude, and Fortunatus Lukanima. Over the years he was the secretary of the Canon Law Commission of the Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC). His records of marriage cases were legendary. He always had a deeply pastoral concern for the situation of local couples.
~ Father Joe Healey, M.M.
Father Richard Hochwalt was first and foremost a priest. This stands out over and above all his talents and accomplishments. As pastor, he fully fulfilled his obligations at the home parish and the outstations. Many times he would reach these places by car as far as possible, then by bicycle during rainy weather. Arriving back at the mission, he would without fail count the collection and record baptisms and marriages without resting first.
Some notable aspects of his personal life were the singular detachment from goods, deep spiritual life, and a simple, austere life style. Sometimes his patched, thread-bare apparel would be painful for us to observe, occasioning the Sisters to have clerical shirts tailored for him. These would be graciously received but seldom worn.
Fr. Richard is gone now and gradually the splendor of his life is unfolding before me. He served the Diocese of Shinyanga so many years and no doubt his intercessions for us will continue. So we continue.
~ Brother Cyril Vellicig, M.M.
We learned with deep sorrow of the sudden death of our beloved brother Fr. Hochwalt. It is a great loss to the Diocese of Shinyanga, the people of Shinyanga, the Maryknoll Society, and his family. We pray to God, Father of all mercy, to welcome into his light and peace the soul of the humble deceased who for so long lived his priestly ministry at the service of Catholic Church in the Diocese of Shinyanga. We express our deep sympathy to his family and the Maryknoll Society. As a pledge of divine comfort in trial the Bishop, the Clergy, Religious and the laity promise you our prayers always.
~ Part of the Condolence Letter signed by Bishop
Aloysius Balina
and priests, Sisters and lay people of Shinyanga Diocese
Memories of, and Tributes to, Frank Flynn
Together we arranged a Diocesan Memorial Mass at Kiagata, Tanzania on 29 December, 2003. The delay was because of Christmas. It was a very nice celebration. Almost all of the priests attended, many Sisters, and the church was filled with Kiagata Christians. I was the Celebrant and Bishop Justin Samba presided. I gave a talk at the beginning of Mass giving Frank's family history, Maryknoll history, and Musoma history. Ambrose Chacha gave the homily. He is a Kiagata lad and knew Frank when Ambrose was a child. His Father, the late Ernest Mwita, was one of Kiagata's catechists. But Ambrose's best experiences with Frank were at Nyamwaga Parish where he was stationed with him as a young priest. It was a nice homily and personal. After mass the bishop spoke and then I thanked everyone in Maryknoll's name. I told them also that I would write to Frank's American family and tell them about the very meaningful Memorial Mass at Kiagata.
~ Father Ed Hayes, M.M.
A special memory: Frank had a wonderful knowledge of Gikuria vocabulary. I always trembled when he would ask, "What's the word for...?" At the opening of the 1984 Maryknoll Society General Chapter they picked different delegates from around the world to say a “Prayer of the Faithful” in their local languages. I was asked to do the African prayer. Having spent most of the past 25 years in Kurialand I decided to offer the prayer in Gikuria rather that Kiswahili. I remember kidding with George Delaney and saying, "I can say anything and no one else will know what I'm saying." But Frank was in Boston and drove to New York for the opening mass of the chapter. After mass I was in the sacristy putting away my alb when Frank walked in and said, "Eddie, you used the wrong word for 'Creator'!" As you can imagine, George howled with glee.
~ Father Ed Hayes, M.M.
Frank spent his missionary life studying and using the Kuria language and customs. He knew many Kuria proverbs and used them in his homilies and religious instructions. Before his death Frank did research with Mr. Linus Chacha and Mr. Mattias Magoto of Kiagata Parish on the following Kuria Proverb:
Hano wangere iyomokoro oregeenda bwire. (Kuria) Kama ukikataa la mkuu utatembea mpaka machweo. (Swahili) If you refuse the advice of an elder you will walk until sunset. (English)
As a tribute to Frank this proverb has been posted as the “African Proverb of the Month” for April, 2004 on the African Proverbs, Sayings and Stories Website (www.afriprov.org).
~ Father Joe Healey, M.M.
NEW AFRICAN MISSION RESOURCES
1. Videos on AIDS Education. HIV and AIDS – All You Need to Know: a resource pack for HIV/AIDS trainers, educators, and families in four segments:
Volume One: 47 minutes Volume Two: 63 minutes Volume Three: 55 minutes Plus HIV/AIDS Music, Dance and Poetry: 78 minutes
This video communicates information and education on HIV/AIDS in a clear, simply way blended with entertainment and fun. 2003. Contact Ukweli Video: ukweli@wananchi.com
2. Touching Tanzania – a Story of Education, Healing and Hope. A DVD containing the 9-minute documentary Touching Tanzania and a still photo montage, Images of Hope, on Bugando University College of Health Sciences (BUCHS) in Mwanza, Tanzania. 2003.
3. 15 Booklets on African Cultural Knowledge. Groundbreaking material on major African cultural themes such as “Ancestors,” “Bridewealth,” “Creator God,” “Initiation into Adulthood and Elderhood,” “Living Dead,” and “Marriage.” Fruit of the MIAS program that is a response to the need for a contextualized approach to teaching cultures and religion of Africa, and training bi-cultural pastoral and developmental agents in Africa. Produced by MIASMU (Maryknoll Institute of African Studies of St. Mary’s University), Minnesota, USA and Tangaza College, Nairobi, Kenya. Sets of the booklets are available in a two ring binder. 2003-2004. Contact MIASMU: MIAS@maf.or.ke
4. New Orbis Books (Spring-Summer, 2004 Catalogue):
The Anatomy of Inculturation: Transforming the Church in Africa. By Laurenti Magesa. “Epiphany” Cover by Charles Ndege. $28.
Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology. By Diane Stinton. “Jesus Teaches the Crowd from a Boat” Cover by Charles Ndege. $25.
Once Upon a Time in Africa: Stories of Wisdom and Joy. Complied by Joseph Healey, MM. Batik Animal Design Cover. Line drawings by Samuel Bullen and Manolito Corpuz. $15.