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Published: February 17th 2006
The Iroko in the previously-placed picture is one of my favorite trees, but moving quickly up the list of favorites is Somba, which definitely has to be in the same family as the maple tree. The leaves are very similar, and the seeds are the exact same helicopter blade. A somba tree grows quickly and is a preferred wood for pirogues, that is, canoes. “Athieme” in Mina means “le bois blanc,” or the white wood, which is the somba. Sadly, not many of the trees remain that gave my home its name, but Patrice and I spent three hours bent over, picking up somba seeds to plant at As.P.E.L. Working on it, we’re working on it.
I was in Lokossa the other day, running errands such as paying the water bill and mailing the answers to the quiz for the Coupe d’Afrique, the Superbowl equivalent in African soccer, for Mathurin. Soccer is very important. (Egypt won; I was rooting for Cote d’Ivoire!)
I really like Lokossa, and as I walked around, I got kind of reminiscent for the future, thinking of the simple, everyday things I think I will miss. Simple things such as a cow walking his man on a rope down a main street of Lokossa and an aged woman singing and dancing to the yovo song while carrying a basin of wood on her head. But there are also random events that I will miss, such as the crazy man gifting me with stick and seeds on a string (in my home, through my window, in my absence!!) and the public bucket for the well. The woman who lives behind me and doesn’t speak much French saw him in the process and called the gendarmes. She explained very well to me what had happened. I gave her and her family a pineapple for taking good care of my home and me.
Also, yesterday as I was sleeping/reading the heat of the day away on the porch (a favorite activity), I heard rustling in the grass next to my home. I thought it was a herd of cows again, but no, it was a thief that had escaped from the gendarmerie. A sudden crowd of twenty-plus men circled my home and the grass next to me. I shut the back door and stood on the porch to watch. The men, some of whom were not gendarmes but good citizens, grabbed stones to hurl into the grass to chase the thief out. The gendarmes had guns. Someone set the grass on fire to chase him out; eventually he ran, trying to slip away between my servants’ quarters and carriage house. They caught him, and I went back to reading/napping. I am entertained every day.
I know I have talked about mass before, actually fairly regularly, but I have to tell you that even as little as I know about the changes following Vatican II, allowing the mass in local language has got to be the best thing. I cannot imagine what listening to mass in Latin every week would have been like, as I am confused enough while listening in Mina. I know what the priest is saying, but I don’t understand the words, which makes me miss mass in English.
Church in general is a very “cross-cultural” experience for my German soul. I like order, to simplify the German stereotype. I am used to lines, a system with an obvious, maybe even mathematical, pattern. I am used to the same in my music.
Mass here has an order the Beninese know very well, but my blond, fair-skinned self cannot even pretend to know. I mention my hair and skin because even though I wear my African clothes to church, I wonder what a bird would see looking in on mass. He would think he had a rod (or cone? Which one senses color?) malfunctioning.
Back to mass: really everything is mostly normal, so I will point out the differences I notice the most.
The congregation is splashed with Holy Water while the choir calmly sings the entrance hymn. That is, calmly in contrast to the hymn once the priest has finished. He seems to really enjoy splashing the crowd.
The readings are either introduced or read entirely in Mina. The homily is in Mina as well, except for a resume in French, “for those of the congregation who don’t understand Mina.”
Every Sunday at Communion and for the offertory, I am a little out of sorts. The fist time at mass I was really confused, because people just walk up, whenever they want to. None of this entirely predictable, pew-by-pew order, or passing the basket for the collection. People just walk on up. I am always kind of halfway out of my seat; “Should I go now? No. Okay, maybe now?” And to get back to my seat, I walk across (literally) the people in my pew who might still get up to go or went long before I did.
Also every Sunday, I hope that mass will end a little sooner than it did the Sunday before, or at least that I will have to pee as badly as a pregnant goat, thus giving me a good reason to cut out early, but so far no such luck on either count. Usually a respectable man of the congregation stands at the podium and asks for more money in Mina. Usually I give again, but sometimes it’s hard to convince myself to give money for a request in a language I don’t understand. What if it’s a fund to buy Nigerian plastic chairs in place of the wooden pews? Not necessarily a bad thing, but I might want to spend my money elsewhere.
Depending on how much money the group wants to collect, the choir sings a song to work the crowd. When we really get going, the offertory baskets have long been put away, and women, children, and men are dancing in the aisles. Music. That is one compromise this Kraus will distinctly miss on my return to the States. The music is soul, is life. I can’t help but move, and the rhythms would be difficult to reproduce. Sometimes I compare the music to that of a “modern-music mass” style, but this is so much better. I guess I could say that the energy in mass makes me think of my stereotypical Southern Baptist Revival gathering. I like it.
We’re so close to being finished, yet the announcements remain, as I bang my head on the pew in front of me (in my imagination). And then FREEDOM. The brisk walk back home to change clothes and release Derique, and then to find lunch, sometimes at my beans-and-rice lady, sometimes “cereal.”
Ah, Sundays in Maple-land. They are special and I like them.
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Shannon
non-member comment
Mass in Japanese
Erika, I totally know what you mean about having mass in the local language. Most Sundays I go to mass in Japanese at the convent here at the college (at 7:30 a.m.!) Some things are just a little different and, as well as I thought I knew the mass before I left, sometimes I get confused if they are doing the Holy, Holy or the Our Father--I just haven't picked up that much Japanese yet. Luckily, I have the opportunity to go to mass in English sometimes at the Franciscan Chapel Center a train and a subway away. But most weeks, I just sit quietly and try to listen to the readings and homily, and then scurry back to my computer to look the readings up online. Two weeks ago, the priest (new priests are always coming to the convent to serve the sisters) noticed that someone in the congregation was a.) not habited and b.) not Japanese. True there were three other lay women there for mass, but I was the only one who had no idea what he was saying. He decided it was a good idea to talk to me during his homily. He took me so much by surprise that, although I should have been able to understand and answer his question in Japanese, the sisters had to answer for me. Then he asked me another question a little more slowly and after I answered (in Japanese!) he had the same reaction that all Japanese people have when they hear me speak their language the first time, "Kawai, ne?" Which roughly translates to, "That's so cute, huh!?" That was just a twinge embarrassing. Then, at the end of his homily he proceeded to say something in English, pointing out that it was just for me, that just didn't make any sense to me why he would say it. In Japanese he said something about America, December, and Christmas (Christmas time, I'm guessing). (He may have been talking about the movie Love Actually, but I just don't put a lot of stock into that supposition.) Then he said, "There is no greater thing that to love and be loved in return," looking at me for approval. I smiled and nodded (I do this A LOT) and he moved on. It was a good statement, and it was great to get a bit of the homily, but where America and Christmas came into it, I don't know. This is a very long comment indeed (that I will probably put in my own blog also), but I thought I'd share my mass story with you as well.