Albeit with a heavy heart, also for Fr. Franceso Avi, a Camillian religious and missionary medical doctor, the hour to leave had arrived.

Fr. Avi came to this painful decision because of his advanced age and because of health problems. If it had been up to him, he would have gone on visiting and helping his patients at the Hospital of Tabaka (Kenya) where he has spent a large part of his life.

Father Avi spent the day before he took the aeroplane that took him back to Italy at the St. Camillus Seminary of Nairobi where he said goodbye to his fellow Camillian religious, the seminarians and the sisters. During the farewell dinner we – seminarians and providers of formation – organised a short ‘ceremony’ to demonstrate our esteem and affection for him. We made Fr. Avi a ‘Masai Elder’, dressing him in a very colourful Masai cloak and putting a sceptre ‘a ‘rungu’ in Swahili) in his hand: both of these characterise a Masai elder in this part of Africa.

With this ‘ceremony’ – which Fr. Avi greatly appreciated – we wanted to say to him that even if he was going back to Italy for good he would always remain our ‘mzee’, our elderly patriarch who would continue to hand on to us his wisdom, his affection, and his experience as a faithful Camillian religious and an energetic missionary medical doctor.

During a break, I took Fr. Avi to one side and asked him some questions, engaging in a kind of interview in order to enable younger religious to know about the life of this Camillian religious of ours who from the mountains of Trentino came to spend very many years in Africa, once again amongst mountains, and more specifically in the uplands of the district of Kisii.

This is the text of the interview.

• Avi, where were you born?
• I was born on 4 August 1934 in a little village (‘Vigo Pine’) of the commune of Piné in the Province of Trento.
• How many brothers and sisters did you have?
• My family had four children. First a sister, then a brother who died at the age of 60. A second brother was a Camillian religious (a brother), but he died at the age of 30 following an operation.
• What was his name?
• Brother Lino Avi. Then there was the youngest: me.
• What did your father and mother do?
• My father was a carpenter like St. Joseph. But because of his war wounds of the Great War of 1915-1918 he was confined to bed for a number of years. I met him when I was six years old at the hospital of Trento where he died. My mother was a housewife who was very pious in her observance and was very dedicated to her family and to charity. According to what many of the village people said, she was the benefactor of various families.
• How was your vocation born? When did you enter the seminary?
• Like all the boys of my time, I was an altar boy and I liked to serve during Holy Mass. At our school, our schoolmistress – who was a cousin of the Camillian Father Pietro Bolcech, a great benefactor for Tabaka – also took an interest in the vocations of the pupils. Three of us wanted to enter the seminary. One day we went to the parish priest to tell him about our intention of becoming priests. He suggested that we enter the Congregation of the Cavanis Fathers (a religious Congregation founded in Venice) to which various priests of a village near to mine belonged. I said that I wanted to enter the Camillians because my brother Lino was in the Camillians. At this, the parish priest said to me: good. Then you will have to care for the sick because the Camillians take care of the sick. I immediately replied: No, if that’s the way it is, I won’t go. And I started to cry. When my brother – who was on holiday – knew about this, he said to me: let the others go to the Cavanis fathers, but you will come with me to the Camillians. A happy ending!
• Which Camillian house did you enter?
• I went to Villa Visconta (in the commune of Besana in Brianza, Milan).
• Which year?
• I entered after the Second World War, in October 1945. At the outset, I was a little disorientated because in my village the (Austrian) system of having one teacher was the rule and he or she managed five classes at the same time. But in that school (with its many classes) of my village (it had 200-220 inhabitants), the education was not below par for that time. Indeed, reference was already made to X-rays, to radio broadcasts (even though I wrote ‘aradio’), geography was fashionable, then history…(if we had wanted to, we would have known how to make bronze statues…).
• When and where were you ordained a priest?
• My ordination took place on 21 June 1959 in Mottinello Nuovo (Vicenza) where at that time we Camillians attended courses in theology that were taught by Msgr. Girolamo Bortignon, the Bishop of Padua.
• How many were there of you?
• It was a numerous class. Ten of us were ordained. Now there are only three of us left.
• How was your missionary vocation born?
• In the seminary I was always a member of the ‘missions group’. During the fourth year of theology I was also the secretary of this group. Not much time had passed since the Camillians of our Province of Lombardy and Veneto had opened a mission in China (in the year 1946). Father Antonio Crotti during his visits to Italy did not fail to enthuse us about it.
• Avi, you are also a medical doctor. When did you engage in medical studies?
• After my ordination I was assigned to the community of Padua as a hospital chaplain. Father Antonelli, a missionary medical doctor in Taiwan, was not well physically and had asked the Provincial Superior to have another Camillian religious embark on medical studies so that he could take his place. The Provincial Father of that time, Father Fontana, asked me if I felt like studying medicine and then taking the place of Father Antonelli. I asked him if I could think about the matter for three days and after that time I said I was ready to do it. For that matter, some precedents had not been very encouraging: some young Camillian priests who had studied medicine and were all at the end of their studies had left the Order to embrace lay life.
• How many years of studying did you need?
• Six, at the University of Padua, from 1959 to 1965. Then, after six months of personal preparation, I took my state examinations in Turin. Obeying the orders of Father Crotti. I immediately left for Taiwan (which at that time was called the Island of Formosa).
• How many years did you spend in Taiwan?
• In all about twenty years. I very soon met Dr. Janez, a lay missionary from Yugoslavia, a very good surgeon but also a very demanding one, and he suggested that I should help him during his operations for a few years (they turned out to be four and a half), but then to go to some other hospital ‘to learn the ropes and become independent’, and then come back again to Taiwan. I went to Italy for a year and a half. In Verona I met Father Adolfo Serripierri who was also a missionary medical doctor. He was doing an internship in paediatrics at the Hospital of St. Boniface in Verona. He introduced me to the consultant surgeon of that hospital and I was accepted as second assistant in the surgery department because the medical doctor who held the post was absent because he was attending a course of specialisation. After six months, when he came back, I was accepted in the department of orthopaedics where they still did not have an assistant. Under the direction of the consultant in the department of surgery, I began to carry out as the surgeon my first operations, which were also rather demanding. I soon became a friend of the assistant surgeon of that time, Dr. Luigi Benini, and later he often came to visit me in Tabaka (as he is doing now), willingly performing operations and forming a sincere friendship with the staff.
• Then you went back to Taiwan?
• Yes, I went back to Taiwan in 1972 and to begin with I set myself to studying Chinese. I was sent to the community of Makung on the Pescadores Islands (an archipelago with about sixty islands located between Taiwan and Hong Kong), and there I worked in our hospital which had seventy beds. I was often the only medical doctor there. I performed a large number of operations, which times were also very demanding, and so I secured the help of a nurse. In 1976 I received a telephone call from the Provincial Superior, Fr. Vezani, who told me that in Africa, and more specifically in Tabaka, there was an urgent need – but only for a limited period of time – for a medical doctor who was also a surgeon because the resident doctor was about to leave at the end of his contract and the doctor of our group of Camillians who would have taken his place had died. I answered that I would go to Tabaka on two conditions: a) that I would not be the only medical doctor in that hospital – indeed, I asked for another medical doctor ‘vaccinated’ against Africa to be looked for; and b) that they would not close the hospital (as they had decided to do), thereby enabling the staff to remain in their jobs. The Provincial Superior assured me that he would respect my conditions. He kept his word!
• So then you left Taiwan and went temporarily to Tabaka to save a critical situation?
• That’s the way things went. I arrived in Kenya in July 1976. At the airport to welcome me there was Father Rino Meneghello who had already obtained an entrance visa for me. Some time before that I had been preceded by Father Spagnolo, Brother Fabio and Brother Albano who were in Nairobi to improve their English and study tropical diseases. A month later we were all together in Tabaka (in the meantime three women Ministers of the Sick had also arrived) and in September we officially began the ‘Camillian’ management of the hospital.
• I came to Kenya in January 1984 but you were not there. Where were you?
• After ten months of intense work (during that period there were also Dr. Cuneo and Dr. Invernizzi – I think that the number of patients who were normally admitted rose from 40 to 130!), I returned to the Pescadores (that was May 1977). After nine years (1986), the same situation arose as regards medical doctors. Therefore, once again the Provincial Superior requested my ‘emergency’ presence. I went back to Tabaka and I have been here until now!
• Avi: even in summarising form it is not possible because of the time available to go over your 32 years of missionary activity in Africa. I will just ask you: what is the best memory or experience that you want to leave to the young generation?
• Well, there would be very many memories. I remember a very difficult operation where I did as best as I could and in the end, given that the situation was still critical, I said: St. Camillus, take care of this! And everything turned out well in the best way possible. I could remember a number of successes, but…To confirm this, at times I meet people who stop me in the street, in the streets of Nairobi as well, and they say to me: “Oh, Fr. Avi! Don’t you remember me? You operated on me in Tabaka very many years ago. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to go on living!” It is beautiful and satisfying to treat people not out of self-interest but simply because they need treatment.
• Do you remember some negative experiences that you absolutely would like to forgot about?
• In the medical field I don’t think there are any. I have not always been able to restore patients to better states of health, but this arose from the fact that they arrived in the emergency department too late, in extreme situations. However, I do remember that it befell me to come across some episodes of dubious conduct, of authentic, even though veiled, hypocrisy. People who in my presence expressed gratitude but then openly criticised the hospital and its management. Here there comes to mind a recent phrase pronounced by Pope Francis: better a non-believer than a hypocritical believer!!!
• In your view what is the outstanding part of the hospital of Tabaka?
• I will not say what the outstanding part of the hospital of Tabaka is, but I will say what should be the outstanding part, that is to say our union, our human and spiritual witness. If people see that we work honestly and with a deep religious spirit, then they will esteem us and follow us. Each one of us must try to be more convinced, more observant, ‘personally and as a community more radical’. We must bring out the religious foundation of our work. Let us also learn from other ‘religious Faiths and altruistic movements’ and love our Camillian vocation: we should not be ashamed to be consecrated Christians.
• Avi, what would you like to say to end our conversation? What is the legacy that you want to leave to the Camillians of Kenya now that you are leaving this country?
• To love God and the Church sincerely and actively; to love the sick and our Camillian religious. To try to form a family in which its members help each other without concealing anything. Negative experiences there have been, and there will always be, but they have to spoken about with sincerity and mutual love. Our faith and consecration have to be lived with honesty and faithfulness, and this is even more the case given that the Delegation is now moving towards becoming a Vice-Province. We must be and demonstrate: “I’m happy that I consecrated myself to God and my neighbour in the Camillian religious life!”.

Thank you, Father Avi, for the precious information that you have provided us with on your long missionary experience and your life. I will try to sum up what you have said and write it down so that very many other people will come to learn about it.

Edited by Paolo Guarise