It is 8 AM in Iringa.
We are roused and getting going soon.
I am shaved and will head to the shower in a moment or two. I only shave every other day or so. I am rationing my razor blades now. We will be leaving Iringa three weeks from
tomorrow and I know that will go rapidly as we get a few more visitors in the
next couple weeks.
I am listening to a few of my 25 most played songs on iTunes
while I write. I guess there is a reason
they are my 25 most played! It is a
little artificial at this point. I reset
all number of plays for my whole library last week. Intentionally.
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| Kihesa |
Today we will go to church at Kihesa – the 9:30 or 10:00
service. Kihesa is the partner of St.
Mark’s in North St. Paul. The service is
scheduled for 9:30, but usually starts at 10 or so. We will stand outside in the sun and wait with
the others waiting. Then the choir will
come out and sing. Often there is an
auction for eggs, some vegetables, rice or other produce. People who cannot afford to give money still
give something. It is auctioned and the
money goes into the collection. There
are often two offerings. It is helpful
for visitors (like us) to recognize that there will be two offerings. Don’t want the embarrassment of not having
offering to give the second time. I
assume the first one is the regular offering, but not knowing enough Swahili to
tell is a limitation. (Remember, I am
fluent in English - Merikani Kingereza and Igpay Atinlay, so I can’t get my
Lonely Planet Swahili Phrasebook out fast enough to help. At least I know the difference between “Good
morning” and “Go jump in the lake.”
Hmmm. I think I will look that
one up just in case someone says it to me.
Of course, currently I just smile and say “Asante sana” (thanks a heap)
to everything. Yesterday we walked the
400 steps or so to the Greek Club for lunch - big meal of the day, good too –
and on the way home past a Pentacostal church having a week of Tent Meetings,
we met two beautiful little kids walking toward us on the street, dressed to
the nines (whatever that means, but this is about Birdie, so I can use a
fashion term I do not understand).
Birdie was so excited to greet them she smiled and blurted, “Karibu”
instead of Jambo, Mambo, Habari or even just the universally recognized
greeting “Hi!” Karibu means “You’re
welcome.” But hey, it was Swahili and
not “Go jump in the lake.”
We try our best. The
Tanzanians truly do appreciate the effort.
So when I try to say something in Swahili at church, they laugh. Which reminds me that I better think of some
other Swahili phrase to say that they haven’t heard from me. I just hope it isn’t “Go jump in the lake!”
We had planned to go to Kihesa already this year, but I got
sick, so we skipped. Today our friend, Rev.
Lusungu Msigwa, the DIRA representative to Bega Kwa Bega is preaching. There is a baptism today at second service.
(Of course this is why we chose the late service, not because we can’t get out
of bed at 5 AM to get to the first service by 6:30 AM. If you get to church after that, you will sit
in overflow seating outside.) We like
baptisms. Msigwa was invited by the
family to attend the baptism. When the
staff at Kihesa learned he would be there, why, a perfect opportunity to have
him preach!
He couldn’t refuse and then
show up at the service for the baptism! And
it turns out he is the child’s godfather.
So we will get to hear him preach.
He isn’t going to preach in English, so we will be assigned an
interpreter who will sit between us, with both of us leaning in to understand
as much as possible. Swahili is
generally easy to read if you know where you are in the worship book, but that
is a trick. The other trick is trying to
speak very long words or hear sounds that don’t translate so well into English,
our English, that is.
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| Rev. Lusungu Msigwa |
Yup. That’s just how
it was too.
As we drove to church, we took the back roads. The roads around Foreston, Minnesota, where
Grampa and Gramma Warolin lived, and Uncle Harold and Auntie Irene lived or in
rural Andover where I grew up were bad, but NEVER this bad. Imagine a washboard with our worst springtime
potholes along with a few obstacles to maneuver around and you have a modest
understanding of Iringa’s backroads. Of
course that’s in the dry season. I
suppose they got that way in the rainy season.
I cannot believe the sedans that pass us on these roads. But then, I am the little old lady who only
drives her 4x4 Gargantua to church on Sunday.
Don’t fall for that one if you are buying a used car in Iringa. The tarmac roads are much better. Yes, they have some potholes. No, I have no idea why. It isn’t from freezing and thawing
anyway. A bigger hazard is the many
“sleeping policemen.” These are full
width bumps in the road. There are a
couple varieties. One is the set of
three or four that are each about a foot wide and four to six inches high. If you take them too fast, they rattle your
choppers! Glad mine are well anchored in
place. The next is the 10-foot variety,
ten feet wide and 6 – 8 inches high. Too
fast over one of these babies and everyone in the vehicle is launched into the
air. Or so I have heard - never happened
to me! (If you believe that, I have some
land in Florida I would like to tell you about.) The sleeping policemen are extremely
effective in keeping the speed under control.
Of course, they don’t stop the passing, even when there is traffic
coming!
Actually we were trying to avoid the awake policemen. Insurance on Gargantua runs out on September
11. The license ran out at the last week
of August. The new sticker has been paid
for, the insurance renewed, but stickers not yet applied. I can hear the Policeman saying in Swahili
“We hear that one all the time.”
So we took the back roads.
There were many people on their way to or from church. I know how my folks felt when we were all
dressed up. I have old pix of me and my
brother Mark wearing bow ties and sport jackets. I know they loved it. I am sure it was a sign of respect and well,
affluence. So we saw these little boys
in their fancy suits on the way to church.
Same thing. I loved it. The girls are equally dressed up, of
course.
There is such a mix of buildings in the “’burbs” here. Next to brick huts of the very poor are
fenced and gated homes of obviously wealthier people. Yet the average per capita income is $440 USD
per year. There is a huge disparity. Perhaps in future visits I will get a better
handle on understanding it.
The churches and pastors are always so gracious about
greeting wazungu (white people) visiting their services. Today it was the District Pastor Donald. I have met him several times and he is always
gracious. We were delighted to meet
Msigwa’s wife Gloria too.
We had the best interpreter we have had to date: Pastor
Israel. He is a charmer. He walks with a cane, his “third leg,” he
says. He describes himself as “retired,
but not tired.” He did such a marvelous
job of telling us Msigwa’s message, nicely summarizing just right. Msigwa is obviously talented as a preacher
too. No hellfire and brimstone that I
could tell, but still a message full of value driven ideas.
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| Birdie and Pastor Israel |
There were four choirs.
The first was a multigenerational family. (My mom would have been jealous – just what
she has always wanted!) The second was
an acapella choir. Great. Next was a youth choir. If they had been in front of the church,
their choreography would have been much better appreciated! Also terrific. The fourth was the standard choir, I
think. They sang with the electronic
keyboard.
Somewhere in between we were expected to introduce
ourselves. Pastor Israel got the
congregation laughing. Probably at our
expense. It wasn’t Igpay Atinlay, that’s
for sure. I have a couple stock things I
say in memorized Swahili, like the tiny kids on the street coming home from
school who say in near perfect English, “Goood aftuhnooon.” I think I said something banal like, “How’d I
do?” He said, “Well, you tried.”
Oh, you might see the whole service on the ten o’clock
news. There was a photographer who got
everything in video and stills. He was
ever-present and in-your-face. I hope he
edits the production down from 150 minutes.
Maybe 15 minutes including all the choirs and baptism plus Msigwa’s
sermon. He’s got enough material.
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| Auction |
There are things we notice as familiar in the service, not
including the photographer. One of the
liturgy tunes is “Faith of our Fathers.”
Occasionally we just sing the English words. We can recognize the Lord’s Prayer and the
Apostle’s Creed by their cadence.
The service lasted about 2.5 hours with the baptism. It was fun.
Today only had one auction item, a kanga or nice piece of
cloth. One charming little thing is that
the tiny kids, I would say preschool, want to do the ritual “Shikamoo” and
touch our heads. The response is
“Marahaba.” The younger ALWAYS begins as
a sign of respect. Lots of adult
handshakes and greetings too. We went
home a bit exhilarated and thinking about Rally Sunday at St. James.
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