Karungu, November 9th 2007
It’s dawn. Discreetly, the sunlight began to color the veranda under which I began to write. In truth, I’ve been here for a while now, since it was still dark.
Unable to sleep, I got up and came to contemplate what was left of this wonderful African night. The nights here in Kenya are always beautiful, the scarcity of surrounding lighting makes the sky much richer in stars, but the night just passed was, for me, really special. A sleepless but happy night. And now that it’s day, I’ve taken pen and paper to tell all the readers of PROsequence about it. Can one suffer from insomnia for joy? Obviously yes! I imagine that the same thing has been experienced by others who, before me, have had the good fortune to see a goal like mine achieved. A goal shared with the people of the PRO.SA Foundation, with that of Dala Kiye and with my people, those of AtticoSoa. A goal called God-Oloo. A dream that materialized in a primary school here in Karungu. A sleepless night for a dream… what a pleasant paradox! A sleepless night to relive those moments that led us to yesterday, the day the school was inaugurated, a historic date for us at AtticoSoa.
But let’s start at the beginning. It was June 2004 and I was climbing K2 for a holiday/adventure. My curiosity had brought me up there, certainly prosaic, towards places with an extreme character, but perhaps also something else that I don’t know how to define. Was it just a coincidence that in that unusual circumstance, I met the extraordinary person who started this story? Maybe!..
However, I can never thank enough the very particular emotional condition in which I met Fr. Gianmario. And I will never thank that Camillian brother enough for what he made me understand. We got to know each other while warming up with a cup of coffee, after 20 km of walking on ice and in the snow, interspersed with moments of scorching sun, which had brought us to an altitude of 4700 metres.
I, despite the ill-concealed exhaustion in which I found myself, expressed with a flood of words the satisfaction of having exceeded my limits as a “civilized” man. He listened to me in silence throughout the evening, but the next morning, during the march towards an altitude of 5200 meters, where we would have reached the base camp, he began to tell me about himself and his experience at the St. Camillus mission in Karangu, Kenya , where, among other things, he had participated in the construction of a hospital to assist children with AIDS.
In front of that man and his commitment, I felt all the inadequacy of a “normal” man and I expressed it to him, but he, with a look mixed with severity and benevolence, said to me:
… any occupation, if carried out with passion and respect, can be of great social value: DOING GOOD BRINGS GOOD. Yes, it brings LUCK, but not in the superstitious sense. Rather it means that by doing good a “virtuous circle” is established whereby the good I do today to Tizio, tomorrow Tizio will do it to Caius and, the day after tomorrow Caius to Sempronio. And we meet Sempronio every day, if he has had some good, he will be better stimulated towards us! If this isn’t luck?!”
Then he gave me another gift, put me in contact with the PRO.SA Foundation, which, in turn, with the Camillian religious of Dala Kiye and, in January 2005, our collaboration began for the construction of the school.
On this night that has just passed, many images have occurred in my mind. I relived my first trip here to Karungu, the faces and smiles of the children who welcomed me upon my arrival passed before my eyes. Their gazes expressed gratitude and curiosity at the same time, but also pride. I “felt” their awareness of receiving an important gift for what it represented: a more suitable environment for building a future with new expectations. I saw the calm face of Father Emilio, in charge of the mission and of the God-Oloo project, in front of my solicitations and concerns about the realization of the school. That expression was the result of his conviction and determination to achieve our goal.
I also recalled the day when, back in the office after a trip here in Kenya, I showed the AtticoSoa staff the photographs of the children of Karungu, of the mission and of the start of work on the school. I saw, one by one, the faces full of pride and satisfaction of my collaborators. I listened to their comments again, their total “belonging” to the project, even for those who at first seemed less involved. In short, two years of memories relived moment by moment, until yesterday. When my eyes could see our project materialized. When my eyes saw the satisfied face of Father Emilio. When my eyes met those happy and hopeful of the children of Karungu.
It was truly a great fortune to have undertaken this experience, because nothing can make me forget the emotion I felt, a feeling so strong that I can’t hold back the desire to try it again, with a new project. Because I had proof of the truth of another sentence that brother Gianmario, quoting Choelo, told me on K2:
When you have a dream, the whole universe conspires to make it come true.”
Eng. Roberto Gentilini
President Attico Seo
