NATIONAL YOUTH DAY FIJI
Julian Fox
SUVA: 12th March -- Fiji has created a national holiday in favour of its young people - in fact a whole week of events leading up to the holiday as well. It seemed to the Salesians that to ignore such a ready-made event would not be in the spirit of Don Bosco! Problem was to actually have access to youth who might want to gather on that day - the new Salesian presence is a formation community and does not at the moment have any other form of 'work' attached to it. Enter Don Bosco himself in the form of a school named in his honour who are now delighted that Salesians are in the offing. Just the merest hint that the Friday holiday could well be spent in the company of the young Salesians who visit the school each Friday brought 120 or so youngsters to find their own way to the Salesian residence for a gathering that was supposed to start at 10 and finish at 3. They arrived at 8 and had to be gently coaxed off the property at 5! Mass was celebrated to open the day and all 120 turned up for confessions, keeping the three priests very very busy for the time before Mass. And of course they had to be fed. 10 kg of rice did not go very far, so ti was off to the shop to buy out all remaining bread. All in all it wasn't too different a scene, one suspects, from the Oratory of old...inlcuding the possibility that the locals might have found the gathering a little noisy, and it might have to find other locations in the future. However, we think we can at least say that the Salesian presence is now properly launched - there will be shortage of kids from here on.
