One of the events of this week was the inauguration of the
new library at the secondary school. A
group of people from Italy had taken on the project of building this library
and 25 people from this group came about a month ago and have been working on
completing it. They were due to go back
to Italy on Friday and so on Thursday we had a little ceremony to inaugurate
the building. Since it was a school day,
we were all on hand early and awaited news of what the day would bring. Around 8.30 we started walking over to the
church, which is on the adjoining property.
The students marched in class groups, led by the beating of the drums,
and we teachers moved along with them.
Mass began almost on time (9.10) and finished by 10.45, made as long as
it was by a too long homily. The homily
in Swahili was long enough and then it was translated into Italian! Not only were we celebrating the library but
it also St. Maria de Mattias’ feast day (patroness of the school) so there
were two reasons to celebrate. After the
Mass we all walked back to the library where another speech was given, this
time by one of the Italians, and so now we listened first in Italian and then
came the translation into Swahili.
Finally the ribbon was cut and we went in to see the building. It truly is very nice, with an open second floor
and a curved stairway leading there. At
the top of the staircase is the top of the center column, and on the top of
that is a lovely round clay sculpture, signifying the globe. We were invited to envision the staircase as
signifying the evolutionary progress of humankind and education leading to
deeper consciousness. Teilhard de
Chardin was even quoted!
After the inauguration, the students had some entertainment
to share with the guests, they were each given a gift, and then hurried off to
have some lunch before leaving for Dar es Salaam where they would board a plane
the following day. We have been seeing these folks around for the past few
weeks, working hard every day, and now they have left us with a lovely and
strong building. Thanks be to them and
their friends.
After all of that on Thursday I came home and soon met with
my little ones. Everything was going on
fine until one of the little girls complained that she was missing her
pen. We looked everywhere for it – in
all of the books, in all of the notebooks, and some of the older ones even
searched the pockets and school bags of each other, looking for the pen. I didn’t know what to do about finding the
pen and so finally I told them that whoever took the pen needed to give it over
or else they would all have to stay until it showed up, even over night. Well, they thought that was a wonderful idea,
and started picking out their spaces to sleep on the mat! Obviously my threat didn’t work and we never
did find the pen. I'll have to keep my eyes open to make sure that this little pilfering doesn't start.
No comments:
Post a Comment