TOMÁS & PAQUITA ALVIRA | Book Launch, Nov. 8, 2018

Olga's new book, on the Alviras.

November 13, 2018–My sister Olga Marlin's 84th birthday was yesterday. In response to birthday wishes, she sent the following report on the launch of her book on the Alvira couple, Tomás and Paquita, the previous Thursday in Nairobi, Kenya:

On November 8 we had the launch of the Alvira book [Our Lives in His Hands] in the Strathmore Business School. It was for cocktails with speeches and a book signing. The following morning we had a breakfast and Colloquium on the Family. Concha's brother, Professor Rafael Alvira, came for the occasion. 

The events were very well attended, with a packed auditorium and sale of more than 100 books.  Concha's brother gave a couple of speeches. A display of books on stage was hidden by a curtain with a red ribbon across it. The Guest of Honour cut the ribbon, the curtain was drawn – and coloured smoke went up with a bang! I was shocked and thought the electric lights had blown! But it was only a planned highlight of the launch. 

The Guest of Honour was an Indonesian from the World Bank, son of Muslim parents who converted to Catholicism and later joined Opus Dei. His wife was also there, a Filipino lady. It was all very warm and friendly. 

Author Olga with Fred Comins, visiting from
NYC, about 1980. Olga is my sister. Fred
is my wife Alice Tepper Marlin's uncle. 

People like the book a lot. It's being translated into French, Spanish, and Polish. 

Olga sent me her remarks for the occasion, which I post here with her permission:

During a Christmas visit I made to Archbishop Raphael Ndingi in 2010, with a colleague, Kitonyi Saiti, the idea for this book came about. We had told the Archbishop that Concha Alvira was going to Spain in February for the opening of the Cause of Beatification of her parents and he was very happy. 

He had always shown great interest in the work Opus Dei was doing in Kenya, especially in promoting Christian family life and now he told us that he had a prayer card of the couple, given to him by the Nuncio, which he kept it in his breviary and prayed every day. 

“A book should be written about them,” he said “so that especially the women can get to know Paquita who was just like them.” I said a book already existed in Spanish.
“Then translate it,” he said. 

In September the following year I had to go to Spain for health reasons and spent the next four years in and out of the Clinic of Navarre University in Pamplona. I began working on the book there. I corresponded with Antonio Vazquez, a great friend and colleague of Tomás Alvira and author of the two Spanish biographies, and with a daughter, Pilar Alvira, who lives in Madrid but came several times to work with me in Pamplona and provided lots of help and information. I also had the invaluable experience of 30 years working closely with Concha here in Nairobi. 

Olga's first book, on her life.

My main job was to convert the biographies into a chronologically based story, telling what happened as their lives unfolded and letting the facts speak for themselves. It was a beautiful task and I learned a lot, especially from the Alviras’ fidelity to the spirit of the Founder, one day after another as they built up a “bright and cheerful home.” 

When I returned to Nairobi in September 2015 with the finished book, I had to start looking for a publisher. I was told that it would need a professional editor, and I should look for a prominent person to write the Foreword. For editor I thought of Mary Gottschalk, who edited my first book To Africa with a Dream [published by Scepter in 2002 and issued in a new edition with photos by Boissevain Books in 2011]. She was so enthusiastic about that book that the publisher commented that if she had her way, Mary would sell it at every street corner! 

.

Mary is also editor of the three volumes of “The Founder of Opus Dei” by Andrés Vazquez de Prada, so she had lots of experience. She was willing to take on the editing of this book and fell in love with it as she worked, fully identifying with Tomás and Paquita. It took her nearly two years to complete the job. As Mary lives and works in Texas, she gave the text an American flavour; not out of place, as I am American-born… (Concha was amused to find her mother translated as saying: “You know what, honey?” to one of her sisters…). 

For the Foreword, I thought of Mary Ann Glendon, a Professor at Harvard Law School and former U.S Ambassador to the Holy See. I had seen a video interview with her in the University of Navarre which greatly impressed me and later I admired some faith-filled decisions she took. As it happened, Mary Ann was well-known to Professor Alvira, and she was delighted to write the Foreword for a book about his parents. Her contribution was marvellous, giving an expert overview of the challenges facing families, and celebrating “the complementarity of the Alviras and their nine children in a faith-filled, loving household where work and family were closely intertwined.” 

Scepter Publishers chose the title for the book and selected the cover photograph, which so much appealed to the journalist, Dorothy Kweyu, that she began her review in the Saturday Nation of August 11, saying: “The first thing that strikes one about ‘Our Lives in His Hands’ is the romantic image of Paquita and Tomás Alvira, whose laughter lights up the book’s front cover.” In the course of her article, Dorothy highlights the relevance of the lives of the Alvira couple for ordinary Kenyans and the couple’s personal involvement in this country which they loved so much. In 1980, when Concha wrote from where she was studying in Rome to tell her parents that she would be going to live and work in Kenya, they were at first taken aback, but quickly overcame it. 

They answered, saying: “We have already read many things about Kenya, We want to know all about that country, so as to love it more.” Two years later they came to Nairobi to visit Concha and see what she was doing. They were thrilled with all they saw, so much so that her father exclaimed: “How I would love to come and work here, if I were twenty years younger!” They stayed for about a week and we all had a chance to meet the couple. 

There was one unforgettable get-together in our Glenview home, when Don Tomás related to us the dramatic crossing of the Pyrenees with St. Josémaría in the company of several other young men. More than telling us about it, he relived it. We hung on his words, and at the same time I noticed how Paquita sat nearby, listening in the background, quietly supporting her husband. It was always like that. 

They visited Kianda School and the Faida Club, where the children made Tomás an Honorary Club Member and presented him with a Certificate… One moment when we were alone, Paquita told me how amused she had been when years ago she overheard an answer Concha gave to her older sister. Maria Isabel had called her from another room and Concha, aged three, replied: “I’m coming because I want to, not because you say so.” 

Freedom was an important aspect of the education the Alviras gave to their children and by the time Concha came along this was well-rooted in the family. It has been a privilege to write this book, and I hope that, as Archbishop Ndingi wanted, it will help many married people to discover the beauty of the marriage vocation.

KENYA | Aug. 21 – Kenyatta Freed

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was the George Washington of Kenya.

This day in 1961 he was freed by the British colonial government.

Kenyatta governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to 1978. He was the country's first black head of government and was a key player in transforming Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic.

Kenya was an economic powerhouse  relative to its neighbors during his 15 years as Kenyan leader.

As the leader of the Kenyan independence movement, Kenyatta was in prison while the British worried about the independence movement. A member of the largest, Kikuyu, tribe, he was ideologically an African nationalist and conservative and he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death.

Kenyatta was born to Kikuyu farmers in Kiambu, British East Africa, southwest of Mount Kenya. Educated at a Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) mission, he worked in various jobs before becoming politically engaged through the Kikuyu Central Association.

In 1920, Kenya formally became a British colony, and as of 1921 Kenyatta had moved to the colonial capital of Nairobi. He became involved in African nationalism and by 1928 had risen to the post of general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association, an organization opposed to the seizure of tribal land by European settlers. In 1929, he travelled to London to lobby for Kikuyu tribal land affairs.

During the 1930s he studied intensely: (1) political tactics at Moscow's Communist University of the Toilers of the East, (2) phonetics at University College London, and (3) anthropology at the London School of Economics. At the end of the decade, in 1938, he published Facing Mount Kenya, which was an anthropological analysis, and celebration, of traditional Kikuyu society. He discussed its plight under colonial rule.

During World War II, he lived in England, lecturing and writing. In 1946, he returned to Kenya and in 1947 became president of the newly formed Kenya African Union (KAU). He pushed for majority rule, recruiting both Kikuyus and non-Kikuyus into the nonviolent movement.

In 1952, an extremist Kikuyu group, the Mau Mau, began a guerrilla war against the settlers and colonial government, leading to bloodshed, political turmoil, and the rounding up of tens of thousands of Kikuyus in detainment camps. Although he was not directly involved, Kenyatta was put on trial in 1952 with five other KAU leaders for "managing" the Mau Mau. An advocate of nonviolence and conservatism, Kenyatta pleaded innocent. After a politicized trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison. He spent six years in jail and was then sent to an internal exile at Lodwar, where he lived under house arrest.

Meanwhile, the British government saw the Swahili script on the wall and decided to prepare Kenya for black majority rule, allowing the nationalist groups to organize openly. In 1960, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) was created, and Kenyatta was elected president in absentia. The party announced it would not take part in any government until Kenyatta was freed.

Kenyatta pledged the protection of settlers’ rights in an independent Kenya, and on August 14, 1961, he was allowed to return to Kikuyu territory. He was formally released on August 21 and the following year he went to London to negotiate Kenyan independence. In May 1963 he led the KANU to victory in pre-independence elections. On December 12, 1963, Kenya celebrated its independence, and Kenyatta became prime minister. The next year, a new constitution made Kenya a republic, and Kenyatta was elected president.

As Kenya’s leader until his death in 1978, Kenyatta encouraged racial cooperation, promoted capitalist economic policies, and adopted a pro-Western foreign policy. He also consolidated his authority, suppressing opposition groups deemed radical. Kenya's stability attracted foreign investment in Kenya and Mzee ("elder" in Swahili) Kenyatta was influential throughout Africa. After he died on August 22, 1978, Daniel arap Moi continued most of Kenyatta's policies.

KENYA | Olga Marlin with Mboya Family (Updated Apr 10, 2017)

At birthday party (photo says 1975) with Alphonse, brother of Luo Leader
Tom Mboya (1930-1969) and Tom's widow Pamela and children, behind
whom is Olga. (Another Luo leader's son was U.S. President, 2009-2016.)

Tom Mboya was a fervent apostle for Kenya's freedom, following Jomo Kenyatta. However, Mboya sought to achieve independence without violence, and did not join in the Mau Mau uprisings against the British. Mboya led Kenya's second-largest tribe, the Luo, which included many Catholics and Anglicans and some Muslims like Barack Obama's father.

When Pamela Odede was engaged to be married to Tom Mboya, she attended classes at the Kianda cooking school. A graduate of Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio (now part of Miami University in Oxford) — also attended by Donna Shalala who now heads the Clinton Foundation — she decided to convert from the Anglican faith to her husband's Catholic faith. She came to several classes in Catholic doctrine with Olga Marlin.

Olga and Pamela became friends and the Mboya children called her "Auntie Olga".

JFK and Tom Mboya, assassinated six years
apart. JFK was 46 in 1963, Mboya 38 in 1969.

In her memoir, To Africa with a Dream, Olga writes about getting to know Tom Mboya. He told her several stories of how he was treated during pre-independence days (pp. 124-125, 2nd edition).

Prior to independence, Mboya worked on major documents for a future independent Kenya, including its constitution.

He also pleaded eloquently for a Marshall Plan for Africa and was appointed Minister of Economic Planning and Development in the first coalition government led by Mzee Kenyatta.

On July 5, 1969, a quiet Saturday afternoon, Mboya, was shopping downtown. He stepped into Chhani's Pharmacy to buy a bottle of lotion. When he came out, an assassin opened fire, escaping in the ensuing confusion.

Mboya was struck in the chest. Blood soaked his suede jacket. He died in an ambulance on the way to Nairobi Hospital.

Grieving Kenyans soon gathered in such numbers at the hospital that police with batons were called out to keep the crowd under control with batons.

In her memoir, Olga vividly describes how Tom Mboya's death affected her (pp. 160-162, 2nd edition).

Only 38, the handsome, articulate Tom Mboya embodied many of the qualities so urgently needed by the fledgling nations of black Africa. He saw beyond his tribe to Kenya's detribalizing urban classes. He made them his constituency. His loss was a big blow to Kenya.

OLGA MARLIN | June 13–Arrives Nairobi, 1960 (Updated Feb. 29, 2016)

L to R: Olga Emily Marlin, Ervin Ross ("Spike") Marlin, Tere Temes
 and Marlene Sousa. Spike, 51, paid a surprise visit to Olga,
26, in July 1960. He was working with the U.N. Office of the
High Commissioner for Refugees.

My sister Olga went to Nairobi in 1960 to help start an interracial school for girls.

As I update this post, that is 56 years ago. It was not so long after the uprising in 1950-1954 of the rebel Mau-Mau, who were fighting for independence from Britain.

The former Belgian Congo was to become independent on June 30 barely two weeks after Olga arrived.

The transition turned out to be accompanied by widespread violence in the Congo, initiated by both incoming and outgoing leaders.

Independence for Kenya was in the offing and seeing the difficult transition in the Congo, some worried European teachers were making plans to leave Kenya, as Olga describes in her memoir (To Africa with a Dream, 2011, 84). Olga stayed and after Kenya became independent she became a Kenyan citizen.

Olga and seven other European women arrived in Nairobi in two waves to create a new school for girls:

• Group 1 (five brave women) left June 12 from Rome to Nairobi– Olga Marlin, Mary Mahoney (former army nurse), Marlene Sousa, Elisa Serrano, Rosario Insausti. 
• Group 2 (three equally brave women), left from Rome one month later, even after all the violence in the Congo–Tere Temes, Margaret Curran, Encarnacion Riera. 
• Helping the groups leave Rome was Mary Rivero, from Spain, in the Central Offices of Opus Dei in Rome. She drove the first group to the airport on June 12, 1960. 
• On the arrival end, Mrs. Agnes Lavelle from Ireland was living in Nairobi and helped get the school started. Mary Kibera is one of the first native-Kenyan members of Opus Dei and also helped get the school started. Later, she headed Kianda School for several years.

In Nairobi, the Founding Eight had very few friends to support their work. They had to rely on earning their own money. Olga had a job at Kenya High School lined up to ensure some income, and some good jobs were anticipated for the well-qualified members of the group, such as nurse Mary Mahoney and secretary Margaret Curran (To Africa, 2011, 64).

When they first arrived at Nairobi airport they were supposed to be met, but nobody was there because their original plan was to arrive on the next plane from Rome one week later, and a telegram changing the arrival time was left over the weekend in a post-office box.

The incoming team rented a house on the Lavington Estate, which had been owned by the St. Austin's Mission, supported by the French Holy Ghost Fathers. It was on Invergara Road (later changed to Vergara Road), near the Invergara Club in the Lavington Estate area.

This is the house that E. R. Marlin–Olga's father and mine–paid a surprise visit to in July 1960. The school founders lived there from June 1960 to June 1961. The two women with her in the photo, Tere Temes and Marlene Sousa, were from Spain and Portugal. When Olga was recuperating from an illness in Spain, she said she saw Tere several times. Marlene Sousa became sick in Nairobi and had to return to Portugal in 1961. (Feb. 29, 2016: Olga is back in Kenya, having recovered surprisingly from her rare illness.)

Dad was visiting Olga for two reasons.

• He was en route to the former Belgian Congo to address the violence and refugees after independence was declared on June 30, as the Senior Director of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. He was the highest-ranking American in the agency, reporting to a Swiss High Commissioner, Ambassador Felix Schnyder, and (starting in 1962) his Deputy, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, as well as with Yul Brynner, who was playing an active role in bringing the UNHCR's activities some visibility.
• He was of course concerned for his daughter about the impact of the violence in the Congo on Kenya–not just the Congolese refugees (To Africa, 78-79), but the prospects for a peaceful transition when Kenya itself would become independent.

Olga spoke about the first location of Kianda School in her address to the convocation of Strathmore University when she was awarded her honorary doctorate:

In pre-Independence Kenya it was unheard of to mix the races [African, European, Indian], and Strathmore met with initial hostility. However, they went ahead, full of faith, and incorporated into their shield the symbol of three hearts — one for each race — and the motto Ut omnes unum sint (“That all may be one” John 17, 11) which continues to grace the university shield today. The residential Strathmore College opened in March 1961 with students from all three races.

We had a similar experience with Kianda College. We had discovered that the most popular post-secondary training for girls was a secretarial course, since it took only one year and was well remunerated. Although only one of us was a secretary, we decided to embark on the course in our rented house at Invergara Road, Lavington. However, when we applied to the Nairobi City Council for registration, we were told that we had to have the written consent of all our neighbours before we could admit a non-European student to that area. As soon as we could we moved to the present location of Kianda.

Tom Mboya, Assassinated 1969.

Kianda College is located on Waiyaki Way (A104) in Nairobi, opposite the Afraliti Guest House, which is west of Nairobi School and east of the Communications Commission of Kenya. Strathmore School is located less than three km. southwest of Kianda College.

That founding year 1960 was a few years before Barack Obama Senior obtained a scholarship to study in the United States from a fund controlled by a fellow Luo, Thomas Joseph Odhiambo ("Tom") Mboya - who was Kenya's first Minister for Economic Planning and Development.

L to R: Olga Marlin, Mama Ngina Kenyatta.

As time went by, Tom and his wife Pamela became strong supporters of Kianda College and Pamela was a great friend of my sister Olga (To Africa, 158). When Tom was assassinated on July 5, 1969 Pamela asked Olga look after their children (To Africa, 160).

Mzee Jomo and Mama Ngina Kenyatta also took an interest in Kianda College. They visited in 1970 and later Daniel arap Moi also visited the school.

Out of the mustard seed planted by the original group of eight women have grown some 40 schools and centers for girls and young women in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, from the first grades through to the university level.

What Happened to the Founding Eight?

Where are the founders of Kianda College today?

Group 1 (June 1960)
Olga Marlin - in Pamplona, Spain for health reasons, to be near the Navarre Clinic.
Mary Mahoney - deceased.
Marlene Sousa - returned to Portugal after recovering from TB in Kenya.
Elisa Serrano - in Spain, after many years in Kenya, for health reasons.
Rosario Insausti - deceased.

Group 2 (July 1960)
Tere Temes - in Spain.
Margaret Curran - deceased.
Encarnacion Riera - in Spain, returned from Kenya after many years for health reasons.

SAINTED POPES | Two More, Video (Comment, Updated Feb. 12, 2016)

Olga receiving Communion from Pope
John Paul II in 1980. Nairobi, Kenya.

April 27, 2014–A CNN video of the canonizations of Pope John XIII and Pope John Paul II today is here. They are the 81st and 82nd sainted popes, and are #41 and #42 on the alphabetical list below.

(You may find, as I did, that the video is preceded by a bilingual advertisement, a blessedly short one, in which dogs are used to try to sell car insurance.  Sorry about that.)

The 82 popes who have been canonized represent 30.8 percent of the 266 elected to date by the College of Cardinals. The 82 are heavily weighted at the front end, including all of the first 35 and 52 out of the first 54. In addition to the 82 officially proclaimed saints–after facing an advocatus diaboli (Counsel for the Devil), who presents the negative aspects of each candidate–there remain 16 popes in, as it were, the pipeline having passed the first hurdle of beatification.

Here are the certified papal saints. As an alumnus of two Benedictine schools (Ampleforth and Portsmouth Abbeys), I was disappointed to see only one of 16 popes named after Benedict on the list, although the popes named after Gregory I (540-640) did well. Gregory was the first pope to come from a monastic background, to which he was supremely devoted. In the view of French-born Protestant reformer John Calvin (1509-1564), Gregory was the last good pope.

1. Pope Adeodatus I
2. Pope Adeodatus II
3. Pope Adrian III
4. Pope Agapetus I
5. Pope Agatho
6. Pope Alexander I
7. Pope Anacletus
8. Pope Anicetus
9. Pope Anastasius I
10. Pope Anterus
11. Pope Benedict II
12. Pope Boniface I
13. Pope Boniface IV
14. Pope Cause
15. Pope Callixtus I
16. Pope Celestine I
17. Pope Celestine V
18. Pope Clement I
19. Pope Cornelius
20. Pope Damasus I
21. Pope Dionysius
22. Pope Eleuterus
23. Pope Eugene I
24. Pope Eusebius
25. Pope Eutychian
26. Pope Evaristus
27. Pope Fabian
28. Pope Felix I
29. Pope Felix III
30. Pope Felix IV
31. Pope Gelasius I
32. Pope Gregory I
33. Pope Gregory II
34. Pope Gregory III
35. Pope Gregory VII
36. Pope Hilarius
37. Pope Hormisdas
38. Pope Hyginus
39. Pope Innocent I
40. Pope John I
41. Pope John XXIII
42. Pope John Paul II
43. Pope Julius I
44. Pope Leo I
45. Pope Leo II
46. Pope Leo III
47. Pope Leo IV
48. Pope Leo IX
49. Pope Linus
50. Pope Lucius I
51. Pope Marcellinus
52. Pope Marcellus I
53. Pope Mark
54. Pope Martin I
55. Pope Miltiades
56. Pope Nicholas I
57. Pope Paschal I
58. Pope Paul I
59. Pope Peter
60. Pope Pius I
61. Pope Pius V
62. Pope Pius X
63. Pope Pontian
64. Pope Sergius I
65. Pope Silverius
66. Pope Simplicius
67. Pope Siricius
68. Pope Sixtus I
69. Pope Sixtus II
70. Pope Sixtus III
71. Pope Soter
72. Pope Stephen I
73. Pope Stephen IV
74. Pope Sylvester I
75. Pope Symmachus
76. Pope Telesphorus
77. Pope Urban I
78. Pope Victor I
79. Pope Vitalian
80. Pope Zachary
81. Pope Zephyrinus
82. Pope Zosimus

Comment

I am always looking for a personal connection to events. In this case, it's my sister Olga. In her  memoirs she is photographed with Pope John Paul II at the Papal Nuncio's residence (page 125g) in May 1980 when the Pope visited Kenya for the first time.  A photo from this visit is shown at the top of this post. (She describes his visit on pp. 217-224.)

Pope John Paul II is the second person featured in her memoirs who has been canonized in her lifetime. The first was St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, who died in 1975 (pp. 185-189). He sent Olga to Kenya in 1960 (p. 54), just before the country became independent, when the "Mau-Mau" were calling for independence and many "Europeans" in Kenya were preparing to leave.

Olga was born in New York City in 1934. She will be 80 in November. She is a Kenyan citizen currently in Pamplona, Spain for specialized health care. Her mother (and, duh, mine), Mrs. E. R. Marlin (born in Holland, she wrote under her maiden name Hilda van Stockum), converted to Roman Catholicism in 1938, when she was in Washington, D.C. (her husband worked for FDR), following her friend Evie Hone. So Olga converted when she was four years old.

Olga spent her entire working life in Nairobi, more than half a century, creating institutions for the education of women in Kenya and other African countries. She was given an honorary doctorate in 2011 by Strathmore University in Nairobi.

(Update, Jan. 22, 2016: The Time Travel blog had 14,000 page views when I wrote it nearly two years ago. Now it has 57,000. Thank you for reading.)