A New Missionary at an Old Mission
(ANS – Tappita, Liberia) - Tappita, a village in Liberia, 250 miles from the
capital, Monrovia, is in the middle of the forest, truly a place on the world’s
outer edge. “It is the most classical mission far and distant from every known
place. I am in a remote village, forgotten by the local government, but not, we
hope, by God,” is the first comment that Fr. Riccardo Castellino, SDB, made from
his new mission.
Fr. Riccardo is not the first Salesian to serve at Tappita. When the
two American provinces were sponsors of the mission to Liberia, two priests
from the New Rochelle Province put in their sweat, tears, and love there: Fr.
John Thompson (1984-1988) and Fr. Larry Gilmore (1985-1988), who subsequently
returned to the mission in Monrovia. In addition, Sean Devereux, an English
past pupil, joined the mission in 1989, staying until the outbreak of civil war
early in 1990. Sean then went to work for the U.N., and while on U.N.
assignment in Somalia was murdered while defending food intended for the needy.
You can read below how Fr. Riccardo finds Tappita in 2018 and then
imagine what it was like in the 1980s!
The last 60 miles of roads are impossible to travel
across during the rainy season, and for weeks residents are cut off from access
to the capital. People commonly travel by motorcycles, and in the dry season a
huge dust cloud is raised. At best, you need 3 hours of being jolted around on
the terrain before reaching the asphalt road and continuing for another 190 miles
to Monrovia.
It is a village where mail or newspapers do not arrive,
but today, thanks to Internet, that is no longer a problem. At Tappita the
market takes place once a week, a time when people converge from all the
surrounding villages; an opportunity to see people and find something more than
what you normally find in the various villages, which is generally little.
It is a typical forest village where people survive
with traditional agriculture; they eat, but have no money. A village where at
the table you first eat the soup and then ask what was inside—and find out it
was monkey, opossum, boa, deer; in short, everything that runs or crawls.
Tappita has electricity, but the parish never had
enough funds to plant the poles and pull the wires to the mission. So you have
to make sure you charge your computer, mobile phone, and battery in the three
hours you run the small generator in the evening.
The parish has 24 outstations: I do not know when
we will finish visiting them all, especially since the roads are as bad as
described above. Some are reachable only by motorcycle, and then only in the
dry season. Some have not seen a priest for 3 years. But you get used to
everything!
We do not have a formation house here. Albertino
and Edwin Tangie are with me, young, enthusiastic, and enterprising. I am
tempted to say that they do everything. Remember us in prayer.
Source: Don Bosco Missions
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