It is now over two months since I wrote my first introduction on Kilrush news.

Why this unseemly dereliction of duty, when it really was my intention to have a piece in nearly every week. The fact is that I was chasing my first love. I was visiting Africa. It is not quite correct to talk of it as my first love as I discovered it in 1994. For the next few insertions I will mix pieces of Kilrush news with recordings of my African experiences. I will take one of these latter today.

I spent six weeks there, reviewing past work, assessing projects and above all meeting the people who, up to now , were but names at the bottom of a letter. I have believed for a long time that whatever problems can be relieved or resolved in Africa it can only be through the medium of education. Straight away anyone working in this area is up against a major problem: most of the parents of the children have no vision re education. They simply need their kids to shepherd the animals in the fields. (When I use the term fields  I am using a very Irish term. There is no such thing as a "field" in rural Tanzania. It is up to the children to lead their animals, usually cattle, sheep and goats, out to fresh pastures.There are no fences, no boundaries, no limit at all where the children can lead the animals. It is all open country, in this case what is termed "bush" This fits the concept of a "Good Shepherd" as used in the Bible - the Good Shephered LEADS his flock to the greenest of pastures that he can find, and also to water. In that context when you first step into rural Tanzania you will think you have moved back two thousand years to Biblical Israel.

Parents are reluctant to send children to school because the immediate here and now is minding cattle. The other is "Pie in the Sky". They may agree to send the child to school if someone funds him/her. It is usually "him" as the female of the species was and is always a second class citizen.

I work through priests whom I know, on the basis that if you can find someone conscientious and honest it is probably a priest. That was part reason for my visit last month; it was mainly to vet the new men on my books to see and appreciate their level of committment to their people and their personal honesty.

At the moment  I have 48 priests "on my books". Most of these are in two blocks, 22 are the full college of priests in the Diocese of Tunduru/Masasi in the extreme south of Tanzania, ten in the Awasa Diocese of  Ethiopia, and the remaining sixteen are scattered elsewhere in Tanzania.

How are they funded? Mainly through the Noel Charity Shop which a group of us opened behind the old National School on Fahy's Road, Kilrush. It realises an average of EUR450 per week, which, in African terms, is BIG money, but not quite so big when you are dealing with 48 people.

These 48 are all native priests. I will talk more of them and their work at a later time. Next week I will come back to my first mandate, Kilrush.

Incidentally the Big Bwana of these pages, Pat Cusack, is getting feedback on it and he passes it to me. You are also very welcome to email me directly. 

Michael Carmody.  

M.J.Carmody
michael_carmody36@hotmail.com