After arriving in Tanzania as a lay missionary from the
United States, I was spending time with Paschali, a carpenter working in our
parish of Ndoleleji, Shinyanga Diocese and his wife Paulina during the somber
period of mourning for their one-year-old daughter who had died two nights
earlier. Paschali mentioned that he was not one of the Sukuma people who live
around Ndoleleji. He told me that he came from the Lake Victoria area farther
north. Looking out at the brown, flat, eroding terrain around us, I couldn’t
understand why anyone would leave his ethnic group and the lush land around Lake
Victoria. Finally I asked Paschali what possessed him to make such a move. He
turned to me with a smile and asked, "What brought you here?"