Bishop Castor Sekwa
was sitting alone in the dining room at the Bishop’s Residence at Buhangija in
Shinyanga, Tanzania.  When he heard two priests speaking the local language
Sukuma in the adjoining sitting room he told the cook, “Tell one of the Sukuma
priests to come here so that I can talk with him.”   So in walks one of the
local Tanzanian diocesan priests.  Bishop Sekwa says, “I don’t want to see you,
I want the other Sukuma priest.”  To which the Tanzanian priest replies, “But
the other priest is Father Liberatore” (a Maryknoll priest from the United
States).  That the bishop thought that Father Charles Liberatore was a native
Sukuma speaker is indeed the ultimate compliment to a Maryknoll missionary.

    On another
occasion I was showing Maryknoll Father Ed Hayes around in Dar es Salaam.  He
began speaking with the security guard in the parking lot of St. Joseph’s
Cathedral in perfect Kuria, the language that he has used all his missionary
life in Musoma Diocese. The give and take was like the pleasant conversation
between two old friends.  The next time I saw the security guard he asked me
about Ed: “Has your Kuria visitor gone back to Musoma yet?”