During the week of the May, 1996 jubilee celebrations in
Musoma, Tanzania, Father Lou Bayless visited an old friend Father Tarcisio Sije
who was confined to bed at Makoko Center. Entering the compound Lou greeted a
woman in Kwaya, the locally spoken language. When the woman said, "I’m a Luo,"
our veteran missionary switched to a Luo greeting. When Father Sije’s nurse
explained that she belongs to the Haya Ethnic Group Lou used a few words of Haya.
Then he talked with Sije in Swahili and Luo giving the Tanzanian priest a small
black and white photograph of him as a young seminarian at Nyegezi in 1946. Then
Lou greeted two children passing by in Sukuma. Finally he talked in English with
the Indian Claretian priest living at the centre. Six languages in twenty
minutes. Not bad for our golden jubilarian starting his second 50 years in
mission.