by Edward Hayes

What is a 73 year old missioner doing trying to establish a new parish in North Mara? Well, it’s a long story!

I arrived in Tarime Parish in late 1959 and began to struggle with learning the Gikuria language. Sometime in early Spring of 1960, my Pastor, Joe Reinhart, sent me off on my first overnight safari. He told me to take his Jeep along with a cot, a mosquito net, some drinking water and head off to a place called Bukenye. (Those who knew Chacha Mwita will recognize his wit as he said, “You’re not a real missioner, Ed, until you’ve slept with the people!”) I was scared! I followed Joe’s directions from Tarime to Gamasara and drove the Jeep down a very rocky footpath to the valley. As I started driving through the valley I noticed a lot of people coming out of their houses and running in the opposite direction. Then I spotted a Christian lady whom I recognized. She was laughing as she yelled out to the escaping crowds, “Come back, it’s not the Mzungu (European), it’s our Mogaka (priest).” It seems that the messengers of the Colonial authorities had been coming down to the valley trying to collect the taxes on the cattle and the people thought that I was one of them.

My task was to visit the Christian families, anoint the sick and elderly, hear Confessions, write down the names of the new Catechumens, and prepare for a morning Mass before returning home. The people were very kind and welcoming as they struggled to understand my poorly spoken language. I slept in a small chapel that had been built of rock by Jack Manning and the Christians. It was a bad night! There were hyenas sniffing around and ‘laughing’ right outside the door. I was sure that there must be some snakes sneaking around inside! And even for my vertically challenged, and (in those days) skinny frame, the cot was too small and my feet went through the net resulting in a mosquito bite on each of my ten toes! Until I left Tarime the following year, I made several trips to Bukenye to visit the Christians, on sick calls and to celebrate the Eucharist with the people there.

For many years Bukenye was a difficult place to reach because of the lack of roads. In 1974-75 a newly ordained priest, Fr. Justin Samba, (now the Bishop of Musoma) worked with the Christians to repair the old Chapel which had been falling down. The area continued to be served by Tarime Parish. However Tarime was growing with many schools, prison, District Hospital and a large town population which kept the pastoral team very busy. Then in the early 1980’s Kowak began to cover the Mara Valley. It was an area that could only be reached by pikipiki (motorcycle). Much of the visiting and contact with the people was done first by Jim Conard and Tom Tiscornia and later by Carl Meulemans and Frank Flynn. Outstations were set up in Komaswa, Surubu, Nyamarembaro, and Bisarwi, the latter place being the site of the original rock chapel of the 1950’s.

In the 1990’s big changes began. A modern tarmac road was put in from the Kenya Border, over the Mara River to meet with the Mwanza-Musoma road. It went right through the upper edge of the valley by Komaswa. In the meantime a large foreign gold company took over the mining in Nyamongo and they built an all-weather murram road from Komaswa right through the Bukenye Valley to Nyamongo. Also during the 90’s Jim Conard, with the help of Maryknoll Lay Missioner Lou Flaim, built a church in Surubu Village.

I returned to Tanzania in 2000 and after a short stint at the Language School, Bishop Samba assigned me to work at Kowak. His letter of assignment instructed me to assist the Parish Priest in all the pastoral ministries of the Parish with “special attention to our beloved Bakuria people in the Mara Valley”. So after 40 years I found myself saying Mass at the site of the original Chapel where I had spent several nights and which was now a pile of rocks on the ground.

Kowak is a huge a Parish consisting of five large centers, each of which could be a parish in itself. I soon found myself in charge of the Baraza la Walei (Parish Council), the Catechists, Viwawa (Young Christian Workers), Chama cha Wito (Vocation Club), etc. Surubu, in Bukenye, was just one of five centers to be served. Finally I told the Bishop that it was not possible to ‘pay special attention’ to Bukenye until we had a young priest to cover the rest of Kowak. In 2002 the Bishop assigned a newly ordained priest to us and in January, 2003, I started to concentrate on the Bukenye area. Kowak had also ‘inherited’ several outstations from Komuge Parish and two of them, Mara Sibora and Nyanchabakenye, are connected to what will someday be a new missionary parish.

After consulting with the Bishop and Jim Conard, I decided to make the center at Komaswa. It is on the main road and is building up to be a small town. There is a police station there now and electricity has been brought in. Many people are building permanent brick houses. One of the problems is that there is no ground water at Komaswa. Last summer when I was at Maryknoll I asked the help of Brother George Carlonas to design a house that would supply a lot of water from the rain. This house is now being built with a 100,000 litre underground water storage tank. Hopefully, if all goes well, the new missionary parish of Komaswa will be opened this year.

Kowak is the ‘Mother Mission’ of North Mara, built by the White Fathers in 1933. The first Maryknollers arrived in 1946. The first expansion took place in 1948 when Joe Brannigan moved to Rosana and Bert Good and Joe Glynn to Masonga. Since then Maryknollers have opened parishes in Komuge, Nyarombo, Tarime, Tatwe, Nyamwaga, and Ingri. Others who came behind us have further expanded to Rogoro, Sirari, Shirati and Nyamongo. The early Maryknollers, following the mission methods of the White Fathers, saw the parish to be by it’s nature missionary, that is, not a place ‘to settle down in’, but a place ‘to go out from’. From Kowak the Church has been planted in many corners of North Mara. But “God isn’t finished with us yet” and there are still places out there waiting for the Good News.

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Maryknollers in Musoma