Our novitiate of the Daughters of the Holy Spirit is located on the outskirts of N’Gaoundéré -CAMEROON- in a new neighborhood where a transformer station could not ensure the necessary intensity for all the new constructions. Despite the steps taken with the management of the operator of the electricity sector and a petition made with the neighbors of the neighborhood, the situation was not improving.
Instead of 220 watts, the intensity often oscillated between 130-120 and sometimes even below 100: the regulators had so much to do to protect our devices that several dropped. Regarding the lighting of the rooms, we resorted to solar lamps, sometimes around 9 PM and even later … We used flashlights to move around the house or to work at our table. For the photocopies, indispensable in a training house, Hélène, Judith, Vedette, Pauline can testify how much it was trying: at first, 6 years ago, it was possible at the end of the night around 5 o’clock, but little by little the situation has deteriorated to never be at the same time again! In case of emergency, we had to go to the city! For the water, it had become impossible to find the right slot at night to have it go up in the castle; moreover, the generator broke down, it was impossible to find the replacement part!… It is therefore with buckets that we had to go to the pump or, when the sky blessed us, to go to the barrels arranged under the gutters! – When I had to do it, it was with two small buckets… while our young people carried the 20-liter canister on their heads up to the floor.
What a revolution has thus known our house in the month of October! It is a budget, voted by the General Council of the Congregation, which allowed for a solar installation, installation of 6 batteries powered by twelve plates, carried out by an Italian domiciled in Yaoundé.
What brightness now in our chapel, the dining room, the kitchen where we installed solar lamps! The freezer, stopped several years ago and the fridge for months, have been able to be put back into service: what a valuable help when it is necessary to provide meals for about ten people and more, every day, when it is now possible to freeze the garden vegetables instead of going to the market, more than 10kms away… ; last week, it was a pig from our farm that we were able to freeze and… now the bread moldy or too dry, depending on the season, is no longer on the breakfast menu! As for most of us, we now just need to press the switch to see clearly and even very clearly – the first days, so used to my headlamp, I forgot it… No more electricity bills to pay each month, no need for regulators, no more sleepless or disrupted nights for photocopies because it’s in the afternoon, when the batteries are full that we can do them. And that it is nice to have hot water at the tap to shower…
The whole community of the novitiate joins me in saying a very big thank you to you, Ann Almodovar and your council, and also to you who during my leave made donations for our mission in Cameroon.
Sister Marie-Thérèse PUECH, community DHS. Noviciat N’Gaoundéré Cameroon
Published on 26 November 2025
