#12 - July 31, 1996

31 July 1996
Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola


Dear Massive Missive Mailing Member,

Peace of Christ!

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a missionary priest used to write long letters to his friends. They made copies of these letters and passed them around and they came to be known as the Massive Missives. Then the priest got very busy. I mean, VERY busy. And the Massive Missives sort of stopped coming. There was simply no time to write letters.

Well, the priest is still that busy. And so this is a variation on the Massive Missive theme - in keeping with the technological advances of the late 20th century and the multi-media movement, he has sent out a bunch of video tapes. There is the name of someone at the bottom of this letter, and that person has (one hopes) received a tape, which they have been instructed to share with you. A couple of notes.

First of all, don't panic. It is not the normal Massive Missive, ie, you are NOT faced with the prospect of making eight copies and sending them on to friends. People have been asked to share the tape - pass it on, invite the folks over for a shared viewing, whatever. Certainly people are free to make copies, but the original is not very good, and one copy has already been made (ie, what has been sent over) so we are getting into third and fourth generation here.

This is NOT a tape of John sitting and talking. And although the idea has occurred to me, it is also NOT a tape of where I live and work and currently have my being. It is the tape of a concert I have in Lagos in April. In fact, on this one tape there are both the Thursday and the Saturday performances. The voice is better on Thursday, the stories and comments are better on Saturday. You can, therefore, watch each evening. Or neither. there is also a button on your remote control marked "Fast Forward", so you can skip through. (Of course, there is also a button marked "Mute" but that rather defeats the whole purpose.) To help you get the full flavor of the evening I have also enclosed a copy of the program for the evening, and if you have people to share the tape with, extra copies of the program as well. The quality of the recording itself is dreadful on both nights - we are not talking PBS here, we are talking amateur home video.

Which is about the state of the art in Nigeria. Thursday, two "professional" video men showed up with hand-held equipment. Now these guys did not come cheap, but my ninth graders when I was teaching at Fordham Prep produced higher quality work. The Saturday show (where they did bring tripods) does not improve. So forget about the production value of the recording and concentrate on the fat guy in the middle of the stage.

Now friends here in Lagos tell me that it is the position of the cameras that makes it look as though I am auditioning for the Michelin Tire man - but I have to admit that I am not about to be used as a poster child for hungry missionaries. I remember a line from a book - was it Graham Greene? - "I never trust a fat priest." Hmmmm.

So there you are. Life continues to be extraordinarily busy. I have three full-time jobs, and in Nigeria, given the difficulty of maintaining systems, getting anything done is a real challenge. (Accent on the 2nd syllable, the way it is said here.) I was saying to someone recently that we are gradually becoming independent. We have a large generator, so that when power goes out, we can keep operating. I have a diesel tank of over 1,000 litres and another 400 in drums, we keep 400 litres of petrol on hand, and have good black market sources for both items for the times when shortages occur. We have a large underground tank and an overhead tank of 1000 litres, so when the water system stops, we have both a good reserve and the capacity to simply buy a tanker of water and re-fill. We have given up on NIPOST, the Nigerian Postal System, and use couriers, locally and DHL, or we wait until someone is travelling. I have a high-body, 4-wheel drive vehicle, so as the roads continue to fall apart, I can get where I need to go. We use business friends to exchange money, so we avoid banks as much as possible, and I always have at least a 2-week supply of canned food hidden upstairs. Bit by bit, we are becoming independent.

The one thing I haven't solved is the telephone. NITEL. We have been without a phone for over one month. Our bill is paid, we have visited and re-visited the offices, the repair man has been here - and no phone. It may be that we don't pay bribes. But the inefficiency (and corruption) of the phone company is reaching truly mythic proportions. My line - if NITEL were in charge of sex, there would be no babies born in Nigeria for one year. Always gets a laugh.

So if you have not heard from me lately - and you haven't - it does not mean that I am dead and it does not mean that I have stopped caring about you. If means, as the title line on my FAX page reads, that I am busier than God. "Father John, how are you?" "Oh, busier than God." True. If we believe what we read in the Scriptures, God gets one day off a week. I haven't yet figured out how to do that.

There continue to be lots of stories, and I do write them down, and at some point, I will do a long massive missive. The school in Abuja progresses magnificently, providing an ongoing contrast with the ongoing deterioration of virtually everything else. The entrance exam was held throughout Nigeria, students selected, and we are now in that suspense-filled time when we wait to see who will actually send in the money and enrol the child. Tuition for one year is N180,000 (around $2,250). And it all has to be paid before the beginning of the year - not per semester, but in one lump sum in advance. (That includes tuition, room and board, uniform, textbooks, snacks - everything.) As a benchmark, my driver makes N6,000 a month - on which he supports a wife and 5 children. And that's a pretty good salary. More than most teachers get in secondary schools. Ours is not a school for the poor.

Except, of course, that we want it to be, and so we are out hustling money for the Scholarship Endowment Program like mad. We want, ultimately, at least 1/3d of the school on scholarship. So should anyone feel moved at the thought that ole Father John is going to turn 50 in December - and isn't even going to have a party to mark the event (poor Father John) - send money. Now the truth is, I don't need a party, and Lord knows I don't need "things". I don't have the space to keep or the time to deal with the things" I've already got. (God put me on the earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind, I will never die.)

But money to help provide scholarships in perpetuity for young kids who otherwise won't get near a decent education - this could be a neat kind of birthday remembrance. For you, it's tax deductible. For me, it's exciting. For the children - it will change their lives. Perhaps save their lives. We're not talking here about the difference between one school and another. The rich kids have choices. The children who will get these scholarships will otherwise end up at government schools, if they go to school at all - and what is happening in Nigeria is that the schools are deteriorating more seriously than the roads, and judging from the increasing number of small children selling things on the streets and begging on the streets, school is no longer an automatic option for many - and I can't tell you what that means. Life on the street in Lagos is not something easy to image. If a child does go to school, there are no books. Most can't afford paper or pencils. Many carry their bench and desk to school each day and take it home in the afternoon, rain or shine, distances of many kilometres each way. Teachers don't come. They simply don't show up. When they do, they don't teach, because they all run tutoring classes after school. And many of the teachers lack basic educational skills themselves. Like the ability to speak or write English. Parents scrimp and save their money to buy copies of the tests so their children can cheat and advance to the next grade. The school buildings are literally crumbling - last week, a wall collapsed at a primary school and killed three children. In the last two years, eight have been killed at that one school.

Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you, John? Actually, I'm generalizing, skimming over some of the nastier sections.

So there you are. I know some of you have recently - or not so recently - passed the old 50 mark yourself. It's a good time to stop and look backward and look forward - and look around. Time, perhaps, to share the wealth. I know there are lots of needs and appeals in the world - but should you be looking for places to do some good - the Scholarship Endowment Fund for Loyola Jesuit College certainly ought to be an option.

Now, if you want to get fancy, you can give a whole scholarship, and name it, so that some child will have the "John Smith Scholarship" each year. Or name it after a loved one, living or deceased. Or give a little bit and it will go into the larger pot and help create the fund for others. It's all an endowment fund - we spend only the interest, the capital remains (we hope) earning money each year. Send checks to Jesuit Seminary & Mission Bureau, with a note saying it is for the Scholarship Endowment Fund. If you want me to know about it, either tell me or mention my name in your note. If not, it will just go into the account with the thanks of us all.

End of solicitation.

And end of letter. This is being sent from London, where I have been attending a meeting in Oxford. I waited until I was here to find someone competent to make these copies. (Do you know what it COSTS to make 27 copies of a video tape, putting two tapes onto one? Aaaargh.) I wouldn't think of having it done in Lagos. Of course, the nice thing about video tape is, you can always re-use the tape. Record over it. Turn my singing into a baseball game. Or some small child's birthday party.

I don't like to talk about plans for coming back to the U.S. but there is a chance I may be back for the Mission Dinner in early November and stay until mid-December. I don't like to talk about it - puts a jinx on things - but I am mildly hopeful that I can sneak away for five or six weeks without a coup taking place or own walls collapsing. Far Western travel doesn't seem a possibility - but I am hoping to get out to Dubuque, maybe, perhaps Austin, Michigan, regular pilgrimage to Notre Dame. We'll see. I don't want to spend the whole time in travel - I truly need some mindless rest - but I also want to catch up with friends I haven't seen in an LONG time. Anyone having a special celebration, exotic home, time share in a beautiful vacation paradise or other enticement, let me know. I can be bought. Or at least, rented cheap.

Take care of your charming/elegant/handsome/beautiful selves, and don't let the fact that >>I<< seem to have stopped writing letters for the moment discourage you from sending the odd note, photo, recipe or clever clipping. Time seems to be speeding up somewhat - probably has something to do with all that atomic testing in the 50's - and years don't take as long to go by as they used to. So for heaven's sake, don't do as I do, do as I SAY!

Assume a major hug, and know that you are each truly and frequently remembered in my prayers. As I would hope I would be occasionally in yours. (And if you don't pray, you should.)

Until the next whenever that our paths cross in person....






I find I have all this space left over, so here are some oddiments from other writings -

TALES FROM LOYOLA JESUIT COLLEGE
As we move from being a construction project to being a school, we are beginning to meet and get to know the people, the boys and girls who will make up our student body and eventually, the future of Nigeria. From time to time, we will share some of these stories with our friends and supporters.

Father Steve Astill is the Catholic Chaplain at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. One day he was approached by a woman who told him that a young boy had been brought in for burns, and asked Fr. Steve to go and see him.

There had been a flash fire in the kitchen of the family's house, and everyone dashed outside for safety. When they got away from the home, they realized that the youngest, a baby boy, was still inside. Before anyone could do anything, the 10-year old boy of the family dashed into what was by then a blazing building, grabbed the baby and made it safely outside. In the process of saving his brother's life, he was burned along one side of his body.

When Fr. Steve went to visit this young hero, he learned that this boy had been accepted to Loyola Jesuit College and would be in the first class.
* * * * *
The top scoring boy and girl in the entrance examination were each awarded scholarships to the school, and it is worth noting that the young lady was not simply the highest scoring girl, she was in second place among all the qualifiers. The young man who was first had been told by his father that the family could not afford this school, and his father discouraged him from taking the examination. But the boy pestered him and begged for the chance, so the father allowed him to take the exam. He reminded him that there was no money for this school, however, and told the boy not to get his hopes up. The boy, however, was very confident, and told his father not to worry, that he was going to get a scholarship.

He did - the very first scholarship awarded at Loyola Jesuit College.
* * * * *
We keep meeting parents whose belief in the importance of what we are doing continues to inspire and encourage us. One father told us that he is selling land that has been in his family for generations, in order to be sure that his sons get the chance to go to a Jesuit school. In another family, the wife, who had retired several years ago, is going back to work, and another parent told us that his whole family - brothers, sisters, cousins - are all contributing to help pay the tuition for one boy from their family to enter Loyola Jesuit College. Two blind students are in the first class, and a private foundation has agreed to pay their tuititon for the full six-year program.
* * * * *
And finally, one of the Fathers was engaged in correcting the entrance examinations, and came across the following: the question being graded included a scaled map, indicating various places including the Post Office, a garage, a supermarket, etc. The question: "You are at the Market. Someone comes up and asks how to get to the Post Office. What do you tell him?"

One girl responded, "Hmm! Excuse me, sir, but I don't live here. You had better ask someone else." We wonder if the Father gave her at least partial credit for a good, and a polite - if not completely correct - answer.