Asher Kaufman, at 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 spent several weeks in Cameroon and then the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Angola, South Africa and Mozambique followed. There was a relatively short journey through Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho. This dispatch chronicles his departure from South Africa a short visit to Paris and arrival in Assisi, Italy.
As I sat at Johannesburg O.R. Tambo airport and awaited the start of the boarding process at the gate, I reflected on my time in Africa which had lasted for nearly six months. I had been to eastern, central, and southern Africa. I had spent more time in this continent than I have in any other excepting my own. It had been a beautiful and adventurous experience, one I was profoundly grateful for. I had spent time in small villages and cities; in mountains and plains; in deserts and forests; in parishes and schools.
When I first embarked on this African trip from Paris back
in September, I did not even know the full scope of the countries that I would
be visiting. That is to say, many of the countries simply were added along the
way. For instance, I did not know I would be going to Mozambique until a few
weeks before I arrived there. Obtaining visas and figuring out transport had
not always been easy, but with my guardian angel’s help, I managed. Going to
many countries in Africa gives you an experience that is a bit difficult to
understand until once you are actually there yourself. Many things one hears
about from afar: the safaris, the villages, the colorful clothing and intricate
dancing. Many other things serve as ready deterrents for anyone actually
planning a trip: the malaria, the inadequate road infrastructure, the lack of
public transit (in some places), the poverty, the wildlife, healthcare
services. And as you might expect, the true experience lies somewhere in the
middle. It is true that the pace of life, the diet, the ways of getting around
are all things that require getting used to. However, it is also the case that
none of these will impede anyone’s having a memorable and very authentic
experience. Meeting real people, staying with them, eating at their table,
visiting their churches and communities were all some of my favorite parts, and
of course none of those involve simply following a guidebook and staying at a
hotel. In fact, I only spent a half of one day on safari during those six
months (it was at Queen Elizabeth Park in Uganda). When Fr. Cleophus in Kenya
remarked on how it was such a pity that we would not be visiting the Tsavo Park
on this visit of mine, I remarked that I had come to see children, not animals.
“Good evening, ladies and gentleman. We will now begin the
boarding process,” came the voice over the loudspeaker. We queued up, boarded,
were seated, took off, and watched as Africa slid away into the impenetrable
darkness below.
About eleven and a half hours later, the plane coasted to a
smooth landing at Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. I deplaned,
went through passport control (which has now become completely automated for
visa-free passports) and collected my bags. In the process of trying to find
the proper exit for the rideshare rides, I ran into more than one person who
ended up asking me for directions on where to go. The Paris
airport is actually one where one needs to be careful because it is easier than
one may think to get baited by some seemingly helpful gentleman into being
taken to a less-frequented area of the airport where you are offered a ride for
wildly above the government-fixed taxi fare to downtown. There is a
well-organized gang that operates this racket. They have baiters to ask people
if they need a taxi and then pretend to take them to one, drivers who pose as
the taxi drivers, and lookouts who keep their eyes peeled for airport police or
security agents so that the men can scatter at the first sign of trouble. They
depend on your being disoriented from a long flight, not knowing the local
language (i.e., just speaking English), and failing to notice the signage
around you. The first time I was in the Paris with my mother at the airport I
was led by one of these baiters down onto a different floor entirely to a
parking lot completely devoid of people where he left me with a driver who told
us the ride would cost €150. In fact, the government fixes the price of taxis
at €56 or €65 from CDG to downtown, depending on which side of the river you
are going to. A Parisian taxi driver I talked to described the men I spoke of
above as the “mafia” and said they could even become dangerous. One way to know
the difference between a legitimate taxi and a fake one, the taxi driver told
me, is that a real taxi driver will never approach you and ask you if you want
a ride.
“It’s bad taste,” he said. Anywhere else, I would have
dismissed that as violating the capitalist principle of going after the profit,
but in a place like France with its book length set of society manners, I can
believe it.
Not wanting to fall in with any of these men, however, I
booked an Uber from my phone. Nevertheless, I still managed to end up on the
wrong floor (through my own fault, though). Thankfully, the Uber driver was
kind enough to wait the three minutes needed for me to charge down the stairs
to the correct floor.
Soon I was on my way. The driver and I made some small talk
along the way; he was not originally an Uber driver, having only done the job
for four months. His real job, he told me, was working for a company that
produced plane meals. Skychefs or GateGourmet, I don’t remember which.
When we pulled up in front of the parish, I called Fr.
Duloisy.
“Hello, Asher,” he said.
“Hello, Father,” I replied in French. “I’ve just arrived.”
“Why, then, Asher, just come in. You know the code,” he
responded as though I had only just returned from a quick walk to the bakery
for some croissants and coffee.
It was true. I did know the code and somehow had not
forgotten it in all the months that had passed since my last visit. As I came
down the steps into the presbytery (yes, it is down the steps
and not up; it’s a strange 1960s construction), I really did feel almost as
though no time had gone by since my days at the Foyer Jean Bosco when I would
commute down to the parish to serve Masses on the weekends. The same group of
tourists languidly awaiting in disorderly fashion in front of the church the
arrival of their tour guide. The same traffic noisily traversing the traffic
circle in front of the house. The same crisp early morning air that I grew to
love about Paris. I breathed a deep breath of satisfaction. I was, if not
exactly home, at least on familiar ground.
Fr. Duloisy brought me back to reality.
“Will you serve the Mass?” he asked.
I looked at my watch. The 9:00 a.m. Mass was in about twenty
minutes. I had not showered or changed, but at least I was wearing a collared
shirt and slacks. At Mass, I saw the old Saturday morning regulars I had known,
still strong in their daily Mass attendance.
Afterward, after doing some bush trimming (Fr. Duloisy never
shies away from the necessary tasks for the parish), he showed me around some
of the newer improvements he had brought about in the parish, including redoing
the flooring on the altar in the lower sanctuary, which eliminated the tripping
hazards that had almost caused me to fall forward headlong with the tall,
silver processional Cross on one Sunday when I served Mass during my last stay.
I reminded Fr. Duloisy of this event, which he himself had not forgotten.
That evening, there was the Saturday night Mass. Just before
this Mass, I saw Alain, a good friend of Fr. Duloisy’s and also a friend of
mine that I had gotten to know well during my last visit. He is a renowned
singer who has performed all over the world for a French cultural institute.
The three of us went out to visit a parishioner who had
invited us over to see his house in the Bois de Boulogne, a very exclusive and
wealthy enclave just west of Paris. This parishioner had an out-of-the-way,
unassuming house on a small side street dinner at a quiet restaurant in the
seventeenth arrondissement not far from the church. The seventeenth is not much
of a tourist area, despite its proximity to the Arc de Triomphe, but it is one
of my favorite areas of Paris due to its elegant Haussmanian architecture,
charming restaurants, and intimate neighborhood feel. Unlike Montmartre, which
is busting at the seams with foreign tourists, the seventeenth is a real
Parisian neighborhood, and you can feel it.
The parishioner we went to visit was an artist and had a
formidable collection of art that only he knows how he managed to obtain. It
included works from his grandfather, small statues from more than one famous
sculptor, and paintings that were from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In the center of the house (which was itself of a wonderfully charming
nineteenth century style) was a small courtyard with potted plants that was
completely shielded from the street. Really a delightful house.
For dinner, Fr. Duloisy, Alain, and I went to a local
restaurant where we had our reunion dinner. It was wonderfully spent, even
though Alain had the misfortune to have some meat juice spilled on his evening
jacket by a waitress.
The next morning, after an early breakfast, I set off for
Assisi where my Italian classes were set to begin the following day. Alain was
kind enough to drive me to the airport.
Upon arriving, I was quite literally shocked by the
stringent weight and size control measures Air France (of all airlines!) had
put in place to make sure no one was bringing anything remotely overweight or
oversized on the plane. All of my carry-on luggage had to be under 12 kg, I
found out (after I had already sent my very underweight checked bags through).
Every passenger had to put his bags on a scale and fit them in a box to make
sure they were the right size. After seeing my bag ring up at over 14 kg, I was
sent back to the check-in desk where I was told I needed to have the bag
checked for 80 euros. Beginning to feel like I was being robbed in broad
daylight with my eyes wide open, I decided to see do what I could to avoid this
hefty fee. After combing through the bag for anything I could possibly jettison
and cramming everything I could in the various pockets of my cargo pants, I was
helped by the very nice employees who let me through with a bag that still was
most of the way to 13 kg. After passing through the security line, I proceeded
to put everything in my pockets back in my bag.
Otherwise, my travel went smoothly. The flight was on time
and proceeded without a hitch. At the Florence airport, I was able to easily
board the tram that went directly to the Santa Maria Novella train station
where I boarded a train bound for Foligno with a stop at Assisi.
That evening, I arrived at the Casa Papa Giovanni, the guesthouse where I am staying for the entire month of May while I take Italian courses here. It was a relief to arrive at this comfortable, centrally located, welcoming place after a couple of long days of travel. I met a very nice young Australian man at dinner, and after dinner he invited me to take a walk with him through the town, where preparations for a medieval festival called the Calendimaggio were in the fever pitch of preparation. I’ll explain more about the Calendimaggio later.
After getting a very good night of sleep, the next morning,
it was time for my first Italian lesson. I was actually quite excited to begin
formally learning a language I had long admired from a distance, so to speak.
The instruction, even for us beginners, was from the first moments, completely
in Italian. The teachers made it known that they would not be willing to use
English at all in their classes, even if just for translation purposes (e.g.
“What’s ‘cup’ in Italian?”). Instead they we were obliged to stumble about with
these strange new words, often resorting to a kind of clumsy sign language, or
some badly disguised Spanish. But within a couple of days the wisdom of their
approach began to show itself.
Without recourse to an English crutch, our minds
began to latch on to some Italian phrases, especially those needed for
inquiring after more. We had to rely on our rapidly increasing Italian
vocabulary to make our way through the lessons, and the whole experience felt
rather like a stranded sailor who, after much flailing and useless kicking,
finally begins to grasp about the edges of the rocks and then, slowly but
surely, hauls himself up onto dry land.
Learning a language is really not a very linear process, and
there are often days that feel very good and others (like when one is sick)
when the last thing you want to do is fight your way through the unbroken
snowdrift of an unfamiliar language with its foreign pronunciation. Some words
or concepts only require one lesson and stick immediately while others require
many reiterations and mistakes before they begin to stick, but in the end,
seeing yourself go from a clueless babe to a conversant participant in a
language is such a beautiful experience, it is hard to compare it to any other.
One realizes that one has not only unlocked random workbook sentences and
phrases but a whole world of places and books. It is enchanting, really, and
often you will find yourself wanting to read a book in this foreign language,
no matter its subject, for no other reason than the sheer enjoyment of reading
and understanding thoughts and sentences in words and syntax other than your
own. I have often felt that it is rather like what one would feel like if one
were to open a trap door and enter another world, full of its own places and
people, all different from our own.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Of course, as I said,
before the euphoria comes many days and weeks and often months and years of
arduous toil in the desert of workbook sentences and phrases, verb
conjugations, vocabulary memorization, and all the other banal tasks involved
with taking on a new language.
This indeed was the work to which I was now consigned to
spend a month engaged. There were only three of us starting the course on the
same day, and we were all beginners. One of my classmates is a Tanzanian nun
named Sr. Agnes, and the other is an Irish scholar named Catherine.
Having been signed up for the super intensive course, I had
afternoon one-on-one lessons in addition to the morning classes with the
others. One day a week I was given with no afternoon lesson so that I might
have some free time to walk about and explore.
One of the great benefits of taking classes while being here is that the entire surroundings serve as a classroom. When one steps foot into town, reads a history plaque, orders food in a restaurant, attends a Mass, converses with strangers, reads a book in the guesthouse library, it is constant immersion in Italian.
To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE
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