The Bambinette and 40 Hours Devotion

 

We were supposed to be having English class...

After Benediction on my very first Thursday at the Mission, I met a number of girls I would see quite often over the next five months. They were the "Bambinette".

Down the road from the mission, across from the school, is "Maison Maria Bambina" (House of the Child Mary). In French, it is called an "internat"; we typically called it an orphanage, though not all the girls there are strictly orphans. I find that "boarding house" captures the idea more correctly. The girls there live together with Maman Ngnigone, the "house mother", keep a regular schedule (though I could question how regular) and attend the school. 

I hadn't been at the mission for a month when Canon Fragelli mentioned to me that the girls needed help with their English, and that Maman Ngnigone had asked if I could tutor them. So, after arranging with Maman for a good time (every Friday at 3 p.m.), off I went down the road, armed with my Bantam New College French and English Dictionary.

In the entire time I was there over those five months, I don't know how much English those girls actually learned, but we had some good times. They needed help with their accents, which mostly meant I had to try to get them to stop adding an "h" in front of their vowels ("I" become "hi" for them) when they would read their English homework to me. It was honestly rather strange to speak American English to them, though, as my ears had grown accustomed to French.  

I went back to Maria Bambina on the following Sunday afternoon (a few of the girls were at the mission and asked me to walk back to the orphanage with them, about a quarter mile) and somehow found myself teaching them what I know of the Highland Fling!

In any case, they show up in a number of my stories, so I wanted to introduce them! You'll see them again soon.

Around that same time, we had the Forty Hours devotion. The Forty Hours is literally forty straight hours of Eucharistic Adoration (we learned from Canon Sigros that Our Lord is traditionally believed to have been in the tomb for forty hours). The votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament is celebrated, followed by exposition (which includes the Pange Lingua and Litany of the Saints in this case). 

For us, Mass was at 7:00 a.m. Monday (the week of Ash Wednesday) and Adoration started at 8:00. Adoration continued all day Monday and overnight into Tuesday. I had never done a nocturnal holy hour before, so I took 11:00 p.m. to midnight (being able to do that was part of the greatest joys of being at the mission). I tried to sleep before hand (I got to bed around 9:30), but that didn't really work. Despite that, I was hardly tired at all and had no trouble staying awake for the whole hour. Just me and Our Lord in the middle of the night; it was a beautiful holy hour! 

We then had Mass Tuesday morning (again the Mass of the Blessed Sacrament), adoration all day, Mass of the Blessed Sacrament again at 10:30 p.m. (since there are two priests, there are two Masses said daily at the mission; so much grace!) and closing of the Forty Hours at 11:00 p.m. (again the Pange Lingua and Litany of Saints), followed by chocolate milk and Oreos to give us strength for the Ash Wednesday fast, said Canon Fragelli (that was a fun party...). 

I actually made back-to-back holy hours that Tuesday, because Faith and I had taken the 2-3 p.m. hour and were waiting for whomever had the 3-4 hour (neither of us had a watch). We were still waiting, when the person who had the 4-5 hour showed up. We got out of the chapel, looked at the clock -- 4 p.m.! 

Now would begin the great season of Lent.