A split sausage in tribute to a priest

My private tribute to Fr Angelo D’Agostino usually involves splitting a sausage, cutting the two pieces into small bits and eating them one by one.

I stumbled across the Jesuit priest and medical doctor in Kitui in eastern Kenya in April 2005, and that was how he ate his sausage. Fr D’Agostino and Loreto Sister Mary Owens headed the Children of God Relief Institute, better known as Nyumbani (Swahili for Home), the first ever residence for Aids orphans in Kenya.

They were in Kitui, a poverty-stricken arid district, to witness the opening of a unique project they had initiated high up on the dry Yatta Plateau, a 400ha village for orphans and their grandmothers to take care of them.

Fr D’Ag, as his friends fondly called him, was known everywhere in Kenya, and around the world, for his care for orphans. But he was more than just a do-gooder. He was also a prophet, an advocate especially for Aids orphans. At the opening ceremony of Kitui Village, attended by First Lady Lucy Kibaki and an array of other dignitaries, Fr D’Ag delivered a small, angry speech.

He hit out at “the monstrous, genocidal and immoral behaviour of the big drug companies” that had made it impossible for people living with Aids in Africa to access life-prolonging drugs. “Why are these children orphans anyway? Why did their parents die here in Kitui as they are dying elsewhere in Africa? Why don’t people die of Aids in Europe and the United States? The answer is very simple: it is the inhuman greed of the big drug companies that make the vital medicines inaccessible.”

Fr D’Ag was alarmed that without affordable anti-retroviral drugs, there would be between 30 and 35 million AIds orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2010. “When will the civilised world wake up and denounce this crime against humanity in Africa and stop their death-dealing policies so that Africa can live again?” he asked.

Kitui Village, which he described as the first planned response to the orphan crisis, would be home to families comprising 1120 children and 200 grandmothers. It would meet all the needs of the families and be self-reliant through income generating activities.

Fr D’Ag died at the age of 80 on November 2006. In August, I asked Sr Mary Owens, who took over management of the Nyumbani projects, to take me to Kitui to see what became of the Village. I was amazed and touched by what I saw.

There are about 500 orphans in the Village, taken care of by 53 grandmothers. They live 10-13 children a house under the care of a grandmother. Some 64 houses are already occupied and more are being built. The families are supplied with food and other needs. There is a primary school with 350 children, a community hall, a technical lab, a health centre, and a police post. A secondary school will be ready next year. Some children are already getting secondary education at public schools around the district.

The grandmothers weave baskets, which the Village helps them to sell to earn an income. A tree-planting project to create a 40ha forest is underway. The Village has vegetable farms under irrigation, bee-keeping, dairy and beef cattle, goats and chickens, and a brick-making facility. About half of the families now grow their own vegetables in their compounds.

We meet Linah Mukiti who at 74 years of age should be enjoying her sunset years in peace. But she hardly has any time to rest. Linah has 13 grandchildren to look after, four boys and nine girls. The youngest, Mary, is just seven months old. The children are orphans, left behind after the deaths of Linah’s two sons and a daughter. Linah tells me through a translator that she is deeply grateful to Kitui Village. She does not know what would have happened to them had the Village not rescued them from destitution a year ago.

Fr Angelo D’Agostino and his team had thought of people like Linah and the children. As we leave the Village, Sr Mary tells me: “There is enough money in the world to build such villages.” What is missing? Many more people like Fr D’Ag and his associates.

In this Year of the Priest, I remember this great man and his work which continues to give life to so many orphans in Kenya. His life-giving example should inspire me to not only eat a sausage in his style but also — and more importantly — respond with imagination and passion to the suffering of the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters wherever I find them.