{"id":695,"date":"2022-09-11T17:25:46","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T17:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kwabene.com\/?p=695"},"modified":"2022-10-05T18:44:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T18:44:52","slug":"04-a-typical-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kwabene.com\/?p=695","title":{"rendered":"04. A Typical Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Kwabene in Kitindi<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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04. A Typical Sunday<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Church on the day my whole family visited in July!<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Today was like a typical Sunday. The church service is scheduled to start each week at <\/span>9h00 juste<\/span>, but I\u2019ve never witnessed such a thing. This morning, we left our house around 9:25 to begin the fifteen-minute walk to the church. This entails exiting our front gate, walking down an uneven and sometimes slippery dirt incline about 30 yards to the road below, and following <\/span>RN2 <\/span>across the river towards town. Before entering the main part of the village, however, we take a right onto a side path. Some of the houses along this path are well-built brick houses with high metal roofs. The majority, however, are what I\u2019ve come to recognize as the cheapest and most base-level homes. These have bare dirt floors and walls constructed from a lattice-work of branches stuffed with hardened mud. Instead of tin roofs, they have roofs of dried, thickly-woven leaves, and, from what I can tell, homes like these are smaller with just one or two rooms. Residents of several homes, whether brick or mud, are usually outside their front doors on Sunday mornings, either cooking or just hanging out. I greet them with a <\/span>jambo <\/span>(Swahili)<\/span> or a <\/span>samba <\/span>(Kilega)<\/span> as I walk through what would be their front yards on the way to church. I frequently get a big reaction when I speak Kilega to people, even though the only things I can say are \u201chi\u201d and \u201chow are you.\u201d If they ask where I\u2019m going, I tell them <\/span>naenda kanisa <\/span>and continue on my way.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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After passing several such homes, we arrive at our church \u201cbuilding.\u201d This is an open-air structure (pictured at the top) with a tin roof held up by several vertical wooden beams. It is these same beams that fill most of the space in the horizontal rows and which serve as our seats. They are not comfortable. Today, like most days, hardly anyone was there when I arrived with my cousin at 9:40\u2014only less than ten kids and a few adults, including the man who usually presides over the service. He\u2019d probably been there since 9:00, but most people arrived after me with some people not getting there until 10:20! Eventually, we were about 65 or 70 worshiping together in total. The majority of the congregation is made up of children. I would guess that they belong to the adults that are also in attendance, but it doesn\u2019t seem like they necessarily arrive with them, so it is hard to tell. The rest of us today were 7 adult women and about 25 men. Most of the adults are faculty and staff from our school. Church attendance is mandatory for us and, though the location is not dictated, most of us choose to attend this church which my grandparents helped to plant. Because most of the school staff are men as well, I think this largely explains the gender gap; other men (and women) might not choose to go to church on a given Sunday, but because attendance is required for us, we\u2019re there most faithfully. I suspect the rest of the disparity is due to gender roles\u2014someone has to tend to the house even on Sunday mornings.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The sermon from my vantage point (most people are behind me or to the right).<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Mercifully (so I don\u2019t have to spend too much time stiffening up on the wooden beams), a lot of the service is spent standing. It is also extremely participatory. Different members of the congregation are called on to pray by the presiding leader throughout the service. There are also times where all of us are called to pray together all at once (out loud or silently depending on one\u2019s choice), and this is usually for several different topics in turn (the church, the school, the country, those around us who are sick, those around us who are pregnant, etc). The singing and worship take up a ton of time and are similarly congregation-driven. Anyone from the audience with the skill may choose to take the drum, and, instead of a worship team leading from the front like a concert, songs are led by someone among the congregation taking charge either from their seat or stepping into the aisle. Also, most worship songs are call-and-response, and everyone joyfully gets involved. They sing in at least three languages with which everyone in Kitindi is somewhat familiar\u2014Lingala (most commonly spoken in western DRC, not here), Swahili, and French. I\u2019m not sure if things are sung in Kilega because I can\u2019t even tell Lingala and Swahili apart, but the French I can join in with. The whole thing is brilliantly and amazingly multi-lingual (much like most Congolese people) as well as intimate and communal. Check out a sample below!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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