Readers who see this photo and learn about its setting cannot help but be inspired by the message it conveys. On the surface it appears to be a classroom where an older instructor is teaching the solfege scale degrees to a young student. The reality is much more profound.
The Archdiocese of Bukavu is situated in the Democratic Republic of Congo just west of the border with Rwanda. For thirty years the area has been plagued by the ravages of wars, wars which have resulted in repeated humanitarian crises involving mass displacement, civilian casualties, and frustrated development. It is an environment in which hope and sanity are hard to come by. They can be found, though, in the Archdiocese of Bukavu where this photo was recently taken.
Daniel Rugamika is the Director of the School of Music and Arts of Pueri Cantores of the Resurrection in the Archdiocese. In addition to teaching youngsters the arts of cooking and tailoring, the school introduces the students to the elements music. Knowing this, and cognizant of the dispiriting and conflicted environment in which the lives of these young people are immersed, readers will agree there is more in the photo than what meets the eye.
Consider what the students are learning and how it relates to, or contrasts with, the troubled world around them. They are exposed to order and discipline. They experience the solicitous guidance of the older generation. They are introduced to natural law as evidenced by the universality and timelessness of a music scale. They come to understand the reality of inter-relationships as demonstrated by the relative positions of the notes, and of course they are exposed to the uplifting power of beauty. Study the photo closely. See the attention the students pay the instructor. Observe the posture of the lad in the orange shirt. Notice the cocked angle of his arms and the intensity of his gaze. It is as though he and his classmates understand that the scale on which the notes ascend on the blackboard resembles a ladder, a ladder which somehow presages their own ladder to a fuller life.
Pueri Cantores of the Resurrection in the Archdiocese of Bukavu is part of the International Federation Pueri Cantores. Though it has been around for a while, the American Federation (pcchoirs.org) has been increasingly active in recent years and has involved young singers from over sixty dioceses in the United States. The American Federation has established a fund at NCCF to support the work of the International Federation. Hence the connection with the promising work of Mr. Rugamika in Bukavu.
The roots of the International Federation reach back over a century to France. After the First World War young boy singers knows as ‘Les Petits Chanteurs a la Croix du Bois” (The Little Singers of the Wooden Cross) travelled around that war ravaged nation singing liturgical songs to lift spirits and promote peace. The movement became international later that century and now has a presence in over 40 countries, including the Congo.
As it does in so many places, the Pueri Cantores initiative in the Archdiocese of Bukavu brings hope to the young people, that same hope that drives the advance of the Kingdom.
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