I once visited this elderly woman, she must of been 70 plus years old. She lives alone in a tiny mud hut that had one of its walls falling down. I thought to myself, if a decent storm comes the whole house will fall on top of her while she is sleeping.

Like many of the elderly living in an urban environment she does not have the traditional support that was normally available in her culture. She can’t ‘retire’, everyday she struggles just to get enough to eat. This is a growing problem in Tanzania, the neglect of the elderly.

Yesterday she came up to me and said that she does not receive communion at mass. I asked her why, she said that she does not give any offering. I said, so what, why don’t you receive anyway. She said, it would be like stealing to receive communion and not put in an offering. I asked her how much money she had. She answered, none. I smiled and said, it is not a sin to receive communion if you did not put any money in the offering basket because you didn’t have any money. She smiled back at me. The integrity of the poor people astounds me.

Tomorrow will be Palm Sunday. It will be an occasion for the Christians to express themselves in a truly African fashion. We will start with the Blessing of the Palms at the House of Prayer. From there we will walk-dance-sing our way to the outstation church.

The choir will be decked out in their finest, so will the altar boys, the leaders and the people. Usually we have traditional drums since we can’t carry the organ. For a minute one gets a glimpse of traditional Africa and one is grateful for not having electricity.

It is quite a site to see the many Christians marching through the village, stopping traffic, taking their time, ever joyful in be in God’s Creation with God’s People.

While the wait continues during negotiations for purchasing the neighboring house/plot to come to a satisfactory resolution, I am seeking out other ways to be proactive. One way is to get a steady supply for water, especially when we start building. For now, we are bringing water in on our heads. We hire women to bucket in water on their heads for so much a bucket. This has the advantage of giving work to the local population but it is expensive and unpractical during the heavy building stage, for watering plants and tress, ok, but not building.

We found out from the Water Dept. that it is possible to bring in piped water, for a price. They will have to come out and take measurements and give us a cost estimate. I hope to take this step after Easter.

I’ve learnt that one has to wait an awful lot here so having something else to do while your waiting helps. One is always preparing something, as the Boy Scouts say, “Be Prepared”. But more importantly, as Jesus said, “Watch and wait”.

Yesterday there was a big celebration in which the bishop blessed the site of pilgrimage for the people. On this site is the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a chapel for perpetual adoration. Over the years this area on the top of Kawekamo Hill has been a place of prayer and pilgrimage.

We also have a place on the lake where people can go for a meal and drink with friends. Groups can go to have a picnic outing. There is music and an all around good atmosphere to enjoy oneself. The diocese also has a Pastoral Center that serves all types of groups, Christian and Non-Christian. It is a very busy place with many people coming for seminars, extension classes, and meetings.

Where does the Lake House of Prayer fit in with all this? Well, we already have a Pastoral Center, a restaurant/picnic area on the lake and a pilgrimage site. Why not have a place of Silence, Solitude, Simplicity and Spiritual Direction that provides the contemplative space for people to enter their ‘inner rooms’? The above mentioned serve the outer needs of the people. The Lake House of Prayer the Inner. This is where we can fit in.

The Eucharist under a large tree on the Lake House of Prayer land has been full of blessing. We usually get around 30 people, mainly women who come just as the sun is coming up(one of the reasons we start at 7am so we can see to read). The small table which is also used for breakfast and office work is the altar. The people sit around the small altar on grass woven mats, some men sit on rocks. I seek to set a quiet contemplative tone for the mass with times of silence for reflection and prayer.

A few days ago it was St. Joseph’s feast day. This year will be the Year of the Man in our diocese. The hope is to reach out to men to involve them more in the church and family life. As the mass went on I got the idea that the women should bless us men at the end of mass. After receiving communion I told the people how just before I was to return to Africa from vacation with my family I would kneel before my mother and she would bless me. I also shared a famous Swahili saying, “Hakuna Mtu kama Mama” (There’s no person like Mama).

I suggested that the women stand up in front of the men and the woman catechist lead the blessing of the men (there were 5 of us). They were a little shocked and very embarrassed to be asked to do this. Women don’t usually bless priests here. But with a little encouragement they gave us a fine blessing. As I watched the Christians slowly walk away after mass talking about what just happened I thought that this is the way things change. How life gets transformed. By asking for the unusual in the midst of the usual. Women blessing the Men.

Mwanza City is a very crowed place. What used to be a very small sleepy small town on the shores of Lake Victoria has become the fastest growing city in East Africa. The city’s infrastructure is the size of a town of 25,000/. Mwanza has 2 million people.

When it rains hard the streets get flooded. The major road has only two lanes, even four would not be enough now. The “Machinga”, the people who walk around carrying things to sell, everything from forks to computer accessories, put their stuff on the sidewalks so one must walk in the road to by. There is just no space.

The worshipers of the main Hindu temple downtown closed off a much used alley to keep the growing crowd of Machinga away from their temple. The people pulled down the wall immediately and a small riot followed. The multi-cultural richness of Mwanza is getting challenged by many reasons, one being there is not enough space.

We all need space, inner and outer to survive and even thrive. The Lake House of Prayer’s vision is to provide the exterior space so that the guest can re-enter his/her own interior space and find peace. Contemplative Space is not only for monks. It is an integral part of living a full life, even in a city such as Mwanza.

Tanzania’s economy is getting very good press in the newspapers. By certain kinds of economic criteria its economy is one of the fastest growing in East Africa and in all of Africa. But according to a recent survey which focuses on the everyday life of the people the rosy picture of the GNP does not translate into much needed social services in their lives. This survey stated that over 70% of the people surveyed saw their lives getting worse.

Indeed there is a lot of money being made with tremendous profits for individuals and some companies. But it does not get translated into improved social services such as sanitation, health, counseling, community outreach programs that are the responsibility of the government.

Yesterday I started again to ask a woman about the prices of food, the lack of rain, the quality of health services, to get a sense of how bad is it really getting for people at the bottom. She answered in a stoic manner, never a tone of complaint, just the facts as she is experiencing them. Life is getting steadily harder. My survey is not very academic but neither are the ‘facts’ reported in some newspapers. So who to believe?

Mwanza is called Rock City, and for good reason. There are these myriad of sizes rocks everywhere. People wanting to build must deal with them. So we too at the House of Prayer. We have already spent a lot of money breaking big rocks but now these rocks need to be broken down to a size we can use them for the foundation and the outer walls of our future buildings.

I’m learning there are rock specialists for breaking down massive rocks and there are specialists who break down these still somewhat big rocks into a manageable sizes to build with. There are also different kinds of rocks and each kind presents a unique challenge for the rock breaker. Some rocks are so hard to break that they just dig a deep enough hole to bury them and be done with them.

After a two days negotiation we hired a rock breaker specialist to get our rocks to building size. He came today with his gang of 4 workers to start a three week process to get our still too big rocks into buildable size. This is very hard work that needs a lot of intelligence for one can spend a lot of wasted time banging on a big rock in the wrong way. A wise rock breaker knows where to put the charcoal to produce a little crack that will spell the end for Mr. Big Rock.

I spoke with the Bishop two days ago and received confirmation that the process of buying the plot and house next door is continuing. This was good news, perhaps in the not too distant future I will be living on site.

I meet with the architects tomorrow to revise downward the plans for building. After consultation, reflection and prayer it is clear to me that we need to start small, not big. The plan is to build the staff housing for the core community first. Second, we would build (if we get enough funding), one wing of the individual guests residence (6 rooms) and one wing of the group buildings (holding up to 20 people).

I will direct the architects to cut out a second parking lot and gate. We are taking too much space with concrete. We need to have ample space for gardens, trees, plants and flowers.

The reason for the changes is to create an atmosphere of Silence, Solitude and Simplicity. Starting too big would not be beneficial to such a vision.

We usually get our water for building and watering our plants and trees from a natural spring not too far from our property. There are two natural springs that the people have traditionally used to get their water. A couple of years ago the Water Department put in a large water tank that draws water from Lake Victoria. But because of corruption the tank was not installed in the proper place so that it cannot deliver water to all areas. Many people still use the natural springs for their water needs.

We made a open cement tank to hold water. When the water gets down we hire 10 local women to bring water to the tank from the natural spring. This morning we discovered that the spring is dry. There is no water. Why? One, because of the very light rainy season we’ve been having. And two, because of the increased building that is going on in our area.

The question comes up–should we be taking water for building and watering trees from this spring when it lessens the chances of the people of getting water for drinking, cooking and washing? We can get water from a tap that gets water from the Water Dept. We have to pay so much a bucket but the water is plentiful. It will take longer and cost more but we won’t be taking water that people need to live.