HIS bare feet endure the cold ground in the month of June and when October comes they have to withstand the scorching hot ground which, to most of us lesser mortals, would be an unbearable experience.But owing to Father Ricardo’s religious devotion, he appears to easily take the perceived suffering in stride and lives a pauper’s life in the world in order to gain all the riches in after life in heaven.
Lovingly known to many as Padre Pekupeku because he always walks barefoot, Fr Ricardo’s family back in Italy is in fact well-to-do, but he purposely chose to live a pauper’s life in Tanzania since the early 1970s spurred by President Julius Nyerere’s policies and his efforts to create an egalitarian society in his country.
“I was strongly moved by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s socialist policies while still young in Italy and I often followed every move he make,” he said when I interviewed him recently at Alfagems Secondary School in Morogoro, a school which he both owns and runs.
Residents in the village of Nanenane say that at first they thought the white man walking barefoot was mentally deranged, but gradually they came to understand him and his philosophy in life, particularly his strong messages about humanity when preaching at the pulpit.
“He is indeed a man of God and we were wrong to perceive him that way,” Elisante Mkumbo, a resident of Nanenane village says, adding:
“We have seen him help the poor, sponsor students and pupils. He always listens to people’s problems.”
It was my first time to meet Fr Ricardo (63) at his school compound in Morogoro, although I had heard countless tales about him from my colleagues a year ago.
However, it took me two weeks to actually meet him after he had approved my appointment. “He is a very busy man” his assistant at the school who arranged the appointment, told me.
As soon as I arrived at the school and before I had the chance to even introduce myself, Fr Ricardo suddenly appeared, came close to me and said, “You must be the journalist from Dar es Salaam.”“Yes,” I said.
“Wait for me right here. I am attending to other quests. I’ll be with you in two minutes,” he said.
I realized that this man of God had a very good memory because I had conversed with him on the phone a fortnight ago, yet he recognised me from my voice after a greeting.
This is despite the fact that he attends to numerous people on a daily basis, from students, teachers to parishioners who consult him for guidance and religious teachings.
In two minutes to the dot he came back to where I was standing in the school compound.
“I do not have an office. We can use this classroom here for the interview,” the charming man of God said while leading me to a nearby classroom.
He looked very simple in his cassock and walking barefoot, but his demeanor struck me as a man very much at peace with himself.
“Since my childhood, I was touched by the tribulations poor people have to endure, particularly when their offspring cannot afford to access education,” he said.
Thus in 1970 he quit school when he was in Form III, which came as quite a shock to his parents, but later they came around to his view of life and respected his decision.
Fr Pekupeku runs Alfagems Secondary School based in Morogoro, a school he founded in 2007 after the government closed down the first one he had established, Saint Elizabeth Secondary School, for reasons best known to the authorities.
His school is ranked the cheapest in tuition fees of all private secondary schools in the country, yet its teachers are said to be well remunerated and always paid on time - on the 25th of each month.
Fr Ricardo belongs to the Franciscan order, which professes poverty and shuns an ostentatious lifestyle. Current Pope Francis belongs to the same order. Since he assumed the papacy he has been noted for leading a very simple lifestyle far removed from that led by his predecessors.
For instance, he is yet to move into the official opulent papal residence, preferring instead to live in a guesthouse within the walls of the Vatican, and on official trips abroad he usually carries his briefcase and rides in simple cars. His recent trip to Kenya and Uganda is a case in point.
Fr Ricardo first came to live in Tanzania in 1984 and initially settled in Mtera valley, in Iringa region, before he moved to Morogoro in 1995 where he lives to date.
In his sermons each Sunday he always begins with words from Mathew 25:40, which states thus: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
His philosophy guiding his life is simple and straightforward: “It is better to give than to receive,” he says, adding: “ I lead a poor life because I am attracted to the poor life which Jesus Christ lived. I shall lead this kind of life until poverty ends in this world.”
If so, he may have a lot of waiting to do because poverty might outlive him before it is eradicated from the face of the earth. However, this does not deter him a bit.
“In my life I am always guided by faith in God. God called me from Italy to come to Tanzania purposely to serve His people,” he says.
Fr Ricardo recounts that he did not complete his secondary education, but not because of poverty.“I did not complete my secondary education not because my parent failed to pay for my school fees, but because I wanted to share the pain and sorrow of those who fail to complete school due to their poverty,” he says.
He says that after he quit school he left the comfort of his parents’ home and moved to an area where the most poor families lived.
“I joined them, shared their poor life and felt their pain,” he says.“While living with the poor families I dedicated my time to teaching them for free as I wanted to share with them the little knowledge I had,” he adds.
The turning point in his life came in 1972 when he felt that he had a calling to priesthood. So, he joined a seminary, and after he became a priest he was assigned to be a missionary.“I was sent to Tanzania, the country of my dream,” he says.
He says he liked Tanzania even before his calling to priesthood, sometime in the 1960s when he was in Form 1.
“When I was in Form 1, I heard various news reports about President Julius Nyerere’s socialist policies. I was impressed and touched by his stories. From that time I began to track and read stories about him,” he points out.
His bare food walking, he says is based on the gospel saying Jesus sent apostles out to preach for the first time asking them to go without shoes.
“Yes, sometimes I face challenges with this kind of life. There some people who tend to ignore me or laugh at me, but I will never stop living this life.”
Fr Ricardo at one time decided to eat leftovers which had been dumped. When his staff saw him rummaging in the dump they were very surprised, but he had a moral to teach them.
“Food is a gift from God. It is a sin to throw away food while millions of people in the world die of hunger, They fail to get even a single meal per day. Therefore, I cannot tolerate to see food being thrown away as I have witnessed how people suffer from hunger,” he says.
He said he used to eat leftovers even when he was in Europe.“Thrown away leftovers have never affected me because I am protected by Jesus,” he stresses.He says for the 11 years he stayed in Iringa region in Mtera valley in 1984 he witnessed first hand people suffering from hunger.
This was one of the reasons which led him to set up a school in Morogoro to help poor children access quality education so they could help others in return. He says he first established a youth training centre in 1999 called Saint Elizabeth Secondary school.Despite Elizabeth school benefiting more than 500 students, it was soon after closed by the government.
“With the free education provided at Saint Elizabeth we managed to bring a number of street children back to school,” he says, adding that it wasn’t until 2007 that he managed to found Alfagems Secondary School in Morogoro.
At its start in 2007 students were required to pay tuition fees amounting to Sh150,000, but currently students pay Sh360,000 per year, the lowest amount compared to other private boarding schools in the country.Starting with 250 students with a a Sh40m loan, currently there are 3,600 students.
“We have never advertised this school anywhere because the school advertises itself and we receive thousands of applications,” he says.
“We recruit very qualified teachers because we are here to help Tanzanian access quality education, not just education,” he says.
“People say that I am rich. Oh, yes I am, but the money is not mine, it belongs to the poor,” he says. He says he is just a volunteer at the school which he started and that he has never paid himself a salary.
Fr Ricardo also teaches divinity at the school, apart from managing it. Yet he has no office of his own but shares the general office with other teachers.
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