Take Me to the Church on Time

Another delicious day of waking without the alarm clock. That won’t happen again for another week.

As the others are still on safari, the three of us had another quiet day. We had breakfast at nine, so missed the early church service, which starts at 8:30 (Morgan would have preferred that, but she got outvoted). We attended the 10:30 service and as we walked to the church just down the road, we greeted all the parishioners returning from the first service. Most of the school children attend that one, so we saw lots of familiar faces from the secondary school and exchanged many greetings. Edward doesn’t like the early one because he says that there are too many “human beings” (young kids) and that they suck all the oxygen out of the room.

When we entered the building, Montana was hoping that we would sit somewhere discreetly in the back, but Morgan marched us up the aisle more than half the way to the altar. The service was in Kiswahili, of course, but the singing was beautiful without understanding any of the words. Different choirs stood to sing at times; other times the entire congregation sang in wonderful harmony. We hummed and sang as best we could just to be a part of it all. The only instrument was an occasional bongo drum. Now and then a woman sounded a shrill ululation with her tongue whipping quickly from one side of her mouth to the other. We tried to do that later, but didn’t sound as good (so says the musician).

About halfway through the service, a man sat down behind us, which was a little surprising since we were seated on the women’s side of the church. He leaned forward & began to explain what was being said. Shortly thereafter, he moved to our bench, scooting us down. He then frequently whispered translations into LuRue’s ear. The message was essentially that all blessings come from God and that those who respect God will receive the blessings. When he whispered that it was the time for the thanksgiving. That was the signal that we needed to get our money out. The rows filed out one at a time from back to front into the center aisle, dropping the bills or coins into a box, then returning to the benches down the side aisles.

We had expected that we would be called upon to go to the front to introduce ourselves, but it never happened. Perhaps next week Edward will accompany us and we will be presented to the congregation at that time.

After lunch, Montana and LuRue worked on more of the movie notes. The filming included both conversation and action scenes. With the rest of the group returning at any time, they worked quickly and finished just as the safari van pulled in.

Montana took a hot shower African-style while LuRue returned to the church to take pictures, including some of the old church (shown right) that was used before (built in 1903). A few people remained but indicated that taking photos would be OK. Some time was spent on editing photos & movies, moving them onto a flash drive. By the time 3 months is over, it will be a miracle if they can make sense at all.

Evening meeting with Edward included experiences at school, plans for tomorrow, and tales of a charging elephant by the safari group.