Andiamo Youth Cooperative Trust (AYCT) under the pillar of Social Development among other things, takes care of the elderly by giving them a dignified life. These elderly are given shelter (a house), food and an upkeep allowance just to mention just a few. On the morning of Tuesday, 8 October 2013 we went to Agogo Magdalena Jailosi, one of the elderly people under this project and this is what she shared with us:
Agogo Magdalena and Patricia with her two kids
From Bilira Ntcheu to Andiamo, Balaka.
It did not just happen. It must have been God’s intervention. She tells us. She together with her husband left Ntcheu in 1969 for Balaka in search of employment. That time in Balaka there were some businesspersons from India who they thought could give them the much-wanted job.
It was not easy. They went from one house to another looking for employment. They found one, lost another in the process till one family (name withheld) offered them what looked like a permanent job. The husband was supposed to work as a watchman.
The job was never to be permanent because in 2006 the husband had stroke. Thieves took advantage of the husband’s situation. They began to come at night to steal door and window frames from the unfinished house they were supposed to be watching. Every night thieves came to steal the frames. One by one the frames disappeared.
“When the thieves came at night, I could hear them but even if I told my husband he could not do anything with his stroke. We waited till it was their turn to steal us because there were no door or window frames any more,” recalled Agogo Magdalena. Their turn did not arrive because of one man.
Fr. Mario Pacifici comes to their rescue
Agogo Magdalena who is 83 now recalls with detail what used to happen every morning the thieves had stolen the previous night.
“People used to gather at our place in the morning to sympathise with us,” she recalls that other people just passed by. Fr. Mario was one of the passers by but little did they know that he was thinking about them.
“One day Mr. Clement Kulapa, [one of the catechists of St. Montfort Parish where Fr. Mario was Parish Priest] came to us telling us if we could allow to go in Andiamo and stay in the house that would be built for us as was suggested by Fr. Mario. Who could say, ‘No’?”
They were told to wait for a week. “The week was like a year to us,” reveals Agogo Magdalena. The day finally came. This was in 2007.
The husband spent only one year in their new home. He died later in 2008.
At 83
Agogo Magdalena is now 83. She stays with one of her many great grand children, Patricia. Patricia is only 19 but has two kids. Agogo Magdalena does not want Patricia to face what she went through when she is gone. These children need what they must call a home in future. Are they going to get it? May be food for thought for everybody!
By Our Reporter