Threshold Fall/Winter 2008

KWA HERI!

After six years, the two Tanzanian sisters who have become so much a part of the community must say “kwa heri,” which is Swahili for “good-bye.” They have not merely travelled bravely from one side of the world to the other, but have experienced an interior journey that is just as extensive.

Sisters Susana Kindole and Presentasia Chipeta arrived with only a smattering of English and no way to imagine the many cultural differences they would encounter. They began bravely to attend language classes at Donnelly College and accustom themselves to the food, climate, city life and a thousand other details. Once they finished at Donnelly, they were ready to tackle the completion of their course work at Benedictine College.

Sister Susana has been working on a secondary education degree with a concentration in biology. “I knew I wanted to teach,” she reports, “because I like to be with young people and help them make a happy life.”

The choice for biology, however, she admits was a matter of obedience. Now that she’s done it, she also admits that it was a very good choice. “I love to look at the animals more closely now. When I look, I know how and why they are the way they are. God is good to make everything the way it needs to be made to make its life simpler.”

If anyone doubts that she means it when she says she looks closely, they need only see the Fall 2008, Raven Review, featuring Susana in habit and hip waders slogging through the marsh to delight in a handful of turtles.

“When I came I was not sure of anything. Every day I would ask if I could make another day. At the end of one year, I said, ‘Ooh, I made it!’ There was so much to learn. I feel I learned and changed a lot.”

She attributes her success to the sisters and teachers who believed in her and assured her she would do well. Now, although she will miss them, she looks forward to being back in Tanzania and teaching at her monastery’s high school. “I learned many other things besides biology in classes on health, ethics, education and psychology. I can teach many things that will help my people to make their lives better. All I need now from the people who have helped me is prayers.”

Sister Presentasia is a very different personality from her companion. Not at all the rugged outdoor type, she is more likely to be seen practicing the piano or trying new things on the computer.

When asked why she got to come to the United States to study, she too cites holy obedience. With her usual understatement and humility, she says simply, “There were many other good sisters, but I was told to go. I said, ‘But I’m not smart.’ Then I was told ‘You’ll get smart there, just go!’ “

Many things upon her arrival seemed somewhat familiar, even though the context was very different. Although she was raised in a village, she had lived close to a large city and was quite accustomed to stores and crowded streets. There were, however, many differences in things like the clothing (or lack of it!) that young people wore, as well as in foods. The most important things, though, she says are easy to understand.

“The prayer life, the way we live in community, the different kinds of people you have to get along with, are the same anywhere in the world.”

On her return, she is willing to do whatever is asked, whether in a mission or in the administration of the monastery. She anticipates something in the latter since she has taken courses in business and communications.

She has been especially grateful to enter the world of computers and computer graphics. In addition to word processing, she has been able to enjoy learning photography and layout design. When she returns, she hopes to be able to do many types of communications, but realizes that she probably will not have all the advanced tools and programs she had in her classes.

“It will depend so much on what I can take with me because I won’t be able to get so much software and equipment there.” Besides a laptop and a camera, she has her heart set on taking a small electronic keyboard, and anyone who knows Presentasia knows she will find a way even if, as her friends have teased, she’ll have to wear it on her back on the plane.

Sister Esther Fangman lived at Peace House with the sisters when they first arrived. “They have gone from knowing almost nothing beyond ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to full conversational ability and getting a degree. Not only was the language new, they were unaware of a whole body of knowledge we take for granted; they did not know about such things as space travel or drugs for AIDS and had never seen a microscope.”

Sister Esther then changes hats and speaks as the president of the Federation of St. Scholastica. “One of the most important things is that they have been exposed to so many different things and people. This enrichment will give them an imagination that wasn’t there before. Now they can plan for a greater future for their people and their Benedictine community than they would have even thought about before.”

Sister Susana's adventure in the Benedictine Bottoms
(photo courtesy Dan Drimmel, Benedictine College)


Sister Presentasia has learned not only how to use the computer,
but how to build it.