African Sisters of St Mary (CMM)
Support Group
News 2023
11/06/2024
Habari za leo ?
(What are the News?)
What is the news of the CMM Sisters in Tanzania with whom I spent last month?
This year I spent time at the Motherhouse of the CMM Sisters in Masasi. I had lived there for some years in the past. I also visited six of their eleven other Houses in Tanzania, a vast country four time the size of the UK and bigger than Kenya and Uganda together.
In past years I took a long bus journey of about 15 hours to see the Sisters in their Houses in Sayuni and Njombe in the SW Highlands. This year however I flew to the nearest airport where I was met by them. We then drove by car for a further 6 hours to reach their Convent. Of the more than 30 Sisters and Novices there, many were still harvesting on their fields some 7 hours away.
The Sisters are well. Some had not come back from working hard on their farms to bring in a good harvest this year. This was a great relief after last year, realising that agriculture is their source of income. The main produce of their fields is maze, rice, beans, sorghum and cassava. - The machine which we were able to buy from donations separates the corn from maize cob saving the Sisters from having to beat it in sacks with a stick as they had done previously which was a very tiring and labour intensive task.
A few years ago at Sayuni the Sisters planted avocado trees which are now giving a wonderful crop of fruit. These pears sell well to a local exporter, so the Sisters would like to extend this orchard for the future.
In fact some I bought recently had a label ‘Produce of Tanzania’!
On the farms at several Houses the Sisters have been putting out bee hives near their tree nursery, which has given a successful trial harvesting honey which again they sell, as well as the wax. - Another surprising experiment of the Sisters in using nature’s gifts.
The latest news is the opening of another Day Care Centre using the Montessori teaching method which has been so successful in their other three schools. It was amazing to hear the three and four year old children answering questions in English - Swahili being their mother tongue. Two of these schools, English medium Nursery and Primary Schools, want to start Secondary Schools next year due to the great success and demand from the children’s parents.
At the time of my visit there was school holidays so there were only three girls in the hostel these three being so keen to learn had come back early in order to have the use of the school books we had bought for them last year. - Due to the poverty, a result of staple food price increases, security is quite an issue now. Thus a wall should be built around the compound and we hope to help with this.
Let me finish with a prayer:
Lord, we give thanks for the CMM Sisters love and care so evident in their ministry, especially to those who come into direct contact with them. May their loving service and hard work inspire us to do likewise. Amen.
Dirk Juttner
October 2023