The Burundi Choir

Yesterday I was pleased to spend the day with many scholastics and novices from across the country. Some scholastics are in Omaha to do some practice teaching before they go to Regency, and the novice from the Northeast province and English-speaking Canada were returning from their month-long history course in Denver. We had tasty pizza and chicken wings.

A couple Scholastics and novices knew me. One man spent a year in Amman as a Fulbright scholar and joined Dozan wa Awtar, the singing group I came to know and love. Anyways, it was great fun to get to know them.

I love the range of conversations that occur in a larger Jesuit community.

Downtown Omaha is quite fun. A woman was carrying her pet squirrel on her shoulder and all the visitors to the City were wide-eyed when they saw this spectacle.

This morning I returned to Benedict the Moor parish and I was told the Burundi choir would be singing in KiSwahili. They are certainly animated. I love the movements, the ululation, the mix of voices and the age ranges of people who performed in the choir. We had great fun worshipping this morning. I offered mass for a friend in Cornwall, England who suffered a heart attack.

The people politely applauded my homily again and they told me they might not let me return to Boston. We'll see what next week brings.

After some correcting of papers, I plan on visiting a friend for dinner in greater Omaha.

I'm told my mother is doing fine.