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Sunday, July 26, 2015

Quiet weeks!?!?!




Quiet weeks!?!?!
Should have been a quiet week ... the opposite instead happened.
Sunday we did celebrate here in the parish the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and twenty people got the Scapular, a small square brown fabric, a sign that recalls the consecration to Mary and the protection of the Virgin. On Monday we begin the training with CRS (Caritas in USA) for the microfinance project. On Tuesday I called the nuns working at Hospital in Bossemptele because Joseph, our mechanic-driver-handyman for over twenty years, is seriously ill. We had brought him there nearly two weeks ago, but after two surgeries his situation began worsening.  There is an intestinal blockage, with adherences and perhaps also some perforations due to a neglected appendicitis. It’s raining a lot, so I can only leave at 4.00 pm. After 2 hours and 87 km driving I arrive in Bossemptele, beginning to get ready for tomorrow travel, over 300 km, in order to reach the Hospital. Our sick friend is really weak. On Wednesday we wake up at 4.00 am, and after some last details we can finally leave at 5.35 am. The trip, despite 40 km of awful asphalt, with a lot of holes, is almost regular. Entering in Bangui unfortunately a truck, passing by, smashes a glass of our car! Around 9.00 am we are at the hospital where luckily we can find the staff and room where hospitalize Joseph. As I go for some errands, it happens to meet the Vatican delegation that has come to prepare for the visit of the Pope. They are here just for an initial inspection. Pope Francis should come to Bangui on November 29! I do the fill up of the car. Then I try to find the replacement part of the broken glass. It’s simply impossible. At 2.00 pm I leave toward the North. At 5.30 pm I'm in Bossemptele. There I leave the nursing sister who came with us, and around 7.00 pm I drive back to Baoro where I arrive a bit tired after being for 700 km on the road. On Thursday morning I leave for Bouar. The road is not paved, and a convoy of some hundred trucks is passing by. They travel escorted (just this last week there were attacks, kidnappings and killings on the road that goes to Cameroon ) and the highway code is not an optional ! On my way back I find a pair of them overturned. Meetings and visits, and in the evening I find myself at Yole, near Bouar. On Friday morning, before leaving, I go to have a look to the fields and farms of the Seminar. And I greet with pleasure my "grandchildren": calves, descendants of the first cows that I had bought, beginning the breeding in 1993, with the help of the Diocese of Cuneo. The remaining of the road is "normal". There are even some bridges repaired by an NGO, ACTED, and finally I arrive in Bozoum around 12.30 am. And so the "quiet week" has resulted in 1,100 km of driving! As for now, what really matters is that Joseph is being treated and is getting better! We are close to him with our thoughts and prayers.










camion in viaggio
un camion en route
lo stesso camion... rovesciato
le meme camion... renversé!