Christmas | “Mercy lived out” according to Father 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 word is a gesture of mercy toward it

In Lukanga, as in Kyondo, Masereka,… The population increases, because they find the primary services there: dispensary, school… Arable fields become small…
“What to do?” we asked ourselves in a meeting.
“Let’s do like Abraham: you keep the field, I’ll go look elsewhere.”

About 20 families made the nice gesture: the WAIBRAIMU project in Muhanga was born.
To create a new center in the forest and prepare services for others to come. To build PEACE.

Sitting around a beautiful fire we lit on our knoll: dads, moms, young people, a few elders and children.
Stars, palms, grass, little goats, not plastic; but real, as He made them.

Some liturgical and living songs; we pray; read the gospel. And then I make an invitation, “let us try to tell our expectations, our hopes, our true stories. As surely the shepherds were doing that evening in Bethlehem.”

Janvier begins and speaks slowly

I moved here to Muhanga, to the forest, not because I lacked fields in Lukanga; in fact, lately, the village chief had offered me another one. When I went to cultivate it I saw that it had already been hoed; the chief had taken it away from another family, perhaps
because they were not paying muhako-the village chief’s fee.
I worked hard, sowed and harvested; but when I ate those beans I thought of that other one….
Those beans hurt my stomach: I knew that another stomach–empty, suffering, sick.

So, I was dreaming. I dreamed that it would be nice to eat beans that would not hurt my stomach or the stomachs of others.

In our meetings at the mission we were talking about these problems: population increasing, quarrels because of the camps, risk of tensions increasing; what can be done. And I don’t know anymore who made the proposal: let’s leave Lukanga, let’s go look for camps elsewhere, in the forest there is no shortage of land; between us and Kinshasa there are two thousand kilometers of forest.

Let’s do like Abraham: rather than ruin the friendship between us, you keep the camp, I’ll go elsewhere. It would be nice to go together, a nice little group. Thirty families said they were willing, right away. The waibraimu project was born.
My dream was coming true. In those days my Clementine gave birth to a baby girl. Beautiful! a flower. What name to give her?
I did not hesitate, that name came to me naturally: NZOLI, dream!

I turned to look at Janvier.
The light of the fire was not very strong, but enough to see: Janvier had his hand resting on the little head of a beautiful little girl .
And tonight I am here; I have not yet finished building the hut, the fields still have many weeds, but my two dreams are here: they have come true.

Source and image

• Father Giovanni Piumatti, Fiori selvaggi… profumo d’Africa, pp. 20-21