29 de setembro de 2008

SERVIÇO PASTORAL

© JVieira

O arcebispo de Juba disse que a cadeia católica de rádios do Sudão é um instrumento pastoral ao serviço do povo de Deus.
Dom Paolino Lukudu Loro afirmou que a rádio é uma forma nova de realizar a missão pastoral da Igreja no Sudão.
O arcebispo Lukudu fez estas declarações aos coordenadores das oito rádios da cadeia que estão em Juba a participar num curso de duas semanas de gestão de rádios comunitárias e de elaboração de projectos.
O prelado de Juba acrescentou que a cadeia de rádios é o contributo da Igreja para o processo de construção da paz no Sudão.
Dom Lukudu agradeceu aos institutos combonianos o presente da cadeia, afirmando que o auto-financiamento é o maior desafio que o projecto enfrenta.
Paola Mogi, directora da cadeia, sublinhou que é fácil abrir uma rádio. O problema é mantê-la.
Os directores concordaram que os desafios maiores que enfrentam são a falta de pessoal qualificado e fundos para levar o projecto adiante.
Até agora a Rede de Rádios Católicas do Sudão tem em funcionamento a Rádio Bakhita, a redacção e o centro de formação em Juba. Até ao fim do ano as estações de Yei, Torit e Montes Nubas devem estar no ar até ao fim do ano. As estações de Malakal, Wau e Yambio ficam para 2009.

16 de setembro de 2008

OTHERS

What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is collage, even genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.

Michael Ondaatje em «Divisadero»

12 de setembro de 2008

BAKHITA


Jeberona Church © Reuters

SUDAN CATHOLICS
TURN TO DARFUR SAINT


In a dusty church in Khartoum's Jeberona camp for displaced persons, the congregation claps and sings beneath a portrait of a smiling woman who has become a focus of hope for a divided country.
Josephine Bakhita, a former slave who died in 1947, has risen from obscurity to become the first saint from Darfur in western Sudan, a region convulsed by war for the past five years.
"I would say she was a gift from God ... an offer from God," said Bishop Daniel Adwok, the Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Khartoum. "She has come on time for the conflict here in Sudan."
The Roman Catholic Church canonised St. Bakhita a saint in 2000, three years before the start of the conflict in Darfur. Back then no one paid much attention to her birthplace, an obscure village in the remote western region.
That changed when fighting erupted around her old home.
Since then, Church authorities say Sudan's Catholics have been directing their prayers to her for an end to the Darfur conflict.
In Jeberona, the packed service in St. Bakhita parish church is punctuated with songs honouring the saint and a homily from visiting priest Father George Jangara holding her up as an example of grace and forgiveness in troubled times.
Almost all the church members came to Jeberona fleeing the north-south civil war that raged for decades until a shaky peace deal in 2005. For them, the woman who gave her name to their parish has been a source of solace and inspiration.
"We were just thrown together here," said 40-year-old Carisio Yusuf Ugale. "The conditions were terrible. So we turned to her and invoked her because of the suffering she had undergone."
Mata Hassan, aged 24, fled Sudan's central Nuba Mountains, the focus of some of most brutal fighting in the north-south conflict.
"She taught me to be humble," he said. "We all pray through her intercession to God to give us the grace to find forgiveness for Darfur and for all the conflicts in Sudan."
Outside, children play soccer under a huge mural of the saint's face next to the concrete classrooms of Jeberona's equally packed St. Bakhita parish school.
Further west in her home region of Darfur, the population -- from marauding militias to families huddled in displacement camps -- is predominantly Muslim: few have heard of the saint.
However, her fame has spread elsewhere.
In Juba, capital of Sudan's mainly Christian south, her face appears on hats, key rings, badges and brightly printed cloth worn by southern women.
Missionaries named their radio station after her and the town's Catholic bookshop sells DVDs and books of her life.


SNATCHED BY SLAVE-TRADERS
Bakhita was born in the Darfur region of Jabel Marra in about 1869 and was snatched by slave-traders when she was young. She had a succession of masters, who beat and branded her, before she was bought by an Italian diplomat in Khartoum.
He took her to Italy where she eventually joined a community of nuns where she lived until her death.
Church papers say she earned a reputation for kindness and forgiveness, offering to kiss the hands of the slave-traders who captured her if she ever met them again.
Italian supporters started a campaign to have her recognised as a saint soon after she died.
When she was canonised, she became Sudan's first native saint. Pope John Paul II called her "a shining advocate of genuine emancipation" and a "sorella universale" -- a universal sister.
Although Muslims might not know of her, she could still have a positive effect in the region, said Jangara.
"Forgiveness is a human thing. It is not just a Christian thing. The important thing is that her story should be known in Darfur," said the priest, who is writing a book on her life.
"Unless we return to ask God for mercy, for forgiveness, so he can touch our hearts to forgive each other, we cannot find a solution for the problem of Darfur or southern Sudan in general."

POWERS OF INTERCESSION
Estimates of the number of Catholics in the Muslim-dominated country range from fewer than two million to more than five million out of a total population of around 40 million, most of them in the south.
As with all Roman Catholic saints, there is a strong belief in her powers of intercession -- her ability to appeal to God on behalf of others.
"If there are good changes in Darfur, it is because of her intercession. We hope she will bring peace to the land she came from," said Juba seminarian Joseph Okanyi.
Church officials say she was quickly adopted by Catholics throughout Sudan who saw her as a role model for a generation emerging from decades of civil war. More recently, the Darfur conflict has featured in their prayers to her, they add.
Bishop Adwok says it is no coincidence that St. Bakhita came along when she did.
"It is providence," he said, sitting in his office on the banks of the Nile in Khartoum, with a small St. Bakhita sticker on the door behind him.
"We always pray for the people of Darfur. And ... always to her, as a daughter of Darfur, a daughter of Sudan. She has to come in to assist in trying to calm the hearts of those who are concerned in that conflict.

Skye Wheeler and Andrew Heavens (Reuters)

7 de setembro de 2008

5 de setembro de 2008

REAL LIFE


They spent the day there, sitting among the boxes and crates. You have not talked to me, he said.
I’m talking.
Are you sure?
I’m talking now.
Do you want me to tell you a story?
No.
Why not?
The boy looked at him and looked away.
Why not?
Those stories are not true.
They dont have to be true. They’re stories.
Yes. But in the stories we’re always helping people and we dont help people.
Why dont you tell me a story?
I dont want.
Okay.
I dont have any stories to tell.
You could tell me a story about yourself.
You always know all the stories about me. You were there.
You have stories inside that I dont know about.
You mean like dreams?
Like dreams. Or just things that you think about.
Yeah, but stories are supposed to be happy.
They dont have to be.
You always tell happy stories.
You dont have any happy ones?
They’re more like real life.
But my stories are not.
Your stories are not. No.
The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?
What do you think?
Well, I think we’re still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we’re still here.
Yeah.
You dont think that’s so great.
It’s okay.

Cormac McCarthy em “The Road”

3 de setembro de 2008

ACIDENTES

©JVieira

O asfalto avança paulatinamente – talvez demasiado paulatinamente – pelas ruas principais de Juba e os efeitos já se fazem sentir: acidentes atrás de acidentes.
Sobretudo com motorizadas – os famosos táxis conduzidos por adolescentes que fazem de cada corrida uma experiência radical. Mas também com outras viaturas. Razão? Velocidade a mais! Como este jipe que saltou por cima de dois pilares numa pequena ponte e acabou contra uma placa publicitária numa posição de equilibrista.
A polícia da ONU bem se aplica em campanhas de consciencialização para condutores: respeito pelos limites de velocidade, pelas leis do trânsito, pelos peões nas passadeiras, pelo uso do cinto de segurança. E sobretudo pelo não beber!
Quanto ao asfalto da cidade, é um processo demorado. Um quilómetro de alcatrão em Juba custa um milhão de dólares e o betuminoso vem do Irão. Como o Governo do Sul do Sudão paga às pinguinhas, o construtor trabalha ao metro! Juba tem cerca de 60 quilómetros de arruamentos. Quando estará tudo entapetado?