Newsletter from Africa – August, 2024

Dear Friends of Africa,                                                                                    August 2024

            From the photos you have seen in our last letter you have a fairly good idea of our current building program here at Mazinde Juu. Our standing at the top rungs of the academic performance during the national exams keeps our teachers keen on monitoring their students, giving special attention to the slow learners so as to keep our school among the top ten of the Secondary schools in the country. I recall my visit some 20 years ago to the Bishop’s office at his headquarters in the Tanga which was the capital city of our region both politically and for diocesan affairs as well. His Excellency the Bishop at that time (now blissfully with his eternal reward) was very forthcoming in pointing out my deficiencies in discerning true African culture and in my priestly functions as well. He told me frankly that African women had no need of secondary education. The only intellectual facts that an African woman needed to know was one, how to bear children, two how to raise her family and thirdly never to shame her husband. I may have mentioned this in previous letters but the encounter with his Excellency that day has never left my conscious mind. His final comment was that he did not know how I ever got into his diocese. “But I have my celebrate” I ( the celebrate is the ID for any ordained priest indicating that he was legally and sacramental ordained) I told him and his reply was that my function as a Priest in his diocese was null and void. He would give me a letter to nullify and void that celebrate. However such a letter never reached me since his secretary told me later that the bishop himself had a letter coming from Rome rusticating him to his home in Southwestern Tanzania and relieving him from any further Episcopal functions. I remained in Mazinde Juu under the concerned welcome of the new Bishop. He paid a visit to our school and assured me that everything that I have initiated at the school was blessed. He was sitting in his land rover as he was speaking and took his hands off the steering wheel, placed them on my head and said. “Everything you have done is blessed and now everything you will do is also blessed”. That encounter has sustained me greatly in my mission of education for African women to this day. It was also interesting that seven diocesan priests of the same tribe as the bishop left at the same time and returned to the south with their bishop. Tribal ties can be very tight it seems and still effect some perplexing outcomes as you can well imagine from the situation I found myself in at that time.

           Not so many years ago there was a proposal made in the National Parliament to nationalize all secondary schools. There were hundreds of non-governmental secondary schools at that time, many of them founded and operated by religious bodies; Catholic, Protestant, Islamic and some run by private individuals. The proposal was passed by a parliamentary majority vote and overnight we were literally outcasts from our own schools. The results were soon evident that the decision was a devastating blow not just for the previous owners but for the drastic effect on the quality of education being given by hapless individuals posing as educators. The quality of education dropped drastically and as the years went by the situation reached a crucial stage. President Nyerere,a trained  professional teacher himself, realized how devastating the decision to withdraw the schools from their former owners and founders had brought higher education to a drastic standstill. He was so moved by the dreadful performance of secondary education and realized what a terrible mistake the decision was in closing our schools. He then took it upon himself to approach the Tanzania Bishops Conference begging them to take back all their former schools. When he himself was accused of initiating the forceful closing of the schools, he excused his part in the closure by saying that it was a parliamentary decision made on a legal petition from by a member of parliament and not his doing or desire. Ironically the petition for taking over the schools had been made by a former Catholic Priest who had been expelled from his diocese. This Priest had refused to accept the Bishop’s order to withdraw from politics and was eventually elected to a seat in parliament. His petition to nationalize all schools particularly Catholic Schools was his way of getting pay back from his former bishop. But, Nyerere, a professional teacher himself and a Catholic as well, made the right move to rectify the situation though it was a shameful part the church was made to pay in resolving the issue. And it is evident now of the great contribution the church schools are making to the development of the nation with often the top ranking schools among the top ten in their performance on the National exams. I am enclosing some pictures of the ongoing construction in the school court yard and thanking you all for your loyal support in our endeavor to bring each student to the top level of her academic ability.

Most sincerely grateful, Father Damian