‘Thank you, Mère,’ Keelin said calmly, but her heart sank. She’d heard that the African religious were still very traditional. This was surely the proof. Mother Veronica’s parting words when Keelin left Dublin came to mind: ‘You and your vocation will be tested in Africa. Prepare for that.’

*

The days slipped into a pattern that Keelin found hard to adjust to. The teaching was a joy to her. She’d a natural affinity with children and loved their honesty and view of life, but once school was over and she’d corrected homework and prepared the following day’s lessons, she was expected to behave in a ‘nunny-like’ way, as she privately called it, and pray and study the Bible, and say her Office. She’d done all this in Dublin and Paris, but she’d also been encouraged to take courses in social justice, and she’d volunteered with the St Vincent de Paul charity to visit vulnerable families and the elderly. When she’d expressed a wish to Mère Benedict to undertake similar community work in Ikorodu, her Superior had told her, ‘In time, Sister. For now you must concentrate on your spiritual studies, for they are equally important.’

Keelin felt utterly restricted. Despite tales of bag snatching and robberies, she longed to explore the city, but because she was in the novitiate she was denied the freedoms enjoyed by professed nuns. Every Saturday she had to confess her sins and Father Eze probed more than she liked. ‘Your resentment towards the rules of the community comes from ego, Sister. It is something you must battle,’ he’d informed her the previous Saturday, and she’d longed to tell him to feck off. She’d much more to offer than to be kneeling in churches, trying to pray, when she could be teaching young women in the city ways to help themselves out of poverty.

It’s not what I imagined, she’d written to Brigid. I feel very underused, despite my confessor’s accusations that it’s my ego that’s causing me to feel like this. I thought I’d be like you, out in the community, not trapped in a convent.

A month later the sage reply had come back:

Dear precious niece,

You are being taught humility and patience, something we all have to learn. But I truly understand your frustration. Were I in your shoes, I’m not sure that I’d cope either. I’ve got used to my ‘freedom’ from the rules and regulations which convent life binds us to. If it gets too much, my advice is to leave. No point in being miserable, and thankfully, you have a profession to go back to.