An Old Man with a Hessian Bag

My dear friends and family,

I am so happy to be celebrating this quiet autumn morning, looking out on to lawn, falling leaves, sunshine and shade.  I laughed when I overheard Sr. Ann (with whom I live) saying to Ellen our Regional Leader on the phone just now; that, "Marie is taking a day off today .." laughing at myself that is.  Like most people, I am good at beating myself up with inner compulsions to work and work!  Sometimes I catch myself measuring off my days; my father lived to 90; maybe I have 25 odd years left to count on?  At times I have the sense of life passing me by without resting by the wayside to observe what's going on around me; so many simple gifts are mine every day; gifts deserving time to ponder, else I'm in danger of skittering on surface water like a dragon fly, merely flitting; not exploring inner depths.

An old man crossing

Since returning to Zambia and life in Lusaka, I have continued with an inner restlessness.  How I love to be in the market, in the village, traveling about, moving with ordinary folk!  I live in our Regional house here in Lusaka and my role is more back up support; requiring more technological flair on my part.  It's okay.  Lusaka too seems to be rapidly expanding too, into shining malls and enmeshed traffic but the other evening I saw a very old man crossing over a two lane feeder highway bringing evening rush hour traffic to a surprised standstill.  He crossed over tentatively, dragging an old hessian bag with him of empty tins and plastics, hobbling in front of the waiting bumper bars, as he finally hauled his bag slowly up and over the concrete kerbing.  What a marvellous image of our poverty, I thought.  I could sense the other drivers drawing in their breath and pausing; all thought of racing for the next light replaced by concern, and perhaps an inner jolt of who and how we are.  It would seem that we human beings need to step back like that at times, in quietness and courage in order to move more mindfully though our days.

Drug and Alcohol Work

I work two days a week in Serenity harm Reduction Programme, Zambia (SHARPZ) as a drug and alcohol therapist.  I love it. Drugs and alcohol misuse seem to be on the increase here and I'm reading everything I can lay my hands on, as well as having lots of training in order to work with people, where they are in their courageous attempts to regain their freedom.  In our living, it is easy to fill our emptiness and poverty with something or other.  Usually we cannot free ourselves from such addictions on our own; we need the support from family members and friends.

Luka

Luka hardly spoke and when he did, it was to murmur to himself.  He had been taking marijuana and his sister and her husband brought him straight from five days of Detox.  I felt so out of my depth, I asked another Counsellor to help in an assessment interview. Does he want to come to "see" us twice a week, I asked Luka?  Luka mumbled that he does not "want" to come, but he will.  Wow.  Time for me to take a breath!  He was 27, single and dependent, but a fine figure of a man.  The following weeks of halting conversation (me asking questions, Luka responding in barely audible responses) seemed to indicate trauma as a boy, through loss of his father and then not long later, loss of his mother, with Luka shutting down emotionally by the time he was 18 and since then with increasing depression, numbs himself with drugs.  Such misery.  What amazed me was the measure of love in that family and the way they were counting their monthly bills to calculate what they could set aside for Luka's rehabilitation.  His older sisters and brother had taken care of him over the years but these moves around Zambia probably intensified his confusion and feeling, "a problem for them," as Luka termed it.  Yet, Luka also bears in himself and carries family grief and loss.  When he dresses himself carefully, agrees to go on family excursions, his sister and husband are overjoyed.  Small steps; let us hope and pray!

Coffee

I was so pleased to welcome Jane Bertelson here last month.  We repaired to my special coffee spot, where I confess; I ate most of the food!  Another Australian often at our place is Lana Turvey, a volunteer on loan for a year from the Sydney office of the Pontifical Mission Society. (PMS)  My favourite text from her is, "Wanna coffee?"  Oh, joy.  Now that is a distinct plus to city living!

The owner servant

There once was a man           

who owned a donkey. 

They were friends.                             

the donkey always served

him with love and devotion.                                      

They spoke in silence.

It was a soundless alphabet

Which bore fruit....

Each month for one day

The owner

became servant.

When asked the reason for

such a strange custom           

he answered

Only by being a donkey

have I attained wisdom.

           

Poet Artist, Assisi 2006

Lots of love, May you each be with God, and God be with you! (Blessing of St. Clare of Assisi)

Marie

The Girl from Mashika

The Girl from Mashika and Kasanka Community

Night journey

Last week I returned to my beloved Kasanka 730kms to Luapula by the night bus.  In between snoozing I watched Scorpio stretching itself along the night horizon. The stars!  I’d forgotten how they gleam and glisten in the black country sky! We staggered out at intervals.  We lost a quarter of our passengers just before Kapiri Mporshi.  They must have been ferried to the other side of the town, to avoid the weighing station; grinning and returning to their seats, telling me they were back!  I had grown alarmed as usually it is only those in the back seats who just walk through the town in the dark and wait by the barrier for the bus after the weigh in.  Obviously road traffic officials had seen this and now the bus company paid for a 30 km lift on.  Well, it must have benefited passengers too, carrying extra loads for them to be so inconveniencing themselves!  On we went and I fell asleep again, until waking I was amazed to see the flattened, bleached grass of the swamps.  Had we passed Kasanka?  I peered out the window and saw with relief the concrete runway up to Luapula Bridge, which meant 30 kms to go.  At bus speed, that gave me 20 minutes to negotiate my scattered bags, sleeping children on the floor, slumbering passengers and suitcases, necessitating giant steps to the front, to the only other person awake; the driver!

Arrival

Thus I stepped down onto Kasanka soil, and could hear Ben our dog barking half a mile away, and then quietly listening as I made my way home.  Rogita had left everything unlocked, so no trouble getting to bed; apart from foisting off a rapturous 25 kg of Ben who insisted on proper ritual of welcome! It was 2am; fantastic for sleep.

What everyone was doing!



Sr. Agnes and Students



Upon waking, and a brief breakfast I set off to find the community. First off was Agnes at the local Primary School, with her little Pre-Schoolers, Elizabeth at Chitundwa (through which we had just shot through at 120 k.p.h. seven hours ago!) then Rogita back through Kasanka to Chisakana where she was visiting the Home Based Care Clients at their outstations with Juliet and the Programme Care Supporters.  When I arrived, there was a lively discussion about Jonah.  How come he was receiving food as well as medicine?



Arguing the Point!



  So Juliet explained that Jonah was sick, needed food as well as medicine right now.  Her own case was different and once again explained how the programme was not about hand outs but medical assistance, and when Clients set up income generating activities it can be sustained in the future. And here Juliet’s voice rose a pitch; edged with frustration- Did you not know that so many other programmes had collapsed, with Clients struggling with HIV and poor access to ARV’s?  Well the group listened- I don’t know how convinced they were but at the next site, we met up with the famous Jonah (not really his name) who refused to work on establishing any income generating activity and in disgust his name was removed from the programme!

The HBC Team at Work

How difficult it is to wean Clients off dependency and to play their part in an educative way! Juliet understandably got very annoyed! Jonah’s name was ruled through and he was off the programme!  Luckily for him he can still access ARV’s at the local clinic but when he gets sick and he can’t walk the kilometers, he will ask to return to the mobile programme.  The team have seen it all before with other Clients.  They also know that if the programme is to be sustainable, the people themselves need to support it in their local endevours like charcoal burning, some market gardening, keeping a few pigs etc.  It has to happen.  

 

Young women cooking for the J & P Seminar

The Girl from Mashika

That morning Rogita met 16 year old who had trekked from Mashika, sleeping only upon reaching the security of Milenge turn off at the edge of Kasanka village on the Mansa road. Mashika is 60 kilometres through the bush, “as the crow flies.”  Could the Sisters give her transport money to reach her Aunt in Chililabombwe, because she was pregnant and her “uncle” was demanding she “get rid of it” and he refused to have a “bastard” under his roof.  Juliet and Rogita looked at each other; questions jostling in their minds.  Was she really pregnant?  Was this a ploy for money?  How were they to check the girl’s story?  The girl, reading their minds went on to explain that her husband died in January, and only four months later did she realize that she was pregnant. Was she really married, they  asked her. Well, not really but they were intending to. Their “uncle” was the owner of the house and related to her dead husband, and there were two other brothers living in the house.  Alarm bells began ringing in the women’s minds.  Was there anyone they could ring in Mashika to verify her story, she was asked. At least Kasanka was recently in cellular coverage with the rest of the world now!  No, she knew no numbers.  They looked at her “luggage;” a few small items tied in a grimy cloth.

Parish Justice and Peace Seminar

That week end Parishioners had gathered for a Justice and Peace seminar at the Parish Centre and Henry (his real name) from the Diocesan Centre had arrived from Mansa; an astute and good man.  Juliet  and Rogita had HBC (Home Based Care) outstations to visit, could Henry check out the girl’s story?  Henry met with her briefly, needed to start his programme but would sit down with her later in the morning.  “Mother Theresa,” Juliet would accommodate and feed her meantime in the family compound!

  Sr.  Rogita and Henry

As it turned out, there was a seminar participant from Mashika who was related to the uncle  and knew the man who had died.  Later in the morning it was found that one of the HBC volunteers was related to the girl! Yes, everyone is related somehow!  Kinship and family connections run underground all over the place!  Henry sat with her and investigated further and aided with bits of information he and the community  drew up a plan.  Clearly the girl could not return to Mashika and her uncle.  He would be infuriated with her on a number of counts; better to have his relative go as an emissary to see and calm things down so she could safely return at some later date if she wanted.  Henry meantime could give her lift to Mansa and put her on the Copperbelt bus through Congo for Chililabombwe the following day. She had no number to contact her Aunt but she remembered the house from a previous visit and could make her way there.

Chitundwa and a day later

While this drama was unfolding at the parish Centre, I grabbed my camera and set off to see Agnes at Kasanka Basic School, where she was with her Pre-Schoolers and then on to Chitundwa to where Elizabeth was with her Grade Nine’s.  I missed Agi’s little ones but managed to find a few still lingering and  got lovely ones of Elizabeth.  When we all trouped home for lunch, of course the subject round the table was the “the girl from Mashika.”  I wonder if I’ve some clothes for her that we can fit her out with? Elizabeth was thinking out aloud.  I thought to myself, “Isn’t a Religious community a most wonderful gift for a rural community?”

L-R Srs. Rogita, Agnes, Eliza FMDM

My visit ended too quickly.  We had booked a seat the following day on the only bus, so we thought running that Sunday to Lusaka.  Off we set for the road, only ten minutes away that evening, and we stood chatting as the sky darkened into early evening, swapping stories and swatting mosquitoes!  The stars grew enormous into a wondrous glistening spread all around us. Aha! Bus lights popped over the night horizon and bore down upon us, and we all began flagging down the speeding bulk. With gusts of dust and screeching of brakes it stopped 100 yards ahead, so Eliza ad Agnes grabbed my bags and ran with Rogita and I doing our best behind them.  God! Not our bus!  We shouted profuse apologies, explaining we were waiting for someone else!  Imagine our embarrassment after flagging down five other coaches and tow loaded trucks (how were we to tell the difference in the dark?) before “our” bus finally arrived two hours later.  Such is life in the bush!

Marie Bourke FMDM, May 2012

Little Assisi Special School

I peered through the windscreen and said to Adelina, “But is there a road?”  All I could see was a pile of heavy stones and rubble.  “Oh yes, Sister, round the corner!”  Sure enough there was a road which narrowed to an eroded track twisting in and around densely populated small mud houses, and after negotiating the nearest we could park our battered little Ford to Willie’s house, I reversed in amongst the scrubby shrubs bordering a back alley, grinning at the little children’s faces peering in intently at me from all the windows of the car.

Willie is a hefty 16 year old cerebral palsy teenager whom Sr. Helen had wanted me to measure up for a “strong” wheelchair.  I’d rashly decided to bring him directly to the workshop on the other side of town, but had not worked out all the logistics!  It was his little “sisters” (cousins) who pushed me aside and lumped him into the back seat of the car, after we had half lifted, pushed and tugged his dilapidated, plastic wheelchair down and round the stony, muddy paths to the car- and I might add, on flat tyres!  Tough, determined hands deftly manoeuvred 60 kilograms of dead weight. Then off we shot.  I loved the way Willie was measured and fitted in the workshop; the one measuring was in crutches, the secretary who gave me the Proforma at the workshop desk was limping, the Manager with one arm prosthesis was supervising- and all working expertly together in an established and successful business. www.disacare.org.com   Willie was smiling by now (no smile when we arrived as he was hungry, reported Adelina) as he was enjoying a rare outing, the first in weeks.  No wonder, I thought, remembering the sheer physical effort of bringing him out.  How vital it is he gets a strong and durable chair to get him out of that matchbox of a house!

Sr.  Helen, one of our Irish Sisters started “Little Assisi Special School,” in 2005 with only five children; now there are at least five times that coming to school daily as well as those we visit in the compounds and others who come for afternoon activities.  Sr. Helen had asked me to “measure Willie for a wheelchair” and laughed when I described our expedition, complete with Willie himself to Disacare.  Helen celebrated her Golden Jubilee last month and her special guests were all somehow or other part of the Special School for physically and mentally handicapped children or part of our Franciscan circle of friends. She loves those children!

Disability in a compound household is painfully difficult, where economic survival is on the knife edge.  Every kwacha counts and few children are lucky enough to remain long at school.  I shudder to think how Willie’s older sister and guardian keeps her little household going.  She came with Willie, often cuddling him and talking to him at the back.  Willie is her late sister’s child and she was not at all well herself- I could see that.  There is also a second little girl at “Little Assisi” looking for a sponsor to buy her a wheelchair.  She comes each day to morning classes. Can anyone help us buy these two wheelchairs? They are K1,900,000 each and in A$380 each.

Last month I sat in on Mariyo’s class of ten squirming, moveous children with hands, legs, arms all going in different directions; watching in wonder at the skilled, patient prompting of her teaching; in this case, holding Velcro stuck pictures on a large card, while pointing and singing out the questions for the children to answer!  These are severely impaired children of variable concentration span- and the Special School is right in the middle of N’gombe compound, ten minutes from where we live. 

Mariyo, a Japanese volunteer last year gathered 25 fellow Japanese volunteers from other projects for the School’s “Sports Day.”  Everyone had a wonderful time, including the parents and family members, watching the children all dressed up in new T Shirts and logo, competing with all the ferocity of the Olympics in Tug of War, races and ball games.  Such a day helps wipe reduce the stigma and silence around disability, into a social occasion with justifiable pride and dignity, and puts such children in the limelight for once!  Mariyo herself concludes two years voluntary work and leaves Zambia with an English language generously sprinkled with Chi Nyanja! Again, Sr. Helen is looking for a donation towards this event which will cost A$400 for this years Sports Day. This covers food for the children, T Shirts, transport costs and hire of the sports ground. I would love it if we could do this for these children. Let me quote from the school's flyer:

“It is by

the care we show

to the most weak

and vulnerable

in our society that

civilization can be

judged"



Holy Saturday 2012

OUR LADY’S SABBATH  by  Robert Crooker, CSB.

I’ve read your book now, Luke, and even though you asked me to correct or amplify those parts about the days before my son began to teach and preach in Galilee, not one line of it would I change. But oh, the memories it stirred! I never tire of thinking back to all he did and said, and weighing it anew within my heart.  Even the things that you learned from me came to me with new force. A case in point: I told you when we found him in the Temple, we did not understand, Joseph and I, the word he spoke to us, how he must be about his father’s business; but now it seems to me that everything he said was full of deeper meanings than we grasped, and only on the Last Day shall we know all that he meant.

You know Elizabeth said to me at our visit, “Blest is she who has believed”. The more I think on that, the plainer it becomes that my belief is dearer than my motherhood itself. (You also wrote how Jesus told that woman, the one who called the womb that bore him happy, that happier are they who hear God’s Word and keep it). True it was that day that God Almighty did greater things for me, but greater yet are those that God has done since, although in ways so hidden and sublime no human words can tell, even to one so docile to God’s Spirit as are you!

And so it was that my thoughts turned as I read to something that you scarcely touched upon: the Sabbath when my son lay in the tomb (of which you say no more than that we kept the rest according to the Law’s command).  This was the day the Spirit poured on me such gifts of faith and hope as to surpass, if such may be, the very ones the Spirit gave at Pentecost in tongues of holy fire.  When we had buried Jesus’ body, John insisted that I not go to my home, but come to spend the Sabbath rest with him. We said but little to each other there, and if we sought to speak our voices failed. And yet, for all the grief and pain that pierced my heart that night, there was a certitude and peace beyond expression that I would have shared with him, so desolate he seemed, had I but found the words.  (My son himself was much like that the day that Joseph died: we sat, he held my hand, we wept together, yet almost nothing did he find to say. I wondered, later, that he chose to speak so much to Martha at her brother’s tomb, more than to me at Joseph’s death—but then my Joseph has to wait for the Last Day to rise, and so the case was not the same.)

Mary and Martha, had of course, told me the words he spoke as he prepared to call their brother from his grave, especially that phrase deeply graven on their minds: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”  It was those very words that came to me the afternoon I stood and watched him die: I asked within myself as once I had to Gabriel long before, “How can this be?” The answer was the same: with God all things are possible.  So, as I sat next day, and weighed these words again within my heart, even amid the darkness and the pain, that seemed to me most certain, and my soul did magnify my Saviour God the more.

Do not misunderstand: I knew not then how it all would happen on the morrow. But when they went with spices to the tomb, I sensed within that it would not be right for me to go along and seek him there.  In all the wild confusion of that day, I stayed at John’s, and while they dashed about with half believed reports that he was risen, he came himself to share with me his joy and let me glimpse the blessed, glorious light that radiated from his precious wounds.

Yet even then, I somehow could not touch: He spoke to me as through some mystic veil that hung between the mortal and the Risen. (It was the same, I later heard, with Mary of Magdala, who met him in the garden beside the tomb).  When afterwards they told of how he made poor Thomas feel his hand and side, I wondered why it was that I, who bore him in my womb and at my breast had nurtured him, was not allowed to touch and others were. I’ve pondered that, and now I see a reason for it: The Apostles are sent to tell the world what they have heard and seen and touched, but I was called to be the perfect disciple, steadfast in belief even that day when he who is called “Rock” was shaken, and had first to be restored before he could confirm his brothers’ faith.  Thus even in his rising he has left his mother here to walk by faith, not sight, until he shall return to take her home. It will not be much longer now, I think, before I share his glory to the full and drink with great delight the joys that he prepares for me.

The Sabbath is not kept, these days, the way it was when I was young. My son himself was never strict on that the way my parents were, and now of course his followers prefer to celebrate the first day of the week, to mark the day he arose triumphant over death.  I know that this is right; yet all the same I love to keep the holy rest each week, and recollect with awe and thankfulness the graces of that blest but dreadful day when I, alone unshaken, held within my heart the faith of God’s new Israel. 

This is an article written by a Basilian priest Fr. Robert Crooker and given to us FMDM’s by an old friend of my father’s, and fellow FMDM Ann Kiely.  You might like to consider a parallel between Our Lady’s feelings on Holy Saturday, a time of grief and mourning and of patient waiting and hoping, with this present “Holy Saturday,” today.

Mary questioned in herself why others seemed to receive ‘a better deal’, but after pondering she came to an understanding of who she was called to be.  Each of us has a unique role to play in our world, our families and communities.  Let us be aware that in the waiting and watching we prepare ourselves for the dawn of Easter in our lives each day.   

1950 Frank, Francis (back) Marie (front) Desiree, Kerry who died in tragic car accident at 4 years old.

1974 Frank becomes the proprietor of the "Vine" hotel, Richmond.  Desiree has multiple sclerosis.

1995 Three generations of Bourkes with Richmond Football Club: Francis, Frank and David.

Frank grieved every day for Paul who died in a car smash outside the town and for his little girl Kerry.  Desiree too died less than two years later after Paul. Yet he was fond of saying so often, "Family is great!"

1986 A new era began meeting Joyce whom Frank married following romance, courting and such happiness!

2011   Frank with Grand daughter in Melbourne.   Even with the onset of alzeimhers, he always recognised and rejoiced in family.

The Life & Adventures of Francis Michael Bourke II

1946 Xavier Chapel, Melbourne


Frank has arrived.  The bride had been driving around the block for half an hour!

Desiree Eugenie Morrell and Francis Michael Bourke with brother Tom Bourke, the best man seeing them off.

The Adventures of Francis Michael Bourke 1922-2011

1946 Francis Michael Bourke, Punt Road Richmond, Melbourne.  Frank played 16 games and kicked 48 goals in a promising career, "interrupted" by WW II and then prematurely ended with injury.