MY PRIESTS, MY WRITING

By Jeremy Leariwala

Someone said, ‘show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.’ Another one, still, said, ‘you are what you read and what you think.’ Well, I found myself toying with these statements in my mind and remembered my priests.

During my childhood, late 70s, unlike the case today, almost all the learning institutions, around my home, were church-owned-and-managed. From nursery schools all the way to technical schools. We attended these schools and, due to their roles in management, priests were among the common people we interacted with on a day to day basis. First, from them, we learnt quite a lot: the meaning of celibacy, service to the church and that Jesus NEVER disappoints. Secondly, they supplied our schools with books-lots of books, and they made sure that we watched, at least, one cinema every Saturday. The books and movies ‘transported’ us to the outside world, gave us a glimpse of what we didn’t know those days and broadened our minds. I must admit that this fact sowed the seeds of my fiction writing dreams, deep inside my marrows. Not only did it sow the seeds, but it kindled and fanned the fires as well.

As a 15 year old lad, I met (saw him in the mission) a priest called Dafre, in Baragoi. Writing was just a dream tucked somewhere in my mind at the time. But as fate would have it, a deadly gang of cattle rustlers attacked the town early one morning. They chased us like rats, from the West, shooting tracer fire over the town, from 4 a.m. up to about 7 when the sun rose. We fled to the thickets in the East. The experience is unforgettable. Moreover; Father Dafre captured that incident in writing. It came as a surprise to all of us when we received copies of ‘The Seed’, a monthly magazine for the church (Catholic) in Kenya and discovered the story, embedded in one of the pages. I clung to a copy of it, for many weeks; because that was the first time I read a real story-about a real life event, written by someone I knew. Dafre painted scenes as they were-talk of the sounds, sparks-spitting bullets and the panic. From his article I was convinced that I could be a writer one day. Then the day I made up my mind, to write something publishable, I borrowed heavily from Fr. Dafre’s style of narration. I got published by The Seed! How can I describe the joy of seeing my name in prints?

For the sake of my imaginative-inner eye, a few of the priests did a good job. In Baragoi, for instance, a priest we called Father Lengima was sort of mysterious to me. He loved children very much, and had the ability to read palms; I still don’t know how he managed that. Every time he appeared, we would flock to where he was and stuck our left palms towards him. He would grab one hand at a time, read the lines and tell you what the future had in store. His readings (predictions) remained the same, even if you came back to him after one year. Just visualize being told, ‘you don’t have a long life!’ or ‘you’ll live to sire very many children!’ I chickened out anytime I got closer to have mine read.

Then there is Fr. Pendenzini Giles who, like Fr. Dafre, is a movie lover. He translated, dutifully, all the Italian movies to us as the VCR rolled along. Father Pante on the other hand, must have been an actor when he was growing up. By-the-way, he became my bishop and he still is. I say he must have been an actor because of what a friend of mine-called Musa and a majority of the folks back home, repeatedly, said about Fr. Pante. As a priest, Pante loved using his motorbike: legends have it that he would fly across streams or jump over the mission’s fence and gate, more like a movie hero than a humble priest. Word also said, more than hundred times, that when he was cornered once by a gang of armed highway bandits, on his way to a remote outstation parish, this priest escaped death by flying with his bike. He tricked the brigands by begging them to allow him say his last prayers. Towards the end of the prayer he took flight, after raising a lot of dust, leaving the thugs confused, and spraying bullets on the road surface where they thought he was riding. I don’t know how true this is but such stories made me fantasize more on writing stories where characters did stunts-at least I have seen one, alive, who does exactly that. So it was real stuff!

But it is Father Paul Tablino, the late, who cemented my ambitions in creative writing. It is him who gave me the real stuff, as it is, on this life of a wannabe author. Foremost, I stumbled upon a novel, Journey to the Jade Sea by John Hillaby, on the shelves of our school library. Somewhere inside the book, I came across a section where the author narrates his encounter with a young priest called Father Tablino in early 1960s (more than 33 years back then). The writer had been led, by his porters, to the priest, who happened to have arrived in the village for pastoral services, to seek for a favour. I believed the priest, mentioned in the book, was Fr. Tablino-the one that I knew. Coincidentally, Tablino released his book The Gabra two years later, giving me more reasons to seek audience with him. When I finally walked into his office one afternoon, Fr. Tablino offered me a seat. He urged me to feel free and ask as many questions as I wished.

Well, to be honest, I asked questions. Father Tablino was aged at the time, but he could still recall a lot of things. Although he did not remember meeting an explorer named Hillaby, he was sure that he frequently visited the villages mentioned, for mass and other church activities during the years stated. So it is possible that he was the Tablino referred to. He took me through his journey in writing: from the days of pen-on-paper drafts to the manual type writer days. When he started writing, typing services could only be accessed in Nanyuki, about 400 KMS away from his work station, about once a month. Lastly, he told me this: writing is all about patience, commitment and real work. As a writer one must do four things: always work hard, write, write and write, before he/she can be called a writer. The author of today is a very lucky fellow. He has the tools, to aid him, everywhere: like the computers, the internet and the writing applications.

From their schools, their books, their movies, their lifestyles to their sermons, I owe my priests a truck-load of gratitude. I am nowhere near the echelons of an author, but they established the foundation necessary for me to journey towards it. May the Lord reward them with abundant blessings, amen! 

P.S: Kindly note that this story appeared in The Seed Issue of April 2022.