CHAPTER 6

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KATIGONDO (Uganda) to MUKOLERE (Rwenzori)
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Bikira—Father Richard—Little Brothers Of Blessed Charles Lwangwa—Mgr. Gorju
Father Gourmelin And The Teachers' Training School—A Pious Policeman—Mbarara—Junior Seminary
A Lorry That Is No Longer—Poverty And The Vow—More Native Clergy At Work—Fish
The Smallest Priest In The World—White Sisters And Dust—Languages
35,000 Catholics And Two And A Half Priests—Adventure On The RoadÑKabale
A Smelly Paragraph—Confessions And Spiritual Exercises—Mutolere And A Mountain Road
Pygmies—Hell And Heaven—A Weak Stomach And Goat-Skins
Pity The Poor Foreigner—The King's Jigger

Note : Having been ordered to England, I obtained permission to visit the White Fathers' Missions in some other parts of Africa, before doing so. Hence the references in the following pages to my leaving Africa.

5th August 1938
Mgr. LaCoursiere, Vicar Apostolic of Rwenzori, Western Province of Uganda Protectorate, sent his car to bring Father Prentice and me to his Mission at Mbarara. We left Katigondo in the freshness of early morning, went through Masaka, which is an abomination of Indian ugliness and commerce, to Bikira (The Virgin), where Father Richard received us with, literally, open arms. Whenever in Africa I heard Europeans speak of Father Richard it was as of one dearest to their hearts. He exudes kindness, and from his lips there pours a most pleasant stream of both wit and humour expressing the wisdom of goodness and experience as well as learning. You cannot meet men like him except amongst old missionaries of the Equator. He is the first Superior, and Master of Novices of a congregation of teaching brothers known as "The Little Brothers of Blessed Charles Lwangwa", one of the Uganda Martyrs. He is a kind of co-founder of the congregation with Mgr. Streicher—but you must not tease him too much by calling him "Our Venerable Founder."

The congregation is very young, being born only in 1928, but there are already forty brothers teaching in the elementary schools of Uganda, and I saw a dozen young nice hard at work at their preparation. I heard the Director of Education praise these native brothers, who, taking the three vows, give themselves up entirely to the work of the schools.

Father Richard, with his novices, has transformed a wilderness into a paradise at Bikira. Lovely flower gardens border on a good kitchen garden from which almost every European vegetable comes to the community table.

To our immense joy, we met here also Mgr. Gorju, the recently retired Vicar-Apostolic of Urundi. I spent long hours with this missionary Bishop of startling eyes and impressive beard, as, sitting on his bed while I occupied his long chair, he told me of the years he had spent in Urundi, and of the marvels he has witnessed. (The fruits of these conversations I have, after visiting Urundi, placed in an Appendix at the end, of this volume.) With admirable self-sacrifice, Mgr. Gorju offered his resignation to the Holy See; he thought he was growing old and very deaf, and that a younger man would better continue the transformation of Urundi which he had begun. So he returned to Uganda, his first love, to write and to preach and to give lavishly of his wisdom and goodness to all who come near him. While I was there a native arrived from a hundred miles away to ask his advice, and a Vicar-Apostolic followed. I could not count the number of times in the course of one day that Mgr. Gorju begged me to excuse him while he attended to one of his many visitors from all parts of the country.

At Bikira, too, was Father Gourmelin, Superior of the Mens' Training School for Teachers, which has sent hundreds of teachers to the Catholic schools of Uganda. Up on the hill stands the mission with its three Native Priests, two Brothers of Christian Doctrine, elementary schools, dispensary and convent of Native Sisters We are in Catholic Buddu, where we see the whole countryside kneel as the Angelus drum beats, and the women reciting the Rosary as they go to draw water from the wells; where a native policeman held up the traffic for me today in a town, while he asked for a blessing, and none found it strange.

After a lunch, of which every article had been produced on the spot, we went off to Mbabara to find Bishop LaCoursiere and start our journey to Ruanda.

6th August, 1938
The Bishop took me to the new Junior Seminary, some fifty miles away. The site covers a large plateau which is very, very high. A native driver left an empty lorry on the top, without applying the hand-brake. The lorry ran down the mountain. Wonderful to see. The lorry is no longer a lorry. The Bishop is no longer himself. The whole of this mountain has been acquired by the mission. There are many other mountains around it. A lovely spot!

Bricks are being made at the bottom of the hill, and men are carrying them up on their heads. They do not appear to appreciate the beauty of the scene. Eight class-rooms and a dormitory a hundred yards long are completed, and the students are at work. The Fathers' residence will be built last. At present they are living in something very odd. But that does not appear to
worry them in the least.

Father K. is responsible for the building of this seminary. White Fathers take no vow of poverty. Father K. is using his own money to build this training school for students for the priesthood.* Otherwise, Mgr. LaCoursiere tells me, there would never be any hope of his having a Junior Seminary. The Seniors, or Divines, go to Katigondo in Uganda.

We visited a lime-kiln on the way back. A native priest has built it. He also makes the bricks for a new mission which he himself is about to establish. He has already planted coffee, maize and potatoes. These help to pay for the building. God helps those who help themselves. Not so bad. It is encouraging to see these Native priests at work.

At another place we saw Father B., also a native. As a boy he was hard-headed, obstinate and bad-tempered—almost hopeless. He is now the universally-loved Superior of a large mission. An example of the Faith at work in Rwenzori. The Bishop said, "He is the best of a good bunch of native priests." This good priest regaled us with fruits: paw-paw, pineapples, bananas and oranges-all from his own garden.

Very good, very good indeed.

At the Kasengi channel of Lake Edward we saw a catch of two and a half tons of fish. I bought forty pounds of them for the seminarists we had just left. Then an Indian offered the Bishop a big sack fall "Gratis for the Fathers." But we had already too many. I had already paid. The Bishop did not praise me.

At Kitabi mission (Kitabi means It-is-not-bad) we met the smallest priest in the world. All the time we were with him I wondered, and the wonder grew, how a man so small could contain so big a heart. He looks ill and very worn, but be told me , "I am all right—perhaps, just a little too much to do, you know—like everyone else."

*The White Fathers do not make a vow of poverty: nor do they, however, receive any salary. They provide their own clothes, even their habits, and they may use the Mass offerings for this purpose.

What a day! By this time I had a truly wonderful headache, but as the Bishop drove back over a very "holey" road I forgot it. Not far from Mbarara we stopped to examine a new brick-making machine. Unlike Queen Victoria, the Bishop was amused when I said, "And, that thing we have just got out of—is a new neck-breaking machine?" It was always an awe-inspiring event to begin a journey with this Vicar Apostolic at the wheel. He used to take off his hat, shake up his sleeves, grip the wheel and—while a light of pure joy shone in his eyes—lose no time.

European Nuns were expected at Mbarara lately. The Superior of the Mission was one day almost suffocated by dust in his confessional. Coughing violently he let the box. "What in heaven's name is happening?" he asked a number of busy boys.

"Just dusting the church, Father, Mother Superior's orders."

The Sisters had -arrived!

There are 35,000 Catholics belonging to this mission. It is the centre of a district which in one direction stretches one hundred miles, and has two priests and a half share of a third. The other half is the Treasurer for the Vicariate, "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest to send workers into the harvest."

A priest from Luxembourg almost monopolised the conversation at supper tonight. He is making a dictionary of a language spoken by many of the people in this Vicariate, and whenever I spoke in English he said, "That word which you said—in French it would be what?" On being satisfied on the point, he would then appeal to his confreres to corroborate his opinion that in his dictionary it should be rendered "so and so." Whereupon discussions took place, which I am sure were very interesting, but entirely unintelligible to me. This moved the Vicar-Apostolic to edge the conversation on to the subject of native languages in general.

He said that in his Vicariate three languages are spoken and he pointed out how this complicates the administration of the mission. He cannot send every priest anywhere, but he likes to move the young ones round the Vicariate so that they will,'while their memories are still good, learn the various tongues. Then they can be employed anywhere and, what is more, can be generally useful at a place like Mbarara where all three languages are spoken.

Nowadays it is not usually very difficult for a young priest to learn a native language. He spends his first months in Africa almost exclusively at this work and in almost every country there are books, grammar, and dictionaries in existence. After six months he is expected to sit for an examination which he must pass before he can hear confessions, but he is not allowed to preach until he has got through a second examination, to prepare for which he is given one year from the day of his arrival in the country.

Most missionaries, however, are able to hear confessions after four months and to preach after nine. This does not mean, of course, that they know a native tongue thoroughly after that short time; indeed they continue to learn it for the rest of their lives.

Then we talked about the task of the early missionaries to Uganda. They were the first to write Luganda, being obliged to observe carefully and reproduce the speech-sounds, find their' meaning and note them in Roman script. When Mgr. Levinhac, the first Vicar Apostolic of Uganda, arrived in 1879, neither he nor his companions, of course, knew a single word of the language. One of them spoke a little Swahili, and that was all. Mgr. Levinhac had to help him—yet he not only learned to speak and write in Luganda, but within ten years had produced a grammar which, in the opinion of many, is still the best Luganda grammar in existence to give to learners.

Since Mgr. Levinhac, White Fathers have produced grammars and dictionaries of thirty-one languages, and the good work is still going on all over the place.

8th August, 1938
I did not believe that a night could be as short as last night, nor an hour as early as the hour I rose to go to Kabale. We soon took the wrong road. Reflection: It is better to get up late and travel by the right road, than to get up early and take the wrong one. A dangerous but beautiful route through the mountains which are all black today, where they are not red with blazing grass. We have crawled through dense clouds of black smoke coming from the bush fires. Three heads in the car with but a single thought. "I hope no car is coming in the opposite direction." None did.

Someone said: "The precipice on our right must be two thousand feet deep." The the car skidded on some loose stones. After we had NOT gone over the side of the mountain, a calm voice replied: "How interesting!"

Kabale is a very old mission with a newish, good brick , church. The missionaries' house is neither new nor so good. The people are Banankole and Bachigwa. Stumpy and strong looking. They smell like animals, and wear goat-skins. The houses smell of bats, but sweet-smelling fresh grass is strewn over the floors. Then I smelt oranges, hundreds and hundreds of oranges. The garden is golden with them. We filled the car with them—almost, and shall smell them for weeks. Altogether a very smelly paragraph.

There are 8,000 baptised Catholics here with 15,000 catechumens. A big conversion movement is on the flow. When we entered the church in the morning people there were a hundred people waiting for confession. The Fathers left their boxes at a quarter to twelve and knelt before the Blessed Sacrament to make their examination of conscience. Then they went with us to a frugal mission dinner. They slept, and so did I, for half an hour. Then they returned to the confessionals. The people were still patiently waiting and others had been added unto them. Throughout the White Fathers' missions in Equatorial Africa I found always this perfect fidelity to rule. Nothing, except the most urgent sick calls, are allowed to interfere with the priests' own spiritual exercises. Surely therein lies one of the causes of success.

In the afternoon we went to Mutolere. More mountains. The highest point we reached was 8,170 feet. The perfect road of thirty-two and a half miles is a splendid feat of engineering. Over the border in Ruanda and Urundi I found some fine roads across the mountains—but none of them was equal to this British one. We had a feast of colours for our eyes; lots of greens and browns; yellows and reds and pinks; the usual golden air and blue sky. And I shall reach England in November! Ugh!

We met a group of Batwa pygmies, who danced for us. They are a very primitive people, but they believe in a Supreme Being. Their name for Him means: He-whom-all-else-found-existing." They believe also in the immortality of the soul. The good spirits of men (They say "The part of a man which disappears at death) assemble on the white mountain, which they pointed out to us. But the bad are sent into the red mountain. That, too, they pointed out. It is a smoking volcano. Vivid!

Before dark we were at the mission of Mutofere. It is splendidly built in red brick with corrugated-iron roofs, which must be very hot during the dry season. Mutolere is the most modern mission I have yet seen . It was built and paid for by Father K. , who is doing the same for the Seminary in Rwenzori.

9th August, 1938
This morning I made three attempts to enter the church to say my, Mass. The last attempt was successful. The church was very hot and stuffy, and it was filled with people wearing goat-skins. My stomach is not accustomed to that. The whole congregation sang at the High Mass. The singing was savage, but how wonderful it was to hear the Latin of these people in their goat-skins, and the Gregorian Chant, in the wilds of Africa. I asked an old woman what she had been singing. She recited in her own tongue the Kyrie and Gloria and started the Credo, when I stopped her, satisfied. A European traveller going this way had heard this Latin chant. He wrote about "the senseless chanting of Latin." Pity the poor foreigner.

Father Prentice slept in a bed over which there was a notice in a glass frame. "King Albert of the Belgians slept in
this bed on the night of —" The King also had a jigger extracted from his toe on that night, and thereby I hangs a little tale. A jigger is a tiny worm which acts unpleasantly under the toenails. The King's surgeon from Europe, apparently, knew little about jiggers. He came in great concern to Father Nicolet, the Superior of the mission. The king had an infection of the toe; medical science had done its best—the result was bad. It was, perhaps, something tropical and could Father Nicolet help. Father Nicolet examined the royal toe, diagnosed a jigger, and said he could cure the toe. Now the way to get a jigger out is to call a native boy, present him with a clean pin, or burn the point of his pin with a match, and leave it to him. Before you can say Jack Robinson the jigger is out and you are cured.

Father Nicolet followed the usual procedure. He called a boy, the boy looked at the King's toe, pulled a pin from his shirt and began the operation. But the King's surgeon let out a cry of horror, pushed the boy out of the room, dragged Father Nicolet after him and swore by all his gods that that was no way to treat a king's toe. The result was that the boy was recalled dressed up in a new white kanzu, presented with a brand new pin on a metal tray covered with a white cloth. The surgeon produced an alcohol flame and in great state a procession was formed and the jigger duly extracted The boy, to his intense astonishment and delight, was given a new pound note as medical fee. He still thinks all Europeans are mad.

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