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The Truckload from Libreville, and Two Other Stories

I can explain.

The day after that depressing Friday was another "off" day, with people being sick, the schedule being unusual, things just feeling wrong. I was, however, able to get to town with Maman Ngnigone and Faith, finding soap and toothpaste at the supermarket, which was a rather fun outing, and everyone was at aperitif and dinner that evening, helping things to start look up. 

The Truckload

On Sunday, we finally had a normal day until the evening. The man who had driven Canon Fragelli to Libreville came back (Canon Fragelli was in the military hospital in Libreville at this point) with all the things the Mission needed from Libreville: meat (chicken breasts -- unpackaged, so we just threw them all in one of the big blue trash bags and put that in the freezer; chicken franks; and kilos upon kilos of ground beef); copy paper; ink (for the printer); a couple washers and driers, I think; a box of supplies for the dispensary; some big plastic thing (it looked like the window to a front-loading washer, so maybe a replacement part?); and a couple of boxes of books for the school. The refrectory looked like Christmas.

Canon Sigros vetted the books after dinner. A few of us got to keep books that weren't destined for the school (there were six Harry Potter books he said we would burn). The one I claimed was L'asthme, a French medical book published in 1975, explaining asthma in layman's terms (the kind of book you find at the library). It has the old card from "Bibliotheque M.D.R. 6° Bima", the earliest checkout being in 1983. I've kept the thing more for fun/posterity than actually reading it.


There was also Maladies Tropicales du Betail (Tropical Diseases of Livestock (?)), which Canon handed to me, saying, "Here, this one is for you!" I decided to pass it up. 

News on Canon Fragelli

We were told around this time that Canon Fragelli was in the Libreville hospital as a "precaution", which made me think maybe things weren't so bad. We found out the day after that, that he had been transferred to the ICU, but while I couldn't understand everything that was said, I thought maybe things still weren't too bad, and had hopes that he would be back before I left in June. 

Even Processions Aren't a Quiet Moment

The following two days (Monday and Tuesday), we had the "Minor Litanies" and processions for the days leading up to Ascension Thursday. It consisted of processing to the garden while praying the Litany of the Saints, then Canon blessed the garden. We had had a similar procession on April 25th for the "Major Litanies", or Rogation days. The originated in different countries (one in Italy and one in France), but are very similar and the purpose of both is to ask God's blessing on the fields and crops. 

This first procession on Monday was quite memorable. For whatever reason, only I and one of the candidates were at the chapel on time that evening to start the procession. Said candidate was sent to the big chapel to get the holy water, which meant that at the beginning, the procession consisted of Canon Sigros leading and me "processing" behind. Fortunately, we were quickly joined by Marc Antoine. 

To get to the garden, we had to go through the carpentry shop -- somewhere I had never been. The ground was very uneven concrete, and Canon, with his head rather buried in his missal to lead the Litany, missed a large step and fell to the ground. He picked himself up readily enough -- I, the nurse, for whatever reason, froze in place, while Marc Antoine went up to Canon and very sweetly said, "Doucement, monsieur le chanoine" ("Easy there, Canon") -- though he limped for a few steps and was nursing a sprained ankle for the next couple days. 

The Cobra

I never had an encounter with a live snake in Africa. I don't think I would have liked it, either. The dead ones, however, didn't bother me. 

On Tuesday evening during aperitif, Maman Noëline came out to the terrace and said something that sent all the boys and men, except for our two Victors and Canon Sigros (who didn't seem to want to do much on that ankle), running off somewhere in excitement. It turned out that a lady who lived down the road from the mission (one of our bakers and the mother of an oblate) needed the guys to come kill a snake that had gotten in the house. They returned triumphantly with the decapitated snake, which they said was a cobra, freshly killed enough to be still moving. It wasn't as huge as the python we had eaten months earlier, but it was a decent size, black, with some yellow near and on the head. They had brought the head, as well, which Canon very strongly cautioned them to be careful with, as there was still venom in the fangs. They wrapped the body up in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. My journal here says, "I don't know, but I hope were going to eat it." Keep that in mind; the same snake will be back soon!

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