“To educate children, it is necessary to open their hearts.”
It’s a quarter to six on Friday afternoon. The sun is just beginning to set here in Baro. Except for the rumbling of the Pacific waves, everything is still. The calmness feels kind of weird. Weird, I say, in contrast to everything that has just happened here this week.
It’s Friday, June 20th and we have just finished our second “holy week” so to speak: Holy Trinity Week. Since God Himself is our Heavenly Patron, we could not let the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity pass without due honor.
The first way we honored our patrons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—was through our participation in the big parish Mass held on Sunday in the village of Waromo. Fr. Miguel de la Calle celebrated the Mass and Fr. Martin Prado preached the homily. Many of our students and teachers participated in the Mass and shared the “amamas” (festive lunch) afterwards.
To be honest, I was not feeling well that day. I thought that after concelebrating the Mass I would just enjoy the rest of the festive lunch in the shade talking to some of the youth. I should have known better.
By the time the festive show started after lunch, the requests started coming. “Fr. Chuchuwa”—as some of them refer to me—”are you going to dance?” So that you know what I am talking about, let me give you the backstory.
When I arrived in PNG last December, the parish was just beginning its annual Popular Mission. Every night during the mission, the kids danced to a song during the fogón. One of the kids’ numbers was a dance called “Chu Chu Wa”. “Chu Chu Wa” is a kid’s follow-the-leader dance.
To break the ice of being in the new mission and more importantly to win over the confidence of the kids and youth I started dancing the “Chu Chu Wa” with the kids my first night at the mission. Thus began the story of “Fr. Chu Chu Wa”. Almost every other night there after I was dancing it with a different group; the children, the youth, the young adults, the mamas and the papas, and yes, the old ladies too! The best part about it was not the ridiculous white man in a cassock dancing but the joy of seeing everyone become a kid again.
Coming back to my original story, yes, “Fr. Chu Chu Wa” could not let the Holy Trinity celebration pass without dancing. This time around it was with all the mothers of the village. So, there I was once again, following the commands, dancing, and looking ridiculous doing it. But I was happy, because everyone else was happy too.
We treated the entire school week after Trinity Sunday as festive week. With the permission of our local government education officer, we took Monday off from school, calling it Holy Trinity Monday. On Tuesday we organized our first soccer game in full uniform for our Holy Trinity Football Club. It goes without saying that our boys were more than excited to have their first game. Although they did not have to be at the school until 12:00pm to travel to town, many of them started showing up at 10:00am.
Once 12:00pm came we loaded up into our team bus; by “bus” I mean four-wheel drive pick-up trucks. As we were about to leave one of our boys ran up and said, “Father, the game is cancelled.” “Are you sure?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said, “the coach from the other team drove by the village with his wife and kids and said that the game was cancelled because there was too much water on the field.”
It had been raining earlier that day, but certainly not enough to drench a soccer field to the point of being unusable. Nevertheless, this is Papua New Guinea and as they say around here, you should expect the unexpected.
Unexpecting this turn of events, I quickly decided to devise a plan B. We would stay in Baro and play an inter-squad game between the senior division boys and the junior division boys. The boys were sold on the idea instantly and immediately started putting on their uniforms, lacing up their soccer cleats and warming up. They played a full 90 minutes under the remaining clouds that afternoon. The seniors won easily 5-1.
More important than the score was the good spirit it planted in the hearts of the boys. The whole purpose of the soccer club is to motivate them; to motivate them to do better in their classes, to motivate them to be more disciplined at school, and to motivate them to use their time and talents well and by doing so avoid sin and getting into trouble.
On Wednesday we came back to school and kicked off our Holy Trinity Games among our house teams. Here at Holy Trinity Humanities Academy, we have four “houses”: the Dolphins, the Dugongs, the Eels, and the Sharks.
The primary school organized a few fun games and arts projects while the junior high organized various competitions and presentations. Among the academic competitions prepared were a PNG History Quiz, a Spelling Bee, Latin dialogues and English dialogues. We had one competition each for arts and sports. For the arts students competed in a poetry writing and recitation event and in sports students ran in 100m races. Finally, we also had a visual arts expo, an 8th grade choir presentation and a 9th grade drama presentation. Our 9th graders presented three scenes from Homer’s The Illiad.
Just as our Holy Trinity Week began with the Mass in Waromo, so it ended with our School Mass on Friday in Baro. Students and teachers decorated the hall, prepared the readings and music for the liturgy and even organized a traditional cultural procession to begin the Mass. After giving thanks to God in the Mass, we also took the time to give thanks to our teachers who organized our activities and to show our appreciation to those students who exhibited special virtues during the week. We gave individual awards to the students who were deserving of recognition for their extra effort in teamwork, courage, generosity, and good spirit. Last, but not least, we also awarded the Holy Trinity Games trophy to the Sharks for their victory!
As I finish this short summary of our Holy Trinity Week events, the sun has just finished setting over Baro. The darkness is gently falling over us now like the closing curtain after the final act. The end of the day and the end of our Holy Trinity Week has come.
But before this chronicle closes as well, allow me to reaffirm a pedagogical principle of St. John Bosco: before you can educate children and youth you must first win their hearts. This principle summarizes the purpose of writing this chronicle. I wrote it to share with you my experience about first winning and opening the hearts of those you want to teach before actually teaching them. Whether you win their heart by dancing, by being their coach or by being a part of things they enjoy doing, every effort to make to draw close to them will bear fruit. You cannot form their minds or their wills without first winning their hearts, i.e. winning their trust and their love.
Until next time, good night from Baro!
Fr. Christopher Etheridge
