Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He spent the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He arrived in Uganda on September 15. From Uganda he traveled by car to Rwanda on September 28. After a week in Rwanda there was once more a return for more travel in Uganda. On October 11 he arrived in Tanzania and on October 26 traveled to Kenya. A visit for three weeks to Madagascar followed on November 7 and then South Africa. He is now in Cameroon."As the Christmas season begins to come to a close, I thought I would provide another update on the Cameroonian visit since my last post.
On Christmas Day, I went to a local parish called Notre Dame du Lac (Our Lady of the Lake) for morning Mass. Initially, the attendance was quite subdued; that is to say, the Church was nearly empty.
By the time the second reading was read, some more people had made their way in. One might be inclined to think these people negligent and irreverent for showing up to Mass late on Christmas Day, but it must be pointed out that many of them are coming with very large families, and it ought to be considered that dressing eight young children in spotless tuxedoes and dresses in time for a morning Mass is not at all easy. Further, many of these people did not have cars, or if they did, driving conditions were so variable and difficult that one could easily end up ten minutes late because of an unexpected but all too common traffic jam.
After Mass, we went back to the novitiate house and had ourselves a merry little Christmas lunch. This included manioc (a local root plant that is quite nice when cooked to a tender almost pulp-like quality), pork, and plantain. The evening was calm as everyone was preparing to go home on break.
The next few days were calm, with minimal activity due to the Christmas holidays. On St. Stephen’s Day, there was a memorial service that we attended for the deceased brother of a member of the community. On Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Family, I attended a Mass at one of the MSA parishes and met with the group of children afterward which will hopefully make up the Children’s Rosary there. On December 30, I made a short tour with one of the brothers of some of the religious communities around us, including a house of Verbum Dei brothers and Oblates of Mary Immaculate, as well as the Marists.
For New Year’s Eve, after the evening Mass, there was a lively party that lasted until past midnight with the whole community, where I filmed a humorous video of a large bug, flat on its back, its legs waving helplessly in the air. The joke was that they were moving in time with the music playing on the loudspeaker that people were dancing to, such that he looked much like one of the merrymakers.
On January 3, I set out for Ebolowa, the very first place I had visited the day after I arrived in Cameroon, where the bishop had invited me back to try to start Children’s Rosary groups.
The chancellor, Fr. Arnold, had helped to arrange my visit, and he took me to his parish to begin efforts there. I spoke at both the 7:00 a.m. Mass and the 9:30 a.m. Mass. After the latter, the children in attendance (for it was a children’s Mass) went to the Grotto of Mary next to the Church to pray the Rosary together. As it happened, the sun finally came out from behind the clouds just as everyone assembled there. The heat was quite strong, and I could feel the streams of sweat pouring off my brow and down my back underneath my undershirt. Nevertheless, when I would look up at the children reciting the prayers, unperturbed, with eyes closed, I realized that I was the only one who seemed to be in any distress. For this I was grateful. That afternoon, we went over to a birthday party for a local priest that Fr. Arnold knew. It was at the rectory and a nice way to unwind in the evening. Everyone was very welcoming with food and drinks while a soccer game played in the background.
That evening, however, soccer did not remain in the background but became the focus of everyone’s attention across Cameroon as the national team was facing South Africa in the elimination rounds of the Africa Cup of Nations.
I went over to the local minor seminary to watch the game with the young men there. Having just been to South Africa before coming to Cameroon, my loyalties were a bit divided heading into the match, but the most important was just having the time to get to know the rector and seminarians there.
After the match, the rector walked me back to the residence I was staying at ahead of the busy day that was to come.
Originally, I was supposed to leave Ebolowa on Monday, January 5, but realizing that in so doing, I would miss visiting any of the schools, I decided to (and the chancellor graciously permitted me to stay another day.
This permitted me to visit four schools, Sts. Joachim and Anne school, Pope Benedict XVI school, and Our Lady of Fatima school.As we were having lunch after visiting the last school, we ran into the nun who runs the local high school, and she wanted us to come there too, so we came that afternoon. That made in total four schools, which was certainly a respectable showing for one day.
I was satisfied that there was a solid start to work with in Ebolowa and a strong tie with the bishop’s office.
On Tuesday, I took the bus to come back, arriving in Yaoundé around 6:30 p.m. Br. Gabin was on hand to pick me up and bring me back to familiar territory, the seminary residence in Nkolbisson."
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
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