This past weekend I spent four nights and three days at the Brethren in Christ Church of Zambia's National Women's Conference. It was held in the nearby town of Choma on the grounds of the Choma Secondary School. The school, like most secondary schools in Zambia, is a boarding school. The month of April is a vacation month, so we had access to the entire grounds. There were over a thousand women there from all over the country. Most of them stayed in the dorms. A few of us stayed on the grounds of the nearby Nahomba guest house which is run by the BIC church. The school is actually also a BIC school, though it is a Ministry of Education school. This seems to be a common situation in this area of the country where the BIC church of Zambia began over 100 years ago with the Macha Mission. I am unsure if other churches perhaps run government schools also. I imagine the situation is similar to the hospital's, started by the church then registered with the government once they had a presence in the area.
The weekend was filled with guest speakers (only one man, the rest women), worship, fellowship, music and even a bit of dancing. The program began at 6am most days and didn't end till after 9pm. Some women stayed longer into the night for more prayer/healing sessions. Most of the weekend was in Tonga, which surprised me because women came from all over the country where other languages are spoken. I learned that the BIC church is known as the Tonga church which can create problems. Apparently a lot of the women from other parts of the country are originally from the Southern province where Tonga is spoken. Usually the speakers were translated (into English or Tonga) but often the announcements, side comments and singing were in Tonga. It was good for my brain to hear it and start recognizing it.
Natasha, Miriam and I rode to the conference with other women from the Macha church. We were to leave at 10, we pulled away from the church around 12 but really weren't on the road till 1 as we had multiple stops to make. A sad thing happened while we were waiting at the church. A woman received a phone call saying that her father had died unexpectedly. She began to wail, we tried to comfort her and reach her family to come and be with her. It was so shocking, one moment she was joyful about attending her first women's conference since 2002 and the next she was crushed by the news. The decision was made that the rest of us would proceed to the conference and likely return early for the funeral. We sang nearly the entire way to the conference. It's call and response and many choruses are repeated multiple times, so even though I didn't understand what we were singing, I could sometimes join in.
Singing continued throughout the weekend. The national choir was there, and two district choirs. Each choir sat together as a group, and they each had a different uniform for each day. One choir would be called upon at the beginning of the day, in between each speaker, after lunch break and at the end of the day. They would sing and dance in procession up to the stage, then perform one or two songs, then sing and dance in procession back to their seats. The choirs compose their own songs, so the words were often new to people, but there was often an easy sing along refrain. When the audience found the words particularly meaningful they would shout and clap and stand up. I was afraid I would miss my Mennonite hymns, but I think I could get used to this music!
One other small thing to mention about the conference. I successfully held my first Zambian baby. I should preface this by saying that on two occasions at the hospital young children have started screaming just at the sight of me. So I was a bit cautious one of the first nights at the conference when the breastfeeding baby next to me started smiling at me. He started reaching for my Bible, and I gave him my hand. He was content to play with that for awhile. We continued to make faces at each other off and on. Later outside, I clapped my hands in front of him and he nearly threw himself out of his mother's arms reaching for me. So I got to hold him for a few minutes. I was quite thrilled, he was such a joyful baby, it was contagious.
I am currently in Lusaka for a couple weeks of studying at the local teaching hospital in preparation for the nurse's exam I need to take at the end of May. More about that in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment