Students Take the Spiritan Trail during Maymester Study Abroad in Africa
Nineteen Duquesne students have returned from the first Duquesne Maymester in Tanzania and Zanzibar, following in the footsteps of Spiritan priests who began their ministries in African countries centuries ago. Retaining the congregation’s legacy of service, the students carried 250 pounds of previously donated vitamins to a flying Tanzania medical mission as well as 10 boxes of books for a new Spiritan University College in Bagamoyo.
“The Spiritans were known in the 18th century, and more so in the 19th century, for sending their members to Africa,” said Dr. Gerald Boodoo, director of the Center for African Studies, which organized the study abroad with the Office of International Programs. “This is a unique link for our students, not only to Spiritan history, but to the Spiritan mission.”
The center and its 25-plus course curriculum have helped students become more aware of the University initiative to engage Africa, Boodoo said. The visit to Zanzibar and Bagamoyo, in eastern Tanzania, allowed students to become versed in the slave trade and in the Catholic, Spiritan roots. In more recent history, Bagamoyo served as the site where the Rev. John Fogarty, C.S.Sp., former director of the Center for Spiritan Studies at Duquesne, was elected Superior General of the worldwide congregation in 2012. Students stayed in Stella Maris, the same Spiritan hostel that hosted the event.
These students also stayed in Arusha, where Duquesne has long-standing relationships with the diocese there and the Spiritans; visited in Maasai lands and the Ngorongoro crater; trekked up part of Mount Kilimanjaro; and enjoyed the Tanzania capital of Dar es Salaam and the spice markets of Zanzibar.
Michael Wright and Sam Celetto of Duquesne’s Italian campus served as on-site coordinators. Faculty for the courses in faith and reason and images of Africa were the Rev. Casimir Nyaki, C.S.Sp., former Duquesne philosophy professor, and James Vota, instructor of journalism and multimedia arts.
“This experience gives our students a unique appreciation and understanding of other people and spaces, and it does prompt our students to begin to construct ways of what it means to think and act in our world as global citizens,” said Boodoo. “Going to Africa not only changes our perceptions, but our way of acting based on these perceptions as well.”