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Part 7

This webpage reproduces a part of
an autobiographical memoir
by
Agnes Cecelia Kozlowski

The text is © Agnes Kozlowski Nutter
and reproduced by permission

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.

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Part 9

Agnes Cecelia Kozlowski
— an autobiographical memoir

[Life as a nurse in an African convent]

 p46  The year 1954 greeted me with three weeks of illness. But I just had to get to the Nursery and the Dispensary to get set up with all the medication that came in from the Medical Mission Station in N. Y. Since Im following the days from the first of the year, the first Sunday was set aside for Retreat for the Sisters. After the p. m. lecture the nuns would go for a walk to the garden while I remained home that afternoon. In that spare time I would write a letter to some benefactor in the States. Monday was wash day for the school girls. Sister Yolanta would prepare the things in huge cemented tubs and the next morning the girls would be up at four to wash by hand every piece. That included the Jesuit Fathers clothing along with the Nuns clothing and believe me it was a good bit to have done by eight in the a.m. During Dec. I made little smocks for the infants from a beauti­ful piece of blue material from America so on the Feast of the Three Kings Jan. 3rd I have dressed all my little ones and how pretty they looked. White bedding and brown skinned darlings all in blue. During the following days I have been to the compound to attend to an infants with malaria. That had taken up about two hours of the day. I didnt mind it at all going on bicycle to the villages, since that meant attending then to the villagers at the same time. Since Sr. Superior was teaching during the evenings she would bring in some of the school texts books and I would spend my recreation period recovering them for the children.

In the mean time there was one young nun who couldnt eat due  p47 to the treatments of going through Russia.⁠a I have mention to have her taken to the doctors since her stomach was shrinking more and more. Then in return Sup. got down her throat she wouldnt allow her to get away from the table until she ate a sufficient amount of food as others. The poor nun couldnt eat but sat there looking at her plate. That evening I have gone to Sister Y. to tell her Im very sorry that she is being treated in that manner. She said it isnt the first time she had to go through that torture. Later she would come to the nursery and bring her sewing along where we spent a few hours together, in that time I would teach her a few word in English. It didnt last very long since we had a F. B. I. and reported it to the Sup. that we were together during the day so that was stopped, just plain jelousy, and what harm would it be to the young sister if she knew more than the others after spending 28 years in the Missions.

Since there wasnt too much of a variety when any thing came along we tried to see what was going on. In about two miles from the mission some one was clearing the forest with a bull dozer so that evening five of the nuns have gotten together and walked to the forest. It was something for the others to see the machinery, as for me I have seen more than that type of equipment (machinery) since the Turn Pike in Jersey ran right through our property and those men worked all day long with many different types of equipment.

With in the time that I have been in Africa ten girls (Natives) wanted to become nuns and on Jan. 13 word came in from Mother General from Poland that they would belong to our Community. That day I have been called out to the near village to bring in two very ill pts. to our mission and the following day to get them to the hospital. When I went the following morning shopping had to be done so the day was spent in town. During the month of Jan it was the rainy season it did rain.

 p48  January was an important month for the Sisters they have been there 25 years on the 16th.⁠b So High Mass with all the dignity, Father Sup. had the Mass. But what happened from the Gospel every one started to look at each others. Before we knew it bells were ringing for the Consecration. No Gospel or offering. was that Mass valid or not I never did find out. Some times one wonders where do things come from. Sunday morning I have gotten up on the sound of the bell, and washed in the bowl taking water from the pail that stood near the wash stand. I looked into a mirrow since I couldnt open my eyes, sure enough I have been swollen so cold compresses applied after Mass and to bed. That I didnt mind I caught up on some sleep at least. When ever I had a chance I would try to get some news of what happens in the villages when the priest have to go out for a whole week. Father Joseph been out and when he came back this is the story I got. I slept in a open school no doors or windows just a building put up I tried to sleep with the mosquito net over me naturally. During the quiet of the night I heard creeping sounds in the school, so I flashed on the light (flash light) and a rat right at a good distance I reached for my gun and right through the mosquito net I got him spattered to pieces. Then I turned over torn a piece of paper from my package and patched up the hole to get some sleep for the rest of the night.

That day bread had been brough in from the Lusaka Bakery for the children. But eight loaves were asked for by Sup. to give it out for the workers. Although they griped about getting the bread for the children every time it did come in I had to part with a good number of loaves . . .

Since I had to pick up the native language I was determined to sit at least one hour a day and make it my business to work out the schedule that way, naturally I had to get permission from sister Sup. Since I have been looking worse every day orders were given me not to go out to the  p49 Dispensary or Nursery. Special permission was given if any one needed me. So one of the Fathers had an infected finger, I had the permission to go and return once he was treated. One of the orphans had pneumonia and the following day the funeral was held for her. She was the prettiest baby Leona. That evening we had some excitement. When the children came out from church after saying their night prayers a rabbit appeared. Before long the boys started chasing after it, but the poor little creature was a bit faster, it did run to the girls quaters, they have been eating. When eyes were popped at him off they ran to. Meat was a delicacy for the natives. It ran back to the main road, and the boys ran after it, we watched from a distance before long one of the Fathers had gotten into the chase. Fifteen boys and one rabbitt. Finally he got trapped in bushes. When they did catch the creature, the skin was torn off from his hign legs. How and who was going to eat it now would it be divided up equally?? No the boys were real gentlemen they have handed it over to the native Nuns that have been in the Mission from another community, since they had some conflict amongst their own. They needed permission to accept the good meat. So the good Sisters had a nice meal.

During the days in the Dispensary I had some terrible cases very serious ones in fact. One child came in with a knife wound in the throat after one month on treatment it finally started to heal up. The last time he came to the station was on Jan 30 since he went off with a small sterile bandage to keep it clean from the dust as he had to return to his village by bike for nine miles.

Thayer's Notes:

a Even in a remote southern African convent, a witness to the starvation of Russia's subject peoples; readers of other parts of my site, where the Russian program is gone into in varying depth — in Ukraine, central Asia, Lithuania — will not be surprised. I regret that Agnes did not identify this sister or tell us where she was from. Poland seems likeliest of course (which at the time included areas now in Ukraine), but maybe other places in Ukraine or some other eastern European country overrun by Russia.

[decorative delimiter]

b According to the Kasisi Foundation's website, the orphanage in Kasisi traces its beginnings to the 1926 rescue by Dominican Sisters of a little girl, followed two years later by a formal structure established by the Sisters Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception from the Polish village of Stara Wieś (not far from the great Polish national shrine of Czȩstochowa); this is the order to which Agnes belonged and which still runs Kasisi Children's Home as it is now called.

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