In my last posting I mentioned that I thought one of the reasons for the overwhelming response to the Week of Evangelization that took place in Torit was the sense of personal and cultural connection between the Sudanese here particularly with the videos we showed each evening.
I remember being struck last year while reading Dave Eggers novelized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by the impact the canonization of St. Bakhita had on Valentino and the other Sudanese who were living at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya at the time.
Here's the quote:
“In those days there was euphoria in the camp [Kakuma] for so many reasons, among them the Vatican’s first-ever canonization of a Sudanese martyr [sic]. Josephine Bakhita, who had been enslaved herself, died as a Canossian Sister in Italy in the late 1940s, and now she was a saint. This was a source of fascination and pride for us all, many of us having no idea that it was even possible for a Sudanese to be sanctified. Her name was invoked at church every day, and was on the tongues of every proud Dinka Catholic at Kakuma. It was an unusual time for us all, a time when for the first time in years the Dinka felt strong, felt wanted by God… A woman of southern Sudan could be a saint… Nothing was out of the question.”
Dave Eggers, What Is the What; The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 2006) pp. 488-489.
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