On the Easter night we visited the family of Mrs. Hollander. She was parliament spoke person for many years here in South Africa. Though she is such a renowned person, she lives in De Aar. I was happy to see her, because it is through her intervention that I got my visa to SA. She had just come from visiting Holy Land and so she had many pictures and photos to show us. Her house is full of certificate and photos with and from different countries. She is a very good friend of previous Bishop Joseph from USA. She had just phoned to him in USA.
In De Aar, this is very cool. As I understand the weather is very severe here. Because when it is cold, it is very cold and in the summer it will be very hot. So I have a very cool time here. I am happy because we get up little lat than in the Indian times. Something like 7 in the morning we get up here. So I enjoy the time that is on the bed.
On Monday we visited place called Petrusville, the SCJs have our pre-novitiate house and we have some parishes attached to this community. At present Fr. Mabeka is pastor of the community and of the parish. He is from Zimbabwe. There is our deacon from India who is having his diaconate experience there too. This house was in a very bad condition and sometimes there were some thieves who entered and stole things from the house, this house also did not have a proper fencing. Now bishop has spend a lots of money and repaired the house and he wanted to see how thing are going on there. So we both visited this place. The place of De Aar is very bad. Because one could see that there is no much possibility of cultivation because there are no proper water sources. So lots and lots of empty fields everywhere. Sometime I feel that this is a desert, because of the unusual rain now this is green with some grass otherwise this is yellow desert of dead grass. That’s what I came to know about this place. One and half hour of ride from the Bishop’s house, it is very monotonous because the road is empty and very lonely feeling could be felt here. As we reach there, there are two candidates for this year. And they too are involved in the building work and the work is going on. Nothing special feeling as the bishop comes there. Since the house is under repairmen, there is no proper cooking. Though we were there more than four hours there was no lunch or no drink, nothing but just all are worried about their own work. Bishop was busy by telling this and that to workers. He is very happy about the house. Because this house was in a bad condition. Now it is getting read as a house.
We come back home around 5 in the evening, I had dinner and then I made my evening walk. Yes, this is chill.
On Tuesday we began our classes on Afrikaans. Monsignor is helping me to read. So he had a book and then we were reading some stories. And he was listening to it. It goes on well.
On Easter Wednesday Eucharistic celebration was in the evening in the parish called, Uganda Martyrs of De Aar. A very beautiful church, but this is given to the cathedral. So the priest goes from here and does the services there. But as usual here, there were some 10-12 people only for the Eucharistic celebration. After the celebration we were just passing that village. There were two ladies fighting, one of them pulled the other down, as she fall with her hand on the ground, the other woman came with her hand folded and hit on her face. I just could not believe that. I think that they both were drunk. Here I am fed up with alcoholism. Everyone and anyone drinks. Whether it is beer, other strong ones or eve they have local ones which contain 40% alcohol and they drink. Jesus save them!
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