Br. David

I met Br. David way back in 2005. Looking at my receding hair now, I kind of imagine how this friar was 25 years ago. But at the same time I am so much aware of the Swahili saying that states akili ni nywele kila mtu ana zake! (a literal understanding of this is that the hair is the visible part of the head that represents the essential, invisible part of the head), and so I think akili ni nywele ukiona haipo kichwani kwa nje, ipo kwa ndani. Br. David’s hair is honestly not coming out and I somehow think it is very much concentrated inside the head. 

He has been my professor for a couple of years and I can attest to it that his hair is doing him justice not to come out because his knowledge of his area of specialisation is way above my comprehension and always supplemented by his never ending jokes. When I for the first time met him, he was very comical as usual. He kept swirling his index finger around the buttons on his well build stomach. Apparently I was coming from a generation addicted to six-pack tummies and here I was standing before a man with a one gigantic pack, yet unnerved by it. He introduced himself, “naitwa ndugu David Kamau, OFM cap.” This was the first time I was hearing about “OFM” and so he went on to explain, “OFM means – Order of Fat Men – like me!” I laughed because although I knew very little about OFM, I knew that that was not the actual meaning of the initials. Indeed he was still watering my naïve vocation and as he says “… the effectiveness of vocation promotion is based not on what a vocation promoter does but on what he/she is” (How to Become a Capuchin, 4).

Br. Sila

Seven years ago, I and my groupmates arrived at St. Bridget, our hearts lively throbbing with mixed feelings of both the uncertainty and the excitement of leaving Mpeketoni. You know mpeketoni had not been a very hospitable place to most of us who come from the highlands and so we somehow abhorred the place. If you add to that the amount of manual work that awaited us every morning as postulants, we had every reason to detest the “capuchin way of life”. It was with such an attitude of life we met the then vocations promoter Br. Sila. 

He did not say much and so the interaction remained very much minimal until somebody came over and said “jamani, Kimani has been arrested.” He had been arrested because of entering into the city with a smoke emitting land-cruiser. Sila looked around and laughed, which was quite funny. He wondered, “kama wamemshika kwa sababu ya hiyo, mimi si watanifunga miaka ishirini juu ya hii mkokoteni yangu” Apparently he was driving a small vehicle whose emission of gas would have made you think the industrial area is on the move! From that time everything else he said was hilarious. How easy it is for Br. Sila to see the humour in seemingly ugly events.

Go well Bro

One person who believed that life is a celebration is Ceasar and he celebrated!!

Br. Christopher

Five years ago when I saw Bro. Christopher for the first time, I felt like I was leading a slow motion life. It is normal to be fascinated by things you can hardly do or possess. His movements enthralled me. Let me compare myself with him for instance. If I was to prepare a cup of tea, with my lazy movement, I would go to where cups, spoons and teabag are and carry them to the water dispenser at once. It is such a boring thing to watch me do it! For Christopher expect him to make a haste move to the dispenser first to confirm that it has water, rush to the other side of the room to check whether teabags are there, pick a cup, mid-way the room he will remember he needed to call a friend, make a call. After the call, take the cup to the dispenser and leave it there. Make a quick movement to the other side of the room, collect a spoon, take it to the dispenser go back get a teabag bring it to the cup. Fill the cup with water and prepare his tea, just when he is about to start taking it, his mlikamwizi will ring again and he will speak for a while. By the time he finishes talking on the phone, the tea is cold and he will repeat the whole process of making tea again with the same lively movements to and fro across the room. He will not sit because he is a man on the move! Last year, to be precise on 29^th July, being a cold day, we remained inside, he came over to where we sat and incited a debate on travel and Bro Calistus assuming he could equal Christopher’s travels said, “juzi tu nilikuwa Uganda, the other time, nilienda Arusha……” Bro. Christopher cuts him short saying “Shirika linakusaidia sana, hungeenda huko kote, but ni vizuri, you are following my footsteps, hauko mbali na ufalme!!!” the laughter ensues. Travelling is in his blood much as it is in his name ‘Christopher’ the patron saint of all travellers.

Br. Charo

People say time flies, but at times I think time rockets. Such is the case with the time between when I first saw Charles and now. A lot of things have changed, now he is a theology student. I met him when he was still a kind of a herdsboy. If not a herdsboy, then probably a livestock trader’s right hand boy. He was carrying a small he goat and he was selling it to a missionary priest.  For reasons am yet to know, he lengthily explained to me that what he was carrying was a he-goat and he-goats don’t give birth, therefore that particular goat would not give birth. He said this goat this, this goat that – he technically explained everything. 

I thought I knew he-goats don’t give birth to kids, they give something else to she-goats! It is with such intimidating confidence and certitude of a mwalimu that he says and does his things. Just the other day he was listening as I and Br. Joshua discussed some movie that I had watched and he said “ah, ndio maana mnapenda movies, zote huwa zinaisha jinsi mnavyotaka ziishe” and it is true but I had not thought about it from that angle. A movie is only captivating if the “star” doesn’t lose!

Br. Bonaventure

The first time we met at the Mater Hospital, I looked at him and thought to myself, ‘surely no wound that time does not heal’. He walks with his fist half-clenched, and his handshake is firm, probably because it is half clenched. Nonetheless, there is no sign of resentment or hurt, despite the fact that he almost lost his fingers while working with a power-saw in the noviciate. A few months later, I asked him about the permanent mark resulting from the accident which left his fingers disfigured and he said, “haki hiki kidondo kilikawia kupona, hadi nilidhani niko na ukimwi, lakini sasa kimepona hata nimekisahau.” What an interesting comment about such an adversity! Well, every joke cracked by a sick person about his sickness should be funny, right? Indeed his is an outlook greatly far removed from any complaint that often ensue bad luck.

Now he is going out to milk what he refers to as “digital cows milked by a digital brother!”