Sister Crotti Finds
Hope In Africa
by Sr. Rachel Crotti, FMA
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I was five when my
family arrived in the States from Italy. I was the second of five
children then. Two more brothers and two more sisters were born in the
U.S. While I attended SS. Peter and Paul School in San Francisco, my
family lived on Mason Street in North Beach. I fondly and gratefully
remember Father Larry Byrne, SDB, who captured my heart and the hearts
of my brothers because of his personal goodness and enthusiasm. Sr.
Claire Perino, FMA, was my second-grade teacher, and Sr. Wilma Sanchez,
FMA, my third. When I was in fourth grade we moved to 26th Street, in
St. Paul's Parish. After eighth grade I left home and went to high
school in Aptos, Calif., as a Salesian aspirant. I made my first
religious profession as a Salesian Sister in Newton, N.J., at age 20 in
1968. |
| Sr.
Rachel with refugee children in a camp for the displaced outside
Khartoum, Sudan. |
MY BACKGROUND IN AFRICA
Although I always enjoyed teaching in our American parish schools in New
Jersey, Louisiana, Texas and California, the thought of being a foreign
missionary was always strong in my mind. I knew that our U.S. children would
always have someone there for them, while our African childrenmore often than
notwould literally have no one. I am now completing my sixth year in Africa and
I am very happy and enthusiastic to be a Salesian Sister in East Africa today
with and for our young people there.
As the Gulf War ended in February 1991, I was on my way back from Rome with a
letter from Mother General to our provincial, containing my acceptance for the
East African Missions. In early August I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, and in a few
weeks I was teaching English at the government high school in our Siakago
Mission and working with the girls in YCS (Young Catholic Students), a movement
similar to Catholic Action.
After a year I received a transfer to the northern province of Zambia, where
I took over the administration and some teaching in our developing and
fast-growing remedial school for eighth-grade drop-out girls. This was a real
adventure as we tried and miraculously succeeded in accommodating the many needy
girls who came to us with the desire to get back into the school system. We
"expanded" our makeshift classrooms and even taught in the open. We
improvised benches by putting planks of wood on cinderblocks, and the girls used
pieces of wood as writing blocks in place of desks. After nearly two years, on
my last day at Laura Centre, Kasama, Zambia, we hosted a brief but memorable
visit by the First Lady of the Nation, Mrs. Vera Chiluba.
I was subsequently reassigned to Kenyathis time to our Provincial House in
Nairobi. As provincial secretary I had the opportunity to visit most of our
missions in Ethiopia and attend an interprovincial meeting in Abidjan, Ivory
Coast. I also spent a memorable month in Khartoum, Sudan, while writing a
project proposal with our Sisters there. At the end of last year it was my joy
to attend our twentieth General Chapter in Rome. It was truly a prophetic
chapter, and we are still drawing inspiration and strength from an
ever-deepening understanding and living of the Prophecy of Togetherness! Now,
upon my return to Kenya after a visit to the States, I will be assigned to
Khartoum, Sudan.
OUR AFRICA TODAY
In the document released by the Synod of Africa in 1994, Africa was called
the "forgotten continent" and was symbolically depicted as the victim
in the story of the Good Samaritan. The document goes on to say that every
African nation is beset with major problems, not the least of which are violence
and the disruption caused by refugees. During the past year I have witnessed
several terrible acts of violence in two of our four East African countries. The
last such act was the shooting and subsequent death of a suspected bank robber.
On another occasion I saw a women being beaten and kicked by two policemen. In
Sudan the already bleak picture has even darker shades due to the many displaced
refugees who painstakingly make their way to the cities while fleeing their
war-torn towns in the south. Their dream for a brighter tomorrow is soon
shattered in overcrowded refugee camps in the desert, where food and water are
scarce.
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With a young girl who has
just collected firewood, Dilla, Ethiopia. |
Catholics in Islamic Sudan are very few, yet they are very fervent. Recently
some Catholics in a forgotten region in Sudan wrote to Nairobi requesting a
priest and, if one was not available, asking that the Eucharist be brought to
them in some way because "without the strength of Jesus we cannot go
on." This plea was very moving because these people are almost completely
destitute of food and water.
What can we do? Very little indeed. Yet we can do something and this very
realization gives us new life. With the strength that only Jesus can give, we
can simply yet profoundly be there with our young people. As we try to teach
them skills, we can try even harder to allow God to work through us to impart
values to the young so that we can educate them for life.
THE YOUNG
The young people in East Africa are enthusiastic and eager for a better life.
In most African countries more than 50% of the population is under the age of
18. Sadly unemployment is also high. Education is the key to a better future,
but in nearly all our missions we must begin with emergency aid and health care
services before we can formally teach.
Yes, problems are many but there is hope, too. The recently concluded Synod
of Africa named YOUTH as one of the main challenges facing Africa today as well
as one of its greatest resources. Our Salesian charism is right on target, and
Don Bosco's method of education is the best gift we Salesians can share with our
African young people, who, sadly, have been "taught" almost
exclusively with a rigid repressive system, a residue of earlier colonial times.
In Khartoum, Sudan, the Salesian priests, brothers and sisters are working
side by side for the young, and a new project for a technical training school
for both boys and girls is emerging.
Africa is alive and with this life there is hope for a brighter tomorrow
especially for youth. I feel very privileged to be a small part of this large,
ever-challenging and ever-changing picture. Please keep me in your prayers.
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