TURKANA DIARY 2 - The mission and the watchman

The mission entrance gate, seen from inside

When we reached the Todonyang mission, we received a very warm welcome by Father Wycliffe and Father Victor, who live in the mission and took care of us during our stay in Turkana. Immediately, I realised that I was in a different world.

If you have never been in a mission in a remote area, you might wonder what a mission is like. That depends on when the mission was set up and, I am sure, many other factors. But I can tell you about the mission in Todonyang, which I have visited.

Initially, the Todonyang mission was a single tent, where the missionaries would sleep for a night or two regularly, so that they could visit the villages, meet the people, say Mass, bring the word of God to them and be a presence of comfort and support. But real change cannot be achieved with occasional presence, so they eventually decided to make Todonyang their permanent base, and over time they have made the mission a well organised compound. The mission territory is now fenced. This is partly to protect the mission from animals, partly to establish clear, but gentle, rules of living next to each other. What is done in the mission territory is the responsibility of the missionaries and locals need to respect that. Similarly, the mission respects the village territory.

So, when you arrive at the mission there is a big gate. Next to the gate there is a small construction, where the watchman stays. The watchman is employed by the mission. There is always a watchman at the gate, it's a security statement.

The watchman's job is very simple: he opens and closes the gate whenever one of the Land Rovers of the missionaries, or any other authorised vehicle, enters or exits the mission. The missionaries have two Land Rovers, and there are two other cars used by the mission for the mobile clinic.

There aren't many other authorised vehicles that come to the mission, so traffic at the gate is not busy at all. But the watchman is always on the watch and does a good job. By observing how the watchman does his job, I started to get a sense of how differently people live in Turkana. In Turkana it's always very hot. The watchman finds shade under his shed, next to the gate, laying down on the ground. He is never alone, there are always a few people with him, mainly men and children, sitting down with him, chatting or simply keeping company to him. As a community, they socialise in the simplest possible way. They don't do much, if anything at all, but they are together, they share moments. When we arrived with our Land Rover, the watchman had already stood up, opened the gate, firmly secured it open with a rock. He smiled at us and greeted us. Fr Wycliffe stopped, said a few words in Swahili, some in English, some in Turkana language, perhaps. They didn't rush that moment, they established a connection, they checked that everything was fine. They looked around and acknowledged the others too. The children, of course, got up and started smiling and running around in excitement. When the moment had soaked in well, the missionary waved at him and carried on. The watchman smiled back, closed the gate and went back to sit on his mat. The job was done, but in that simple act of entering the gate, kindness had been exchanged, and human contact had been established. After that moment I felt peace and joy in my heart, and I am sure that they felt it too.

I later learned that the watchman has five children. Two from a first marriage which didn't work out, and three from his second wife. After he separated from his first wife, she went to live with her two children in another far away village, so the watchman never sees his first two children. He now lives with his second wife and their three children. Two of them have been fortunate enough to be taken into the mission boarding school, even though he can't afford to pay the school fees. As a gesture of commitment, the mission asks him for a small contribution instead and deducts a small portion of his salary. His third son is now reaching school age, and he would like him to go to school too. But he has no means to contribute more towards the school fees for this child. The future of this little boy will be very different from that of his brothers, depending on whether he will go to school or not.

No family in that area can afford to pay the full cost for one child in the school, let alone three! The mission is left with the difficult task of limiting the number of children they can take into the school unless they are able to find donors to cover the costs.

LINKS

To sponsor a Turkana child, please visit: Children Sponsorship Programme

To contribute to Manlio's trip crowdfunding, please visit: Manlio for Turkana

To support New Ways, see: Fundraising - New Ways