Br. Nicholas

Ha!ha!ha! I am not laughing because I am on my way to the bank, I am laughing because some people make every moment look like a celebration. Such is Br. Nicholas. I haven’t seen him for quite a while but I am sure when we meet, he will still crack his hilarious jokes. When I saw him for the first time I said to him, “Thank God you have joined us, now I am not the shortest fellow in this order!” He broke into laughter and in between his laughter, I picked some words which I of course don’t remember. But then he said, “I am not laughing because of what you have said,” then he continued, “ninacheka juu ya stori moja nimekumbuka. Kuna kuku mmoja alitoka kijijini, alitembea mjini. Basi likawa linapita hapo karibu na Kenchic. Yule kuku aliona kuku huko Kenchic kwenye kioo. Kumbe aliona wale kuku wa mjini hawana adabu, walikuwa uchi na wanafanya somasot kwenye kioo!” Now I know why he is always laughing and smiling, I guess he tells himself stories in the head! I would love to get into his head. How moody this religious life can be without such comical brothers in this Order.    

Br. Muema

Some call him ‘the carpenter of the bicycle’, some call him Onesmus, yet others in his village call him ‘father Muema’ and he laughs about it because he cannot keep correcting the villagers like, ‘I am not Fr. Muema, I am Br. Muema!’. Some years back, he found me in Mpeketoni. Innitially, I did not see anything special. He was ‘just another new brother’, they (we) come all the time. However, as time went by, things started to change, the easiness with which he took life was just great. I realized that with his attitude, all was fine, acceptable and good! Nothing really seemed to trouble him. When he lost his brother, the first born in his family, it was no different. He came back after the burial and I said, “it is good your brother has died, now we are eating mangoes brought from your place,” he laughed an added, “yep, I also had a chance to go to the village”. When I asked him why I did not get to see a lot of people “mourn normally”- the African mourning, he said “hata mimi sikulia, hata sikumbuki kama niliona mtu yeyote akilia!”.