I left… | “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 Europe, in America, we produce a lot, we consume more and more, and we… we generate gas.
At the Pole, far from our eyes, mountains of glaciers are melting.
And in the middle is us, all of us.

What did I leave behind in Muhanga, to come here?

I left Gerlas, Isaki, Sokì… kids who went to school this morning, barefoot, some doing 6 – 7 km; without even a cup of tea, without a sandwich for recess; a bic and two notebooks in a plastic bag; will they eat at 1 p.m., on their way home? no, they will eat tonight with the family.

It was like this in June, it’s like this today, tomorrow…; for how much longer?-I left three families all living together in one
hut, the hut of Mwenge.

In that hut, measuring m. 8 x 8 is his wife Ermelinda with their children Ombeni, Tuliza, Isaki, Mwanga
(Mapendo left three years ago to be a soldier, they gave him a rifle, we don’t know where it is, he was ten years old).

Two other families, escaped from their village, found hospitality there; and now they all live together, use the same casseroles, the same blankets, the only hoes. Mwenge welcomed them with joy because he too, long ago, was welcomed when he had to flee.

Today, in our area alone, there are more than 150,000 families living this way. In our Zaire, in about eight years of war, you don’t find refugee camps: every hut is a refugee camp, and the very organized HCR, UNICEF, OCHA, WFP, don’t even pretend to know, they don’t respond to their schemes.

I left a war that has been going on for years. No planes, no smart bombs, just Kalasnikovs and machetes — but they kill.
They barbarously killed our Kitoli, with machete, righteous man.
They killed Paluku, wounded in one leg could not be rescued, he bled to death.
They scarred Anna because she had not a dollar to give.
They pierced the belly of Floribert’s 12-year-old son, he was doing homework in the hut,.

And so 3 million more of our brothers.-I left many who told me, “Don’t stay in Italy. Come back! And come back with someone else.”

Melting glaciers-if we don’t change something here.

Source and image

• Padre Giovanni Piumatti, Fiori selvaggi… profumo d’Africa, pp. 26-27