Easter

Irene is an observant Catholic and wouldn’t dream of missing church (and because none of the church services are in English, it doesn’t make much difference to me whether I go to a Roman Catholic mass or a charismatic Protestant service). So when Easter rolled around, there was no debate – we were off to Catholic mass. While I went to church occasionally in Dar es Salaam, I hadn’t yet been to a Swahili service in Tanzania, partly because I had been intimidated by the sheer length of the services, some as long as 3-4 hours, and partly because I had been sure I would be bored stiff by having to listen to a service entirely in Swahili.

We had tried first to go to Good Friday service but had finished our interviews late that day, and we arrived at the church just in time for the last hymn. The large Roman Catholic church (we were staying in a small village called Mtama) was set far off the main road. All the villages where we are working are almost exclusively Muslim, and so the number of Christians, mostly Catholics thanks to the missions set up in this area in the early 1900s, is rather small. The church building itself is a fairly large and imposing yellow-washed concrete structure, but the simple benches and kneeling boards inside hold no more than a hundred and fifty people.

We arrived on Easter Sunday morning at 10:30, when we had been told the service would start. The day was already swelteringly hot, and we had trudged through sand (there is a preponderance of sand in this area, even 100 miles from the sea) for 20 minutes to get there. After offering “Shikamoo”s (pronounced “shih’-ka-moh”, a term of respect for elders) to many of the older church ladies gathered outside, we found respite along a stone wall in the shade of a large locust tree. Just as in America, many of the younger girls and boys were clearly wearing new clothes (though these still likely second-hand, Africa’s biggest industry, albeit newly purchased), standouts in a part of the country where most clothes on most children on most days are little more than shredded rags. A pair of twin boys in primary-color-striped knit shirts and shorts, little girls in gauzy dresses with big clunky white patent leather shoes. We waited and waited and waited, and then Irene pointed at a house next door and asked the woman seated next to her whether that was where the padri (priest) lived. She answered no, that that was the home of the religion teacher, and that the padri lives in Nyangao, a town about 15 minutes away by car. After awhile, a man rode up on a pikipiki (small motorbike) with a helmet, greeted everyone in the churchyard, and walked inside. Preacher on a motorbike. Wonders never cease!

We went inside the church and found seats in front of a line of older ladies. The church was decked out for Easter, with large croton plants to either side of the pulpit, which was decorated with purple artificial roses and a couple of embroidered napkins. In a far corner leaned a scraggly artificial Christmas tree.

For being a small group of Christians in the middle of nowhere, the service was formal and the music was incredible. The padri, transformed now by having donned a long gold preacher’s robe and a tall white hat, led the procession, with a flank of altarboys behind, swinging smoky incense from a lantern distributing the familiar aroma of frankincense though the church. Frankincense has a scent that conjures up memories for me of Ethiopia, where it is ritually burned as part of the coffee ceremony. Four-part, five-part harmonies filled the church as people sang hymn after hymn by heart, the names of the hymns written in a column on a chalkboard on the side of the room, where the small choir sat, blending in with the congregants as they too faced the front of the church. I didn’t know a single one of the songs, but I didn’t care. The music was lilting, soothing, and encouraging. I closed my eyes and imagined the contrast of this worship with Easter church at home, and imagined God smiling at the diversity of styles of the joyful noises we humans make in thanks.