16Mars – Yovo à l’eglise

So I think that this experience deserves a blog entry all of its own…

I was invited to go to church this morning with Daniel and his family, and I accepted with enthusiasm. Grace and Jesu were so excited that I was to accompany them, they talked about it all week and I told me that people would sing and dance…I had all of these images of Africans praising the lord, singing at the top of their lungs and filling the church with the glorious music and spontaneous dancing…to be honest, these reveries were for the most part fulfilled…I wish I were feeling a bit more eloquent right now to describe it, but I just woke up from a nap (I was finally able to partake in the afternoon siesta because I got up at 6am today to go to the damned service…)

We walked for 25 minutes into town in the early morning heat, which is always less bearable than the blazing sun of the afternoon for some reason – maybe it is because it is an abrasive contrast with the cool of the night, and that there is no qualifiable breeze to speak of in the morning, and the sun is just in that spot in the sky that is unavoidable and blinding. I was walking with the kids and their grandmother and I was wearing my jeans, as I needed to be as covered as possible in the church, and was sweating right through them. I thought we would never arrive at our destination. Sunday mornings in Kpalime are like a colorful, slow-moving pilgrimage to mass…everyone who is capable and “respectable” goes to church…those that don’t are very poor or just not religious, but that doesn’t seem to be so well-accepted here, and instead stand outside the church trying to sell treats, juice and plantains to churchgoers. People wear their most colorful and expensive cloths, the one day of the week that every part of everyone’s outfits match. Women wear the same cloth as their pagnes around their heads and a lot of men even wear colorful, patterned shirts and pants. I love these outfits the men wear – much more sensible in this heat than Western suits or jeans. All of the women wear gold earings and matching bracelets and necklaces, which you never see them wearing during the week. I find it so hard to picture these women, sashaying over dirt floors and crumbling walls, putting on their Sunday best. It is paradoxical at best, how religion and Jesus has this power over people in the poorest places in the world, if not more so…

When we arrived at the church, which was a huge boxy structure with tall ceilings, cement floors and walls and otherwise plain architecture, we were greeted by rambunctious children filing into their service (which is separate from the adult service) and men and women separating onto separate sides of the church, filling the sparse pews. Brown paper cutout letters lined the walls in several places depicting pslams as wallpaper borders, and white signs that read “Jesus est roi,” were the only other decorations in the room. Aside from the rickety wooden pews there was very little furniture in the room, giving it a even larger presence than it would have filled up a bit more…in the front of the room there a cement “shelf” that extended along the length of the far wall and out about 10 feet on each side. A clear plastic pulpit stood unaccompanied in the center of the “altar” and a few plastic and wooden chairs sat against the wall. On either side, about 30 men and women sat in plastic chairs and on benches, the choirs, there were two of them, and a full band next to one of them.

At first it sounded like everyone was talking to each other, gesticulating and chatting loudly. When Daniel’s wife and I found our seats towards the front of the room I realized that people were not talking to each other…they were talking to Jesus, or G-d, or someone…they were praying. All at once, all out loud. As everyone’s eyes around me were closed I took the opportunity to do some observing. Everyone around me was praying more passionately than I have ever seen…they were having full on conversations with their savior, some in Ewe, some in French, but all at a heightened emotion that was almost frightening. They were reaching outstretched hands towards the ceiling, begging, pulling their hair, crying, shouting, shaking, squealing, asking fervently for their “Papa Papa Papa” and for “Jesus!”…whispering, rocking and sobbing, smiling and waving white handkerchiefs, spilling out into the aisles to embrace the presence of whatever it was that had overtaken them . If I had questioned any of them as to what that was, theyn would’ve been incredibly confused, because here, almost everyone is a Christian and Jesus loves everyone. Daniel said that to me after the service, that Jesus loves me, and I was just kind of like, um thanks?

Soon, as if on cue, the murmuring and outright yelling ceased to a dull roar and people pulled themselves together for the service. I waited with exhilaration for the angelic voices of Africa to take over and impart to me whatever joy these people were basking in….but instead I noticed that the sopranos were flat, they were not blending at all and their a cappella rhythm was all off. I closed my eyes and tried tohear the glorious sound I was looking for, but it didn’t come…I was just starting to feel disappointed when their voices slowed and with a slight pause, in came the djembe…it was as if the entire chorus suddenly woke up and came alive. They began to clap and sway, in that way that only West Africans can. These people just need rhythm, it is in their ancestry, in their culture and pumps through their veins. They are just not the same without it. I began to feel my cheeks tiring from the huge smile on my face as everyone around me stood and began to dance and sway with the chorus. I moved a bit to the rhythm, finding myself incredibly jealous of the naturally coordinated and flawlessly sensual hip movements of the 6 year old girl in front of me. After the first song, they went right into another and women began to dance their way up to the large open space in front of the altar, dropping change into the collection bucket and forming a large circle of shuffling and bouncing color. No men joined the circle, it was strictly segregated, but women of all ages closed the vibrant ring and brought it round and round. Some had babies tied to their backs, whose feet bopped up and down with their mothers’ hips. I loved it, there was so much emotion and so much energy. And I always thought church was boring…

After a few more songs, and many francs later, the pastor came onstage and began to preach into a microphone. He spoke in vigorous French and another pastor translated it into Ewe for the audience. The first thing he did was ask for money to pay for several clergy members to attend a conference in Lomé…now I am generally very cynical about religion and how it divides people, brainwashes people and otherwise deprives motivated human beings of personal agency and motivation...but I was shocked to see the money-grubbing that went on in this church in one of the poorest countries in the world…the pastor (and I’m sure that he is a perfectly nice guy, well-intentioned and pious) was wearing a Western suit and gold rings gleamed on several his fingers…I know that he is not as poor as these people, the profession of a pastor is well-paid here.

(Pause for a little anecdote: When I was at Daniel’s house the other day he received a phone call from the hysterical husband of his cousin – or something – who had just built a house for his new wife. She had recently become very religious and had gotten very close with the pastor of her church. Troublingly, she had recently given almost all of her money to the church, at the urging of her pastor…what’s worse, she ran out of money, and her pastor suggested that to make up for the money she couldn’t give, she could donate her house to the church…and she wanted to do it, which was why her husband called Daniel in a tizzy, who suggested that he call her father. Daniel and his wife were furious, and we proceded to have a heated conversation about the abuse of congregations by rich pastors and the problems associated with giving money to the church…)

So anyway, while I seethed about the pastor’s shameless beseeching for 1000francs from the poorest of the poor, in the name of the lord, he began his sermon. While it was more interesting than most church services I have been to, the sermon part is pretty much universal….it is really just the same old prosthelitizing, and the Jesus-stuff always makes me a bit uncomfortable, but it was still more zealous and enlivening than most speeches I’ve heard given in churches, and the audience participation and enthusiasm was truly passionate (given I’ve never seen evangelists or been to a gospel mass in harlem – which both have their roots in Africa anyway.) There were two little girls who became fascinated with me, probably one of very few yovos to venture into their Sunday mass, and were climbing all over me throughout the service, touching my fingernails and my ears with bewilderment and adoration. One of them kept on smelling my hand, as if my skin would have a different scent from hers since it was a different color. The other, whose mouth was half full of the rotting remains of baby teeth, climbed onto my lap and stayed there for the entire service, continually turning around to look at me and smile proudly.

After the sermon there was another session of praying, much like at the beginning of the service, but even more ardent, as people were all jazzed up from the sermon and the music and dancing. By this time it was hot as hell in the church, women were fanning themselves with their bibles (written in Ewe!) and small children were getting quite cranky. People all around me began to cry, begging even more fervently for Jesus to listen to them. Their faces were almost desperate, twisting under the weight and intoxication of religious zeal. They cried loudly and rocked back and forth, shaking their palms manically, reaching for the spirit that had completely overtaken them…while I have never had, and don’t necessarily believe in this kind of religious experience as a result of something so contrived and almost ulterior as a church service, I envied them somewhat…there was one woman in front of me who kept on letting out this shrill call to her Papa, desperately seeking his love and attention, and then sobbing uncontrollably, as sweat rolled down the sides of her face and her smooth, dark brown back. Another was whispering something over and over and over and over, tears streaking down her face and collecting in a large drop on her chin before dripping onto the hot concrete. One of the singers in the choir, overwhelmed by something, began to scream, shake her head and thrash about, finally collapsing into the floor in some kind of Jesus-induced epileptic fit…now I don’t know about that one, but…

The difference is that these people really have something to pray for…not that someone like me doesn’t, but I imagined them praying for survival and for strength, and this is really what g-d is for, and I am happy that they have this release and this hope, however blinding. And I really hope that g-d, my g-d, their g-d, the g-d of the planet and the continents and of history, any g-d, heard that room full of people, who so deserve to have their prayers heard, to keep their hope burning with passion, and to keep them and their families safe.