The sisters then traveled to the local orphanage near the cathedral of
Our Lady of the Rosary to meet with church officials and the children. Fi-
nally, on January 10, 1842, the Loreto School opened its doors to board-
ers and day students. As became the custom with the Loreto Sisters,
students whose families could afford to do so paid tuition. Their monies,
combined with other donations, enabled the sisters to provide a free edu-
cation for children of the poor and to operate an orphanage and a widow’s
asylum.
The initial reports that Mother Teresa received from India were enthu-
siastic. Streams of volunteers now offered to go to India to aid the Loreto
Sisters of Calcutta. Even when a number of the nuns died of cholera, the
flow of volunteers did not stop. It was this pioneering and courageous
group of teachers that Gonxha Bojaxhiu soon hoped to join.
RATHFARNHAM HOUSE
Upon their arrival in Paris, the two girls were taken to the Villa Moli-
tor to see Mother Eugene MacAvin, the sister in charge of the Loreto
House in Paris. There they were interviewed with the help of an inter-
preter from the Yugoslavian embassy. Both Gonxha and Betike were ap-
proved and then sent on to Dublin where they would stay at the Loreto
Abbey at Rathfarnham House.
The two arrived at Rathfarnham, a simple red-brick building, in Sep-
tember; Gonxha was somewhat comforted upon seeing the statue of the
Blessed Mother in the courtyard. The two young women, wearing the
long white habit, or dress, and black veil of the Loreto nuns, spent most of
the next six weeks studying English, the language in which they were to
teach. In order to help them become more comfortable with the language,
the two were instructed never to speak in their native tongue, something
that both Betike and Gonxha obediently followed. Unlike the native-
speaking novitiates, Gonxha and Betike received little other instruction
and had little opportunity to get to know many of the other sisters and
postulates staying at Loreto Abbey. From all accounts, though, it appeared
that Gonxha had inherited her father’s flair for languages and was further
helped in her studies by Mother Mary Emmanuel McDermott who was
another postulant at Loreto Abbey. At the end of six weeks, on December
1, 1928, the two women set sail for India and their new life. Upon their
arrival there, the two would begin their novitiate, that is the period of
study and prayer which every nun takes before her final vows.
The sea voyage proved long and arduous, winding its way through the
Suez Canal, then the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and finally the Bay of
16 MOTHER TERESA