Children of an “other world” | “Mercy lived out” according to Fr. Piumatti
From the diaries of Fr. Piumatti, fd of Pinerolo and missionary in North Kivu for 50 years. Telling Africa and giving it back its dignity and speech is yet another gesture of love and mercy toward it
Leontina
In Muhanga, every evening, a nice little group of children come to do prayers with us and say good night. Tonight, as usual I shake all the little hands, a few hugs, a puff on the cheek, and when Leontina approaches, so spontaneously, I ask her, “Are you going to eat now?”
“No,” she replies.
“Ah, you’ve already eaten….”
“No.”
I already feel a little embarrassed, “Have you eaten this morning?”; because, and this I know, here these days we eat only one meal.
“No, we’re not eating today!” and she gives me a big smile, almost as if to say: don’t worry, that’s it! She, the little sisters and brothers, Leona, Luange, Leopold, Oscar… Dad and Mom: we’re not eating today.
What a thrill, right? Yes, I’ve felt it too…. Yet I can’t say I don’t know; I read, I hear the radio, but especially I’ve lived here for several years now. But tonight Leontina told me, to my face. And she didn’t start crying; she smiled at me! Yes, she smiled at me!
Some feelings you have to feel, inside your gut. Because I’m of those people who …, because I eat dinner at eight o’clock in the evening, I think everybody eats dinner at eight o’clock in the evening or so. I take that for granted.
And so, I need Leontina to come and tell me, “I’m not eating today.” Of course I reacted; as you would have reacted too, surely and immediately.
I reacted because I noticed: because Leontina lives next door to me, and I see her every day because she came to my house tonight but … how many evenings are there a year? how many Leontinas are there in Africa … in the world? what if I don’t notice?
A hoe
Clarisse is the second of five orphans; four little brothers follow her. They now inhabit the new hut; it is not a palace, but it is all for them and, like everyone else, they have to set out, for life! In the morning she goes to school, she is in the 6th grade. But she is also “the mom” of the house.
Every day, after school, she has to prepare food: water at the fountain, wood, search for food in the field that Mumbere her older brother cultivates, and then peel, cook…
Last night, after the wahubiri prayer, I asked her, “How are you at home? Do you need anything?”
It is not vain curiosity of mine. Observing, poking around inside this heart of Africa, which is daily village life, is too important to me!
I know that in the house they have two cribs, two mats and two blankets: woolen ones, which the mothers from Nichelino have woven with their own hands.
Clarisse gives me a smile, beautiful, and immediately says – Yes!
What do you want?
– A hoe.
Clarisse, the 13-year-old girl, is not a rare case, she is the reality the most common in the village. Here, if you want to give a gift, you don’t have to rack your brains too much and you don’t need to go virtual.
Simple, essential things still have all the flavor of a gift.
(Fhater Piumatti, Fiori selvaggi… profumo d’Africa, pp. 6-7; 29)
Sources
- Father Giovanni Piumatti, Fiori selvaggi… profumo d’Africa
Images
- Father Giovanni Piumatti