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Mm Tanzania History 10 Musoma North Mara

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Mm Tanzania History 10 Musoma North Mara MARYKNOLL IN TANZANIA CHAPTER TEN MUSOMA DIOCESE POST INDEPENDENCE NORTH MARA PARISHES The area north of the Mara River in Musoma Diocese was divided into two sections or Deaneries that followed the ethnic make-up of each deanery. The two ethnic groups were probably the largest in the diocese, the Luo and the Kuria. In almost every parish in this whole area either one or the other ethnic group was the overwhelming majority within the parish boundaries, with the exception of Komuge, populated by the Basimbiti ethnic group, and Tarime, which is a town parish populated by many ethnic groups. But even in Tarime the Kuria is the largest group, followed by the Luo. Others living in the town are from all over Tanzania and there are probably some from Kenya also living there. Since the Basimbiti have close affinities with the Kuria, Komuge Parish will be linked with the Kuria parishes. We will begin with the Luo parishes, since Kowak was the first parish in North Mara, and it has remained a parish of great importance to Maryknoll from 1946 up to the present. KOWAK, ST. BRIDGET PARISH: In the first volume on Tanzania we had left off writing about Kowak in the year 1962. At that time the pastor, Fr. Frank Murray, had decentralized the parish into several large centers, each of which served a few outstations. The catechumenate, sacrament course, and parish records were to be done at the center level. The decentralization was done primarily for practical purposes rather than for theological reasons: it was impractical to expect people to walk long distances into the mission every Sunday. The post-Independence era had begun and people had become much busier in their farms and in other economic endeavors. Thus, it was necessary to bring the church closer to where they lived. The theology of local communities or what came to be called small Christian communities had not yet been developed, nor had the Vatican II theology of the full role of the laity in the three offices of the Church – priest, king, and prophet – yet been articulated. But the practical reasons for decentralization were sufficient. In 1962 Murray was assigned to teach at Mara Secondary School. Many years later, to the chagrin of Murray, Kowak Parish was re-centralized, with all books and registers brought back to the mission. A practical rationale lay behind this decision as well: the priest was heavily involved in development of the educational and health facilities at the mission and could not devote the time necessary to serve a de-centralized parish. The catechumenate, however, remained at the center or outstation level. The era of having the sacrament course for six months at the mission had passed and could not be resurrected. Fr. Tom Donnelly, who was at Kowak in the years 1961 to 1963, commented, “He was strongly opposed by other veteran missionaries. They said that (decentralization) was destroying the central mission. But it was the way to go and eventually everybody went that way.” As was reported in Chapter Four of the previous volume, Kowak Parish had been sub-divided into four large centers, of which Kowak was one, along with Butuli (or Waturi, as Donnelly called it), Wategi, and Kotuo. In the years 1961 to 1963, each priest was responsible for one place: Tom Donnelly for Waturi, Jim Kuhn for Kotuo, and Murray for both Wategi and Kowak. Donnelly described how he served Waturi. I worked in Waturi regularly. It was like its own parish and I was like a junior pastor in that area. I rode my motorcycle all over the area and knew the people, probably the best I have known people in all my years in Africa, and they knew me pretty well. We had excellent sacrament courses there for three years. It was probably a high point for catechetical work; things were just booming. They hadn’t had that much attention ever before; they were always just a remote outstation of Kowak. I was living there two or three days a week, every single week, and they responded in kind. It was a true renaissance in Waturi. I slept in a room behind the church and had plenty of water in the water tank, which got water from the roof. I did my own cooking in a kerosene pressure burner. Then Frank Murray built a house for a catechist behind the church and a catechist and his wife came down and lived there. So, Waturi had a resident catechist, which was good for the people. Waturi is located in a valley and has a lot of villages. I went around to all the villages and got to know the people very well. When we get to the years of mid-1980s to the present in Kowak we will see that Fr. Jim Conard, the pastor, was heavily involved in building a Girls Boarding High School and expanding the bedded dispensary into a full hospital. At that time we will put forward the arguments of mission as social development versus mission as formation of self-reliant, faith-enriching Christian communities. We will see that there are valid arguments for both, but by the 1990s and especially in the new century the critical question for Maryknoll missioners in Tanzania was how limited personnel should focus their time, energy and resources. There were personnel changes at that time. In 1961 Jim Kuhn was assigned to open the new parish of Ingri. In his place, Fr. Tarcisius Sije had been assigned to Kowak. Sije was ordained at his home parish of Nyarombo on August 16, 1959, and worked in Tatwe Parish for his first year, transferring to Kowak in late 1960. Thus, in the years 1961 and 1962 the three priests at Kowak were Murray, Donnelly, and Sije, until Murray went into Musoma to teach at Mara Secondary School. When Sije was at Kowak Murray decided to take two Centers and have Fr. Sije serve the Mission at Kowak. Murray was transferred from Kowak either at the end of 1962 or very beginning of 1963 and in 1963 Fr. Bill Daley was assigned to Kowak to be pastor in place of Murray. Daley also took the two Centers that Murray had been serving. In 1963, the transfers continued: first, Tom Donnelly went to the U.S. for his furlough and on return to Tanzania in 1964 he was assigned to Tatwe. Later in 1963 Tarcisius Sije was also transferred and a Luo priest from Kenya was brought to Kowak. Unfortunately, this priest had an alcohol problem and did not stay long. Finally, in 1964 Fr. Wayman Deasy was assigned to Kowak with Daley. They had been together in Masonga for a year or so from 1959 to 1960. Unfortunately for Daley, Deasy went on furlough in 1965 and on his return to Tanzania he was assigned to Ingri. But prior to that, in 1964 Fr. Bill Sweeney had been assigned to Luo work in Musoma Diocese and he took the newly inaugurated course in Kijaluo at the language school in Musoma. On completion of the course in early 1965 he was assigned to Kowak and he and Daley remained there together for the next six years. Of those mentioned above, two – Wayman Deasy and Bill Sweeney – were never interviewed and we have no direct information about their work in Tanzania. Fortunately, we do have sufficient information about both Kowak Parish in the 1960s and the Luo Deanery in those years from Daley and Donnelly. One matter that Daley commented on was that Kowak and later all the Luo parishes of North Mara followed the policies of Kisumu Diocese, which served all the Luo people of Kenya until Kisii Diocese was established in 1960 (and Homa Bay Diocese in the 1980s). Bishop Oomen of Mwanza had set this policy when Kowak Parish was started. The White Fathers always treated Kowak differently from the other parishes. They made the decision that Kowak would do whatever was policy for Luos in Kisumu Diocese, except for one thing, the disparity of cult (i.e. a dispensation for mixed marriage). I don’t know why Kisumu did not give this dispensation but we did. Daley wondered, however, what would happen if a priest was assigned to Kowak coming from a background of serving Bantu parishes. He argued that there should be a uniform policy for all the parishes in Musoma Diocese regarding such matters as mixed marriage, second wives, the question of baptism of children of second wives, and what policy to have with regard to a widow, who in Luo cultural law was obligated to be taken as the second wife of the deceased husband’s brother, similar to the Old Testament levirate law. In the 1960s and even into the 1970s Kowak was still providing refuge for Catholic widows so that they would not be forced to become second wives and therefore denied further reception of the sacraments. The women did various tasks at the mission and at least one proved to be a superb catechist. The Luo parishes of North Mara also continued using the modified version of the old White Fathers’ four-year medal system of catechumenate, albeit shortened to between fifteen and twenty-one months and de-centralized to the outstations and Centers. Daley said that the Mill Hill Society in Kenya used baptism as a means of earning money for the parish by charging high stole fees. Half of the stole fee was given to the catechist, giving the catechist a great incentive to bring in as many converts as possible.
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