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The
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa arrived to Burundi more
than a hundred years ago.
Since
then, they have been at the service of the population.
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Work
and Mission of the sisters in Burundi:
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MSOLA
sisters from Burundi
- Sr.
Leocadia Kana she works in Gitega (Burundi)
- Sr.
Beatrice Miburo she lives her mission in Gumo (Ghana)
- Sr.
Agathe Ngendakumana, she is actually in Gitega (Burundi)
- Sr.
Gratienne Ndizeye, she is in Brussels (Belgium)
- Sr.
Victoire Niyonzima, she is actually in Nairobi (Kenya)
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| Sr.
Maite Oiartzun with a group of young women interested
iin Missionary Life. |
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Working
with the youth
Sr. Maite Oiartzun is from
the North of Navarre (Spain).
She
worked for some years as "youth animator"
in Pamplona. After some experiences in summer camps
in Africa, and a closer contact with the MSOLA sisters,
she felt God was calling her to "beyond".
After a time of discernment she decided to dedicate
her life to Africa and joined the Missionary Sisters
of Our Lady of Africa.
Today
she is a MSOLA sister working with the youth of Burundi.She
takes care also of the Missionary Vocation Animation.
She organizes week-ends, meetings and retreat for
young women interested in the life of the MSOLA.
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Maite
with the group of young women assisting to the retreat
to discern their vocation.
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The
MSOLA and the victims of AIDS/HIV
The
MSOLA are actually in GITEGA, in a poor suburb, full of
life, where there are many victims of AIDS/HIV..
Sr.
Feli Garcia (from Spain) works with the victims of AIDS/HIV:
women, men, families, orphans, the sick, their families,
the teams that help the sick people... She cares for them
in the small dispensaty and organizes the care in the home
where she visits them also.
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Sr.
Feli and Sr. Jeanne Chanel with the orphans, teaching them.
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| Sr.
Jeanne Chanel visitin a youngwoman, a patient with AIDS. |
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In
Burundi, to drink beer from the same pot is asign of sharing
and of friendship. Sr. Dolores Huarte shares the drink with
some of the workers of the team, during a celebration.
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Houses
for better health
When
Sr. Dolores Huarte, a nurse from Spain, arrived to Burundi
she worked in the Internal Medicine service at Bujumbura
hospital, in the capital-city.
Working in a dispensary up-country,near the border with
Tanzania, she became aware of the root-cause of many common
sickness that could be avoided. Then she decided to work
at the level of "prevention", helping the population
to understand that the most common sickness and "killers"
could be avoided with hygiene, clean drinking water, better
food and latrines…
Named
to a far away community: Gisuru near the border with Tanzania,
Sr Dolores was able to put in practice her ideas.
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"I visited the people and I saw the houses
made out of dry grass or mud bricks, the places
where they draw water, their "inexistent"
latrines,… I went to their fields to know
what they were eating… I started to teach
them how to cure simple injuries, eye sickness,
how to care for malaria, and how to organize
small family pharmacies and the danger to buy
medicine in the market.
Seeing that there was a government dispensary
only 4 km. away, the community of MSOLA decided
to center their activities in prevention, "formation"
and education. An Educational Center was build.
We
started by the socio-sanitary education of women
with small children.
The
women of the hillls came one day per month in
groups of 30 to 50 to follow this formation,
to weight the children and to depict those who
were sick. The aim was that the population would
take in hand their own health, and they responded
positively. The hygiene of body, clothes and
housing, a healthy diet, the use of simple medicines,
the cleaning of sources, the use of latrines…became
more and more important.
Some
volunteers created the same awareness on the
different hills.
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Sr.
Dolores visiting some of the newly built houses.
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The
school built in local stone, was also
part of the project.
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The
link between the lack of latrines, the dispoal of the water,
the prevention ofstagnant water and the breeding of mosquitos,
etc… and the building of their houses was easily made
during the discussions. The "twinning" of the
parish with a Belgium parish provided the funding to help
those who were ready to make an effort towards change.
When
a family built a house with hard material: stones or burned
bricks, good windows, a good and solid framework made of
wood, at least three gables, well built walls with a latrine
made according to certain hygiene norms, out-flow of rainwatera,
tiled soil made of flat stones, then they received freely
the metal sheets for the roofing and a concrete tile to
cover the latrine. All could benefit from the project, and
those with no salary and no means received also help for
the outside kitchen and oven. Out of the 2,500 families
scattered in the 22 hills, 800 houses were finished in 5
years.
Some of them built even a separated small stall for the
animals (which was quite an innovation in the region).
When the house is clean and beautiful, the family starts
wishing to furnish it : beds, chairs, a table, a cupboard,
shelves... People saved to buy all this and the carpenters
made business !
A team monitored the project and checked each house before
agreeing to give the roofing. The health of the population
improved little by little and the change in the houses was
visible.
Then the war came… many fled, but what the awareness
and the importance of taking responsibility for one's own
life and health
that cannot be destroyed and remains with them wherever
they are.
Sr. Dolores Huarte
Logroño (Espagne)
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One
of the new bridges with pilars
of stone higher than the highest
level of the river.
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A
MSOLA Sister building bridges
Mugera,
in Burundi, at 20 km from Gitega, is the area where
the Ruvubu River flows into the Ruvyironza.
Two
big rivers no bridge in Mugera to cross those rivers.
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The
"old method" to cross theriver: a good swimer
pushes theboat of reeds where the "traveller"lais
down.
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The
school children, the sick, the christians and the catechists
had to make a long detour of many hours to get to the parish,
to the school and to the dispensary. The two bridges built
by the White Fathers over the Ruvyironza, had all disappeared.
Men who knew how to swim had built small rafts of papyrus
over which one could lie down, while the swimmer pushed
the raft to the other shore. That was too dangerous for
the grievously ill, pregnant women or with children, because
the water was 3 metres deep.
One
day the MSOLA got a gift from a Belgian parish and to the
great joy of the whole community, we decided to use it for
building a bridge on the Ruvyironza. A Father advised us
about the place and the manner of building the foundation
in the water, and the works began for a bridge 27 metres
long.
The
whole population joined in the work, bringing stones, the
gravel and the sand for the construction of the concrete
underwater bases and the 5 pillars of the bridge, each 1.80
metres high, so that during the season of rains, the trunks
of the trees could not be raised by the waters.
After
the construction of the pillars, we needed long and large
enough tree-trunks. So I asked the Government permission
to take eucalyptus trees in one of the State plantations,
near the bridge. The day planned for cutting the trees,
two large army trucks arrived. Thge soldiers had received
the order to transport the trees up to the river. I gave
them dry sticks or rods about 3 metres long to slide under
the trunks of trees and to tie them so that 2 or 3 men might
get at each side of the trunk and lift it. When seeing those
dry sticks, the soldiers said they would break. They went
to fetch others, fresh branches from small trees, which
they attached to the trunks but as they lifted one, the
branches bent and the trunk slipped!
The
workmen and the men of the villages set the sticks in a
row and interlaced the fresh branches through them, then
helped to lift the trunks. To the great surprise of the
soldiers, the sticks did not break and held up very well.
The soldiers were not aware that these men had already transported
quite a number of trunks up to the river before their arrival.
An
accident and another bridge
The
passage on the Ruvubu River, constructed by the masons of
the parish in 1956 with 2 pillars and two wobbly tree trunks,
had been the cause of some accidents. On 8th September,
when a group of women coming to the parish for the celebration
of that feast, were crossing the the bridge, a trunk toppled
over and many women fell into the water. Most of them could
be saved, but two of them drowned. After that accident,
we caused the other trunks to fall over to prevent more
accidents.
In
1984, we got a gift and we decided to use it to replace
this bridge. Once the place for a suitable bridge was chosen,
we started to build a route leading to that place. To calculate
the height of the pillars we consulted the elders to know
the height that the water reaches during the season of rains.
There were 4 pillars of 1.50 metres high and the length
of the bridge was to be 24 metres.
As there was no rocky foundation in the water, like for
the first bridge, we had to make space with sacks of soil
to hold back the water during construction. We had to invent
a new way of proceeding. When the bridge was finished it
was a feast! The first one to pass over it was a catechist
who had never been able to pass over the former bridge because
of a balance problem. Now he had space to walk, for the
bridge was 4.50 metres wide.
Sr.
Gabrielle De Bent,
Hasselt (Belgium)
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