Elephantitis

Hello again - well the latest news from here has to be the weather - it is HOT.
No breeze, no relief, just oppressive heat with high humidity. Every morning is the same, I leave the air conditioned bedroom and the trees are still, the house is already hot, I turn on the fans, start a pot of coffee, light my candle for morning prayer, then sit in front of the fan as I pray Morning Prayer. Every day is in the mid to high 90's with over 80% humidity - weather stations say the heat index (the 'feels like' temp) is always over 100.

While this is life on Andros - live goes on. If you remember, prior to our trip to the States we had a boy drown here. After we returned we stopped by to see the family and met the Grandfather. Everyone else in the house had gone to the creek to fish for supper so Ginni and I sat with him and talked for over an hour. It was a great conversation with him telling us much of the history of the Catholic church in the southern end of our part of Andros.

What was striking about this man were his legs. His wore shorts, no shoes, and right leg was incredibly swollen. All I could think of was the disease Elephantitis that you read about in Africa. The leg and foot were triple their normal size and the skin was tough and caloused. Ginni later told me it is 'peripheral vascular disease'. Meaning his circulation is so poor that the fluid in his legs stays there and the leg swells. Somehow to say it is swollen just doesn't describe it sufficiently as I type the words.

Anyway, we talked about is grandson's drowning, and the funeral we missed. We had heard it was a full church and very emotional. He said he didn't go because of his foot. In fact, he stopped going to Church years ago because he couldn't wear shoes anymore, and hasn't worn shoes for over 5 years.

When I asked why we hadn't seen his family in church he explained that when the permanent resident Sisters left, and the church was served by priests/deacons that just came for weekend visits they felt abandoned. They still consider themselves Catholic, but none of the grandchildren are baptized, his children haven't been to church for years and, after several years away, they are pretty much 'un-churched'.

Our conversation covered a wide range of topics and he was very well spoken. He told stories of Fr. Gabriel Roerig OSB, a Benedictine who spent over 30 years evangelizing Andros. He built the first church here, he served up and down the Andros coast before their were roads, using a boat when he could, and walking when he couldn't. The more I hear of this priest the more I wonder why he isn't up for canonization.

After a great conversation, and an assurance he'd try to get the grandchildren back to church on Sunday, Ginni asked if any of the Doctors he had seen had tried to get him stockings or support hose that might give some relief. They had not. Ginni's visiting nurse experience kicked in and she promised to try to see what she might find on the web. They have wrap-around boots for this disease that can be very comfortable, provide relief, and double as shoes for many people.

So we said our good-byes, promised we would bring him communion on Sunday, and left. Later that day Ginni had a print out of two different types of wrap around shoes - one was more of a slipper, the other not only wrapped around the foot, but the ankle and calf too. With velco straps the width was adjustable and it looked perfect.

On Sunday there was an entire row of new children we'd never seen before - his grandchildren. There were no adults, we assume they either walked or got dropped off, but he was true to his promise and they all were there, dressed in pretty party dresses. I talked to them after church and told them we'd be coming by with communion and some information for their grandfather.

After our van made the rounds of dropping off locals with no cars to their homes, we left and made our first stop to see him again. All the kids met us in the driveway - now back in shorts and t-shirts and shoeless once again. They led us to the back yard and we sat on buckets turned upside down under the same mango tree I had met with them a few weeks ago to talk about the upcoming funeral of the boy who had drowned.

Ginni showed him the pictures and the descriptions of the wrap around boot and he said no Doctor had ever shown him anything like this. After we read some of the information to him (all the time surrounded by all the children looking to see what 'Faddah' had brought grampie) he thought that it might actually work and we promised to see how we could order it on the internet.

Then I began the prayers for the communion service - and he still remembered the prayers. "I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned ..." The children were wide-eyed as he and his wife together joined me and Ginni as we prayed through this little prayer service. I read the Ephesians reading from this Sunday liturgy and told him a recap of the homily. We prayed the Lord's Prayer and I gave him and his wife communion. Afterwards I explained to some of the children that, after they come to religion classes and they learn about the Eucharist, they can recieve their First Communion and recieve every Sunday. (At Church the young children recieve a blessing at communion, and they'd just had that experience at Church earlier).

We returned to the van (which, by the way, had people sitting and waiting for us for their ride home), and we were off. On the way home we dropped these folks off and then made another 3 communion calls. We have a 94 year-old blind woman who I've written about before, another 90+ year-old woman who has fallen and broken her arm, and a cancer patient who just returned from Nassau after chemo. A busy Sunday in 95 degree heat.

Several people back in the States have been very generous to us and it is that genosity that will be put to work now to buy this man's support-boot. If it works as well as we hope, he may actually be able to return to church with his grandchildren. Time will tell.

Enough for now, pray for us as we do for you.

We Are Back!

Well after two weeks in the US we are back on ANDROS!
Suffice it to say our time at home was rushed. There were so many old friends and family to see and so much to do! From meeting with my bible study buds 7AM on Saturday, to baptizing new twin boys in Leominster, to preaching once again at the 9:30 at St. Timothy's it seemed every minute was a time to have dinner with friends, or breakfast, or lunch - or deal with the rental properties in MA and NH. We had a wonderful gathering with friends and it was great to enjoy each other's company once again.

On top of seeing everyone in MA again, we took a week and went to Long Island and for the first time in over a year all of our sons were together once more. Our oldest, who now lives in Singapore, joined us in Sag Harbor with his wife and Jack, our only grand-son. Our youngest son Joe and his wife Liza have opened 'Bay Burger', his restaraunt in the Hamptons - and our son Mike has joined him this past year - both are working very hard.

During this visit I helped Jack work on his cub scout fishing merit badge - teaching him how to use a spinning reel. We caught a blue fish together and then took on the challenge of actually cleaning it - not Jack's favorite part. My favorite part was frying up the filets and enjoying a great super - thank's Jack!

While on Long Island we took a trip into Manhatten and saw BLUE MAN GROUP and the off-broadway production of Mary Poppins. When we got back to MA we also took in a Red Sox game! Great family time but talk about squeezing every possible minute out of two weeks.

When we got back to Nassau our flight to Andros was a bit interesting. Since we arrived in Nassau after 4 there were no regularly scheduled flights to Andros so we went to the small Charter Flight airport where we thought we had reservations. While we had been told the predictable 'no problem faddah' when we set it up - there was no plane.

So we wait. I found a pilot who said he'd be going to Andros and just to sit and wait and he'd call us. Two hours later I find him again and 'no problem faddah - I'll call you shortly'. Talking to an Anglican priest we know who was waiting, we found he'd been waiting 3 hours. When I saw our luggage disappear I followed them and found the pilot stuffing them into a 7 seater plane and I knew departure was close. Six of us fit into the 7 seater plane (he needed to wait until he had at least 6 to make it worth the flight), and off we went. 15 minutes later we are on Andros.

The big news here is that Western Airlines, the main carrier that goes from Nassau to Andros, has stopped serving our Andros Town airport. This happened during our two week absence and was a major surprise to everyone. Competition from the charters was making it harder and harder to fill their planes so they stopped them. On the one hand, Western was never on time so that is why people use the charters - but the impact is major. Tourists now have no way to get here from Nassau unless they know about the charter flights - or they take the ferry - or they go to North Andros and incur an $80 cab fare to get here. Clearly this will be a major financial hit for our part of the island.

The other major impact this creates is that the Bahamian Post Office used Western Air to get mail from Nassau to Andros Town and all of Central Andros. Bottom line - our Post Office hasn't had mail for two weeks, and won't have mail until the Bahamian government gives one of the charter companies a contract to carry mail. So if you mail us anything - don't expect a response any time soon.

Finally, if you remember, we have been working on getting a wheelchair for a parishioner with a 10 year old boy with Cerebal Palsey via Alhambra, a fraternal order of Catholic men who adopted disabled children as their charity. It arrived while we were away! This is truely an act of the Holy Spirit and as soon as I can get some pics I will post them here.

Enough for now - its 94 degrees with 88% humidity and Ginni says I am not going to spend the whole day on the computer - we're going to the beach! I always do what Ginni says.

Till next time.

Independence Day - then coming back to MA

Well I haven't written much lately have I. With CCD ending our lifestyle has taken a turn to the lazy. Maybe lazy is too strong a word, but definitely less hectic. Not so much less busy, but the breakneck, no rest, gotta run pace has been replaced by, OK - what's next.

Last week we still did our mid-week bible study, First Friday Holy Hour, three weekend liturgies, sick calls, and dealt with the fallout of power failures knocking out phones and internet for days at a time. But that without 5 CCD classes for over 50 kids is a relief.

Right now, however, we are planning 2 weeks back in MA. Ginni left on Thursday and I leave Tuesday (gotta stay for the weekend services). With packing the only major thing on the horizon it soon got complicated. We had a drowning.

A 16 year-old boy originially from here, whose family had moved to Nassau, then Miami, and now back here drowned only weeks after his family moved back to Andros. For me its my first Bahamian funeral - except, I'm leaving. So, I've met with the family in the midst of their grief (not something I have done that much of), prepared the liturgy, tried to find out who is coming next week to cover and fill them in, and deal with the complications of Mom never actually baptizing the boy while they were in Nassau or Miami.

Meeting this family was pure Bahamian. We met in the back yard, under a mango tree, in 90 degree heat, 80% humidity. About 5 little boys and girls squatting in a circle around us as we talked, with another 2 climbing the tree watching us from above. I was the only one with shoes.

We talked about his life, their moving to Nassau, then Miami, then back to Andros, and now this. We talked about faith, Grandma's faith, her daughters (the deceased boy's Mom), the siblings. Slapping mosquitos we walked through the liturgy, & how it might change since he wasn't baptized. We talked about how to best celebrate his life in this liturgy and what I would do to inform the visiting priest came to do it. All the while the children sat on the ground and listened - who knows how memories of this conversation may work in these kids years from now?

While you might think this would be enough - if I didn't mention it yet in the blog, July 10 is Independence Day here in the Bahamas. Yes 36 years a nation. Not just any nation, 36 years a Christian Nation! So when we get together to party all the clergy on the stage with all the politicians. There is an opening prayer, a closing benediction, a reading from the Word, and a teaching from the Word (and the political speakers as well). There was the Police Drill Team raising the flag at midnight and the fireworks that followed. In the midst of all that was the Prayer for the Nation - led by that Catholic Deacon. No stress, just lead a spontaneous prayer in front of members of Parliament, the Town Administrator, all the other clergy of Central Andros, and most of the people from Fresh Creek and the surrounding townships.

For me, doing the prayer was one thing. What really made me self-conscious was it was the first time I ever wore a Roman Collar. Yup, 7 years and I've never wore the black cleric shirt with the Roman collar. I did have one that was in the back of the closet and never seen the light of day and, since a parishioner mentioned that if I had any regalia this would be the night to wear it, out it came.

So my last week here before vacation I have a death, a national holiday, and I appear in public with the collar - rather momentus for a slow week.

Next week I fly on Tues.
WED-FRI we meet with the new tenants in our Canton home, and the old ones. We should touch base with our neighbors, friends, St. Timothy's, Deacon classmates, attend Prayer Meeting, and maybe even a round of golf.
SAT we go to NH to deal with that rental property and then spend that night with friends in Norwood.
SUN I hope to celebrate Mass with Fr. C at St. Timothy's, then it is off to Leominster to baptize the new twin boys my Nephew and his wife were blessed with while we were away.
MON its off to Long Island to see our sons Mike and Joe and also connect with our son Matt and his family home from Singapore.
We spend that week in Long Island and MON the 27th head back to MA.
Once back we'll be connecting with our extended family on that TUE - THUR then Friday its back to Andros - whirlwind trip but we do hope to see as many old friends as we can.

See you in church

Rain Rain and Rain

I know all my New England friends thing they've had lots of rain but let me put it in perspective.
We have a cistern that's about 4' deep with about a 4' diameter. When we arrived in November it was empty and the rainy season didn't start until the end of May. Whenever it rains I go out and take the cover off so it catches the rainwater. Well, its full, yup - 4' of rainwater in about a month. No wonder mosquitos love it here.

Kind of puts things in perspective.

A week in Nassau - Happy Anniversary to US!

Well it seems like its been awhile since I last posted, but that's because we haven't been here. Last week we were in Nassau for pretty much the whole week with no internet. The 3rd week of each month the Archbishop has a "Pastoral Day", when clergy from Nassau and all the family islands come together for a day of prayer, teaching, and fellowship. We missed last month's meeting because it was the week of 1st communion and we wanted to do rehearsals and get in a final class in preparation for First Penance and First Communion.

This trip was also important for us because, when we first arrived for this assignment the Archbishop said we should do a review after six months, and if all is well, do an annual review thereafter - well its been six months. So we had called his secretary and asked if, while we were on Nassau for Pastoral Day, we might get some time to do the review with the Archbishop.

Another reason we wanted to take the whole week though, was that the week before was our Wedding Anniversary. So we made a plan that, rather than staying at St. Joseph's parish, we would get a nice room at one of the resort hotels on Cable Beach. An entire week with uninterrupted water, water pressure, electricity, and a full tub for a bath if we wanted - all just an elevator ride from the beach - sounds great, and it was.

Once we checked in we called the Archbishop's secretary and we were told we could meet with him Wed at 11. This was a bit confusing since Pastoral Day is Wed. It was then we were told that Pastoral Day was cancelled this month . It seems they announced its cancellation at the last Pastoral Day meeting (the one we skipped), and a fax was sent Monday (the day we flew). So, we had a meeting on Wed, but the rest of the week to ourselves.

The week was great, despite the isolated thunderstorms (think monsoons). We did get to go to the beach, shop, eat wonderful meals, and meet the Archbishop. Our meeting began right on time at 11 and I was surprised when I looked at my watch and saw it was close to 1 when we broke. Bottom line, we're doing just fine, we need to get a better handle on CCD for the next year with greater parental involvement, but he's not sending us home and we don't want to go so Andros has us for the long haul.

Over the course of the week there were a few adventures for us, but by far the one we'll remember for awhile is our scuba diving lesson. Yes folks, Ginni had the air tanks on her back, lead weights in her vest and she spent an hour at the bottom of the hotel pool learning the tricks of scuba diving (oh yeah, so did I). We need to try this once more before we head out to the reef and try to feed the sharks, but it was a hoot and we live in scuba diving heaven so who knows, we might just start doing this on a more regualar basis. Actually, when we were leaving the Archbishop he told us that one of our parishioners is a certified instructor who taught him! Not only is he a parishioner, he's on our Parish C0uncil!

With the trip to Nassau over, and CCD on vacation, we have time to ourselves for the first time since we arrived. I spent most of this week getting caught up on past due financial reports that I am supposed to send the Archdiocese, but haven't. It's been hot, hot, hot, and humid, humid, humid, so Ginni is spending her time reading in front of the air conditioner in the bedroom while the mosquitos are flocking around every door and window in the place just waiting for us to dare step outside.

Enough for now. I hope you are all well. We plan to return to MA for vacation July 13 - 31. We'll spend time in MA where I will get to baptize my nephews new twin boys (at the same church I was baptized in if you can believe it), then on to Long Island to see our 2 sons down there and connect with our oldest son who will be home from Singapore, then back to MA. We look forward to making connections with as many old friends as we can.

See you in church

Crabfest 2009

Well lets just say life on Andros isn't always about Church - sometimes you have to party and there is no time like Crabfest!

Andros is loaded with land crabs the size of greatfruit - loaded! During the cooler winter months they tunnel underground and stay there till the rainy season drives them above ground. Well if you've read this blog or my page on facebook you know it's been rainy and the crabs are out! This weekend is the annual Andros Crabfest where literally hundred and hundreds of people from the US and the other Bahamian islands flood Andros to have a good time and eat crab in as many ways as you can imagine - Stuffed Crab, Crab and Rice, Crab Soup, Crab with Dumplings, the list goes on and on.

Well the party started Thursday and it will end late Sunday. Here are a few pics of me chowing down and the party that will go into the wee hours of the morning.

Yes, that's right, the crab body makes a wonderful bowl for baked stuffed crab.

Now be nice, I know what it looks like but its a dumpling. Ginni remembered we had the camera with us after I had demolished this bowl of Crab and Dumpling soup (yes it is a dumpling). When I started this was filled with ham, rice, crab, dumplings, crab, a brown gravy/sauce to die for - and did I say crab?

Old grilles never die - they retire to the Bahamas where we put wood and charcoal in the base and crank it up. One of our parishioners had a booth and we went round back and watched as he grilled up some BBQ chicken - fantastic!

And for dessert - Guava Duff! This is a fantastic Bahamian dessert - a sweet cake topped with guava fruit then once its cut and put on your plate, covered with a white creamy sauce. Ginni sopped up every bit of that sauce with the duff to get it all!

And after eating all that, you need to work it off - we also had a live band and singers/dancers galore.

The show was great, with all the bells and whistles of a state of the art hi tech production. Lets just say that when Bahamians party they don't hold back at all (Hey Mon, it was off da chain).

The surprise of surprises for Androsians - traffic. We actually had traffic jams with wall to wall cars, pedestrians, motorcycles, police - it was just like Yawkey way after a Red Sox game in Boston!

Love to tell you more but I have to get up and preach in the morning - enough for now.

Party on

Baptism and a Visiting Choir

Hello Again

Well I ended my last post with a pic of one of our parishioners and his new baby girl saying her baptism deserved its own post - well here it is.

Laverne and Susan have become good friends of us. They have been bouncing back and forth from Florida to Andros as they prepare to relocate, so I was very happy that they decided to baptize Josephine here (all the kids tell me her name is JoJo).

Here we are with the opening prayer at the door of the church, welcoming our newest member into our community. Just like welcoming any new friend to your home, we greet her at the door and welcome her in.

After we processed in, our Sunday liturgy began as it usually does, but after the homily we began the baptism.

And here I am anointing Josephine with the Oil of Catechumens.

Our baptismal font has been upgraded from Corningware to a very nice stainless steel bowl that we have consecrated as our baptismal font. Here in the Bahamas I use a conche shell to pour the baptismal water during the baptism. In this pic I am blessing the water we will use, you can see the conche shell on the table.

Here is a pic of me with Josephine and her mom, Susan.

And here I am with proud Poppa Laverne.

The following week was not uneventful. It began with a surprise phone call from a Choir Director on Nassau. It seems that St. Anselm Choir is rather well known and usually go on tour. This year, rather than going to Florida, they decided to go to one of the 'family islands' and picked us! So, on Tuesday I got a call saying they were arriving on Friday, they'd already made hotel reservations and wanted to know if I could help them with transportation while they were here. So I helped them out, then scrambled to try to arrange some sort of hospitality for a 15 person troupe arriving in 3 days!

On Friday we met them at the ferry and helped them with their luggage to their hotel. They had booked the hotel immediately next to the pier, which was good. What was not good was that the hotel was overbooked. Soooooo, the hotel scrambles and calls another hotel on the opposite side of Fresh Creek and found 3 more rooms over there to accommodate the people that wouldn't fit. It was a bit awkard, but it worked. (You learn to adapt on the islands)

After they settled in, and had some lunch, Ginni and took them on a drive and showed them one of the beaches here. We went to Love Hill's town beach and they were amazed that there were 3 miles of white sand beach with absolutely no people. One lady commented that on Nassau you need to go to the public beaches the day before and stake out your spot. This was heaven! On the way back to Fresh Creek we stopped and showed them the site of next week's CRAB FEST. This is a big deal on Andros and a major source of revenue. Andros has a very large population of land crabs that, at this time of year, come out of hiding with the rainy season. People catch crabs for weeks and the second week of June is CRAB FEST. Try to imagine a county fair with Crab being the theme and you'll have a good idea of the festivities. Crab will be cooked every way you can imagine and Fresh Creek will be swamped with people. I hear we will actually have traffic!

Anyway, we showed them the fair grounds, then dropped them at their hotel to rest up for supper. Saturday they had made arrangements for a tour of North Andros so they were on their own as I worked on the weekend homily and Ginni did three loads of laundry (we hadn't had water most of that week so now that it was back on we made up for lost time).

Sunday we began with the choir singing at the 8:30 liturgy at St. John Chrysostom, then we all loaded into vans for the 40 minute ride to Christ the King -- all of this done in a thunderstorm and driving rain.

Here they are singing at Christ the King in Cargill Creek, followed by the mandatory posed pic with the Deacon. (I'm wearing red because it was Pentecost Sunday).

In thanks, the parish hosted a luncheon at Captain Neymour's, a local restaurant in Cargill Creek. We took every chair and table they had and the food was great. Here are a few pics of us enjoying local Andros cooking (crabs and rice, fresh from the bush just the night before).

Next week we have no CCD so we hope to catch up on other tasks that have taken a back seat, like balancing the parish books, doing the accounting for the Archbishop's Appeal, and preparing for our first parish picnic.

- See you in Church!