Visit to Magwi

On Sunday morning I was given a last minute opportunity to visit the village of Magwi. The occasion was the local parish celebration of the diocese's Silver Jubilee, which will be celebrated in Torit in two weeks. It's about a three hour drive from Torit, two and a half of it on very rough roads. Fortunately because the heavy rains have stopped, it was an easier drive than my previous two trips to Chukudum and Isohe. However, since no road trip is complete without an adventure, we did have a flat tire on the way back and had to stop to change it.

At one point on the journey, we found ourselves face to face with an abandoned Russian-made tank of the Khartoum Army left over from the war. Tragically, in the past year both China and Russia have ignored a UN ban on selling weapons to Khartoum; both have sold high-tech fighter planes to the north. This was done just after formal accusations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity were made against Sudanese president Omar al Bashir before the International Criminal Court at the Hague, and is reprehensible. In its more than 50 years of independence, Sudan has never fought a war with a neighboring country. Such weapons have only ever been used by an oppressive northern Islamist government against fellow citizens in the south, Darfur and the Nuba Mountains.


Magwi is actually an outstation of the parish in Palotaka, but because that site is in such disrepair after the war, the site of Magwi was chosen for the parish's celebration of the diocese's silver jubilee. The church building in Magwi is a provisional structure built of wooden poles and bamboo, with a thatched roof. The celebration, however, was held outdoors, just outside an as yet incomplete parish youth center.






As always, there were a lot of children present at the celebration, dressed in their Sunday best. As some stood at a slight distance observing me (I am often an object of curiosity here, especially for children) I was able to capture a few in photos:




After Mass there was a program of several hours that included songs, dances and speeches. The children's African dance group, the Kizitos (named for St. Kizito, the youngest of the Ugandan martyrs, who gave his life in witness to Christ when he was just 14, and therefore a popular patron for children's and youth groups), which performs for processions during Mass, were among the presenters: