Bumilayinga Sundays: Harmony and Honey (Sunday 7/12)

I was woken up early this morning around 7:00am to go to church! I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and waited in the front room with Leonard as Joseph got ready. While sitting on the couch I was told that I was going to introduce myself in front of the entire church! This time I would keep it simple and not mess up everything like last time. Joseph also told me how to greet others at this church. Whenever you meet someone you say “Tumsifu Yesu Kristo” and they respond with "Milele amina”. It means, “Praised be Jesus Christ” and the response, “now and forever”. To be honest, I remembered the first phrase, but I immediately forgot the response!

Soon enough we were on our way to the church. It was a 20 minute walk that was the same way to the village, but just a little past it. As we walked, Leonard Joseph talked to teach others while I admired the beautiful morning scenery. I hadn’t been awake this early in a long time! We walked through the village and I got to see it in broad daylight for the first time. It seemed so much larger when we went at night, but it being early and a Sunday, no one was around. 

Past the village, there stood the region’s medical center. Here I realized that the village that encapsulates the school is not Bukimau, it’s Bumilayinga! The medical center was very nice and every walkway was covered by a large roof which interested me. A facility like this is built by the government and I’ve heard it does a lot of good for the region to keep everyone healthy (there were several tuberculosis posters posted on the wall to advise people on how to stay healthy). 

A little after the medical center, the small church layed. Here Joseph brought me in, sat me down towards the front, and told him he had to go warm up the choir. Him and Mboje are the choir directors and have to get here early to get ready for worship. I sat in the front room for a bit while music played lightly on speakers overhead.

Service started officially at 8:00am and it was immediately extremely different from the church in Madisi (as expected). In Madisi, everything was amplified resulting in 90 minutes of 100+ dB worship. Here, the only thing amplified was the piano and even that wasn’t loud so as to not overpower all of our singing. Additionally, there was no dancing like Madisi. There was a group of young girls dancing in the front with a choreographed dance and everyone else swayed back and forth or danced with reserve in front of the spot where they sat. The choir was beautiful and had some wonderful harmonies. If the choir was playing a more upbeat song, a whistle would come out along with some excited yelling! We would sit for some songs, stand for some songs, and Mboje and Joseph would take turns directing the choir. All the women in the choir wore white dresses and the men wore black suits. I was technically sitting in the men section of the choir so I followed along with their movements, but could not sing anything. In Madisi worship was so loud I could try to sing in Swahili, but here it would be quite embarrassing. In total, I missed the dancing and pouring out nature of worship in Madisi, but at the same time grateful for my ears not ringing horribly and getting to experience a new side of church in Tanzania. 

Since it’s rude to record a church service, I put my pocket in my phone to record the beautiful singing of the church. However, as if God knew I wanted a video of the church, Leonard asked me if he could use my phone to record a video of an entire song. He loves to direct and film worship so I immediately gave him my phone and he started recording the song. It’s a fun seven minute video that encapsulates what worship is like here very well! When he gave me back my phone, I checked how large the video file was and it was almost a gigabyte. It’s going to be quite the challenge to get that file sent to him!

When the worship was over (around 8:45am), it was time for the pastor to give his sermon. Of course the entire sermon was in Swahili and Joseph couldn’t translate for me as it would be very disruptive. I simply sat there and soaked in God’s presence! Even though I was getting sleepy from the lack of understanding, the bench had no back to it, giving the seat an uncomfortable nature that made it impossible to fall asleep (a very good thing). After the sermon it was time to give our tithe and it was very different from Madisi. There was still worship going on during the tithing, but instead of one place to put your offering, there were eight people standing in the front with baskets. When I got up, Roza passed by me and offhand told me to put my offering in the second to last person’s basket. I assume they represent different things, but I’ll have to ask! 

I gave my offering and went back to my bench to sit. When everyone was finished tithing, the eight people got in line and the girls that were dancing at the beginning, began to dance in front of the eight people. Then they all slowly walked (the girls danced) to the front where they all gave their baskets with the offerings to the pastor. I’ve never seen this sort of ritual before and thought it was pretty cool. It was then time for prayer and I was caught off guard when we all got onto our knees to pray. The first time I started standing up, then immediately sat back down onto some kid’s hands and then got on my knees! I’ve never prayed on my knees before and found the experience personal and sacred. I feel like in this position you have more reverence and connection with the Lord. While I might not do it in church back home, I’d like to start praying on my knees in private! Another thing I noticed is that every single time a person gets up and leaves or enters the church, they bow to the front!

After prayer we sang some more songs, listened to a little bit more preaching, and even did some more tithing. I’m not sure what the purpose of the second round of tithing was. When we finished tithing the first time, it clearly went to the church. This second round tithing, seemed to be specifically for this one guy. I didn’t have any more money on me (I also wasn’t expected to tithe this second time), so I didn’t go up. With the last bout of tithing over, the service finished soon thereafter around 10:00am! Roza took Miraclin and I as there was an after church meeting and Joseph wouldn’t be finished for a long time. Frankly I’m used to going to church all day in Tanzania so I don’t know what I’ll do with all this extra time on my Sunday.

As us three walked back towards the school, Miraclin and I talked about the service and how it was so different from Madisi. I had to give her a hard time about church since she had missed most of the services in Madisi! Miraclin and I are naturally faster walkers and had to slow down and wait for Roza who was talking to another woman from the church. We talked and walked until we got to the village center where Alfred and a woman named Vicky were there (or at least I think that’s what I heard was called out). We stopped and talked for a bit before Vicky bought a bunch of Big Boss bubble gum (no energy this time). The gum was delicious and I proceeded to chew on it for the next five hours (of course it's the type of gum where the flavor is gone in 10 minutes, I just find it and find it fun to chew)! We all started our walk together back to the school again and got back to our houses around 10:45am.

When we got back, Alfred invited Miraclin and I to eat breakfast at his home. Alfred’s home is only one house over from Roza’s! We were invited inside and sat on the couch in the front room. Alfred’s house was very nicely furnished. The couch we were on was a couch you’d find in America and on the wall there was a TV with a large sound system. We talked with Alfred for a bit before Jonathan arrived and joined us for breakfast. Alfred is Jonathan’s host! Alfred's wife Faith served breakfast and we had tea, bread, avocados, and oranges. The avocado and bread made a wonderful combo and I forgot how lovely bread is. A little while into the meal, little Alvin brought over a large jug of honey for us to eat our bread with! It had ants in it (extra protein as Jonathan put it) and was a very natural honey. I’ve never been a fan of honey, but made sure to try it. We were all very hungry so there wasn’t much conversation until we were finished eating. Alvin was bouncing off the walls the whole time and was sternly told by his father several times to be calm!

Towards the end of the meal, Alfred had to leave to go get something in the village so it was just the three of us left for conversation. Jonathan talked to us about books we’ve read (good thing I’ve read some here otherwise I’d look stupid!) and our faiths. Of course Jonathan asked me what I do specifically at Mines faith wise and I told him everything about the past year. He asked a lot of reflective questions which made me realize how much I didn’t internalize/reflect on the stuff I learned in my Bible study throughout the year. Not that it’s a competition, but I was definitely shown up by his and Miraclin’s Bible knowledge which inspires me to study the Bible more!

Sooner or later we started talking about AI and all the pros and cons it has in the world. There are a lot of unknowns! It’s one of those topics that’s so interesting to talk about, but equally scary (will it take over all jobs? Will everyone lose the ability to think for themselves?).  I talked about how I use it at Mines and Jonathan wishes that he was in school right now with such a fascinating technology. Eventually Jonathan left to go to work and Miraclin and I sat around for a little bit longer. Alfred showed back up and told us that we were going on a walk with him.

I expected to go on a long walk, but instead we went to the shop area that’s only a couple of minutes away. Miraclin and I were given some chairs to sit on and Alfred began playing checkers with some people that were hanging out underneath the shade of a tree. The checkers were bottle caps and I didn’t realize checkers could be played so competitively! Miraclin and I talked a ton about food as I wanted to learn more about Indian cuisine. I did not know there were so many different types of foods in India and am blown away by the variety and depth of palate Indian food has to offer. When I’m back in the States, I’ll need to either try to make some myself or go find a good restaurant! Talking about food made us hungry so we got something to eat at the shop. I got Embe and glucose crackers and Miraclin got Pepsi and glucose crackers. The whole lot only cost 3000 shillings! I’m going to miss such inexpensive snacks!

We sat back down and watched as lots of motorcycles passed up and down the road. I know I probably won’t be able to, but I really want to drive one out here! Then a tractor with a trailer full of wood came and began unloading on the side of the road while the sounds of buzzing clippers came from a nearby shop stall. It was fun to simply admire everything that was going on around us and take it all in. Jonathan walked by to grab something from the shop before disappearing into someone’s back yard. It’s funny to me that he greets all of the locals in Swahili, but us in English (we know greetings at this point and can respond)! We sat there until 2:30pm and Alfred wanted to leave. 

We walked back to Roza’s house to find Alvin hanging around outside. It was time for lunch and us three met Eli, Dorris, and Roza inside. We ate spaghetti with a very light tomato sauce, ugali, dagaa, avocados, and oranges. Dagaa is what they call the small fish I hate! The reason why they eat it so much here is that it’s a highly nutritious, yet cheap food to get here. I really wish I could stomach it but I simply can’t! 

We all ate together and it was a great time. We learned about Eli’s church service and he seemed to have a good experience (the church is very similar to the church back in Madisi). As we ate, Alvin kept trying to steal our forks to eat the spaghetti and proved to be quite the messy eater. You know where Alvin sat as there’s enough food on the ground to make another meal.

We finished eating and Alvin stuck around to play with us. He is such a crazy kid: spitting, jumping, screaming, fighting, everything! I pulled out a new piece of gum to chew and Alvin wanted me to take it out of my mouth and give it to him. I listened to his wishes and took my already chewed piece of gum out of my mouth, tore off a small piece and gave it to him. He was absolutely excited to have a piece of gum! To Eli’s dismay, during one of Alvin’s climbing bouts, he sneakily snuck the piece of gum inside of Eli’s shirt! What a mess!

The next mischievous endeavor was to sing “I have decided to follow Jesus” and try to tie me up. Whenever I would sing the song, he’d put the rope around my mouth and head to get me to stop singing! His laughter is quite maniacal and sometimes you wonder if he’s a little demon child (joking of course). Roza had to intervene several times and punish him as he was being quite the nuisance. A couple slaps on the wrist is all it takes for Alvin to start behaving again!

4:00pm rolled around and we decided to do something. I needed to get to the office to work and Miraclin joined me. With the quiet office room and no one on the internet, I got some amazing progress done with my videos. I stopped by Jonathan’s office to talk to him briefly and learned why the internet has been so horribly slow the past week. Essentially, the WiFi company Airtel has a policy where if you consume more than 750-1000 GB of internet in a month, you are limited until the next month. Today just happened to be when the data reset, and sure enough, the WiFi was good! 

Making comprehensive videos turns out to be a lot more work than I thought it would be! The moment you finish recording a segment of a video, you frustratingly remember a piece of information that would be helpful and have to re-record the entire segment! Therefore, I would try my best to roughly plan out all of the segments and the information that would be in them. Alvin ended up coming by for a bit and talked on Andrew’s phone. Andrew has a wife and a son, but the two of them are in a different region harvesting Andrew’s maize (Andrew posts the two quite a lot on his WhatsApp status which is like Facebook stories). It turns out that Alvin is really great friends with his son and misses him a ton!

I enjoyed the fast WiFi, recorded more videos, and even blogged a little bit until it was 8:00pm (I want it to be known that I did not dodge out on playing volleyball. We simply don’t play on Sundays). Jonathan came in at this time to talk to me about my project and update me on some things. To summarize our quick meeting, he essentially added some more goals onto my plate. We’ll see if we can accomplish them! The office needed to be locked up so I went back with Roza to her house to finish up some work on my laptop. During my workout, the blender was being used and scared me! For some reason it sounds like souls being tortured whenever it’s running.

Soon enough Eli showed up and talked for a bit before going to the office to pick up Miraclin for dinner. Jonathan also came by to say goodbye as he won’t be back for another week! By the time I was finished with the work on my laptop, it was time for dinner! We ate spaghetti, avocado with salt, and drank some delicious tea. Roza likes to make rosemary tea which is so soothing and fulfilling. We finished eating and began to relax.

Roza has a speaker that she plays all her music on and I convinced Eli to connect to it and listen to some music that has been stuck in our ears. As we listened, Roza brought out a ton of peanuts for us to shuck so we could roast them on the fire. It was a ton of fun and satisfying work. We got them all peeled quickly and Roza roasted them in a pot on top of a charcoal stove with some oil. Up to this point, I’ve only eaten raw peanuts here which have an interesting vegetable taste to them. When the peanuts were finished roasting, Roza sprinkled some salt on them and it was time for a peanut feast! The peanuts finally tasted like peanuts and were wonderful! Before we knew it, the entire batch of peanuts was gone. The fact that we had to take every nut out of its shell made it that much more gratifying to eat.

As if we were at a five star restaurant, another course came out. We were served avocado smoothies and more tea (I didn’t know it until the tea was poured, but I took all of the remaining tea). Since the smoothie didn’t have a ton of sugar in it, I decided to see what it would taste like if I added salt to the smoothie instead. It was only okay and definitely not as good as a regular avocado with salt. The smoothie had ginger bits in it which provided little bursts of flavor that woke you up pretty quickly!

We played more music and unfortunately laughed at Miraclin’s music taste. For a lack of a better explanation, there’s a music genre that is associated with millennials for being kind of cringey. Miraclin asked us to play a song and when it finally played from the queue, Eli and I burst out laughing even though we tried as hard as we could to not. We felt bad, but it was just so funny to us! Eventually it was obvious that Roza was very tired and wanted to go to bed around 10:15pm. To not be a bother, Eli and I promptly left.

I walked home, got ready for bed, and blogged. As I was blogging, I kept hearing a noise coming from my suitcases. I couldn’t tell if it was a rat or something as I swore I heard scurrying, yet I couldn’t find a single piece of rat poop in my room (if I know anything about Paul’s house, they leave a trail). The sound persisted for more than an hour and I genuinely thought that there was something in my room. Not to sound like a coward, but I was kind of scared! The only reason why is because I didn’t know what it was. At least with the rat in my room at Paul’s house, I saw it scurry in and out and had an idea of what the noises were coming from. Here, I have no clue what it was (and writing this blog several days after, the noise has yet to happen again and I don’t know what it could’ve been). Regardless, I made sure my white noise was extra loud tonight and fell quickly asleep!