Kidnapping # 1

We use the term “kidnapping” quite often here. For those of you who have been blessed to experience the over-generous, extremely humbling hospitality of people from other cultures, you may have an idea of what I’m talking about.

As a community, we have been kidnapped many times. Often this occurs when we have been invited over a friends house at a certain time and expect to be back 4 hours later but the plans have changed without us knowing and we are brought around to 3 other families houses through their banana farms and fed many more times than we were prepared for (Christmas 2008), other times it is a simple pro-longed visit with extended family members who have traveled a long way and so as watoto wazuri “good children” it is our responsibility to stay. Let me add that none of these kidnappings have been extremely unpleasant or without people we love and care about.

Our choir had been preparing to go to another parish to sing for a long time, I’d say at least two months. At practice the word “Buguruni” would be thrown out about every third song we sang. I got the idea that this was going to be a big deal. As the date got closer, we had practice every day. We practiced the most impossible songs we could find to sing and then decided to put next to impossible dance moves with them. It was all going well. After one last minute switch of the date, the actual day was getting very close. We whipped out our purple couch cushion uniforms from last year (this brutally heavy purple fake satin with a white flower pinned to the front of the dress – they were going to choose pink last year but everyone got such a kick out of saying that Caroline and I were the same color and so it wasn’t going to look good.)

The day of the show/kidnapping: We were asked to meet at the church at 6:30 in the morning, still having my good old American punctuality I arrived 5 minutes before and was the only one there. I actually left a friend behind because I was going to be late. Slowly people arrived and at about 6:45 the bus arrived and we left. We sang out hearts out the entire 7 minutes it took to get to the other church and of course I, who was sitting near the window, was pointed out multiple times because first, I’m white, second, I’m wearing a ridiculous dress, and third, we are singing so loudly people hear us over their own music.

We arrive at the church and I seriously wish I had a camera. The other choir from the church we were going to was waiting on the street singing a welcome song. Did they look smart. They were all wearing long sleeve black button up dress shirts, black trousers or long skirt, black shoes, a white and black diamond checkered sweater vest and a black fedora with black, white and red string tied around it. Their uniforms were accented by a red tie. Seriously. I felt like I was in a speak-easy in the 1930s. It took us about 30 minutes to walk to where we were supposed to be, to line up and to enter the church. I’m always fascinated at the reactions I get when I go places, whether it is people trying to speak English to me or if it is just a blank, curious stare, I can always tell whether there are other white people living nearby or not, most likely they don’t.

We sang so well during the Mass and were tired after the first mass. I thought we were done. Nope, we had to stay and sing the second mass. We sang well but not as well as the first one because we were tired. Second mass done, let’s go. Not so fast. The choir has invited our choir for tea. I was appreciative of this because I was parched and hungry and cold. The hot tea and mandazi (doughtnuts) warmed and filled me up. Ok, time to go now. For some reason we waited and waited and waited. During this period of waiting, all of the seats and benches in the newly built church were put away, I became the topic of conversation between both choirs about how I am going to get married here (I was promised to a choir member’s brother) and then somehow got to talking on segregation in America, we were fed oranges an I was tested in my Swahili by a man walking by by him greeting me in every single way he could and seeing how I responded (I passed). Finally the bus arrived, but by now I had found out that we weren’t going back to our parish. I should note that it was now 2 pm.

We took two buses (the other choir joined us) and we went to the Msimbazi Center, a large area with multiple large halls for events. We were dropped off at this already set up hall and were asked to sit in a certain area, we were going to wait for the other guests to arrive. I made my friend Thadei sit next to me because he is one of the only members who speaks English and I knew this was going to be a long evening. We were asked to intermingle with the other choir members so we looked like a beautiful array of purple, black and white. Slowly other people started to come and then each choir sang a few songs while we waited for the guest of honor to come. Around 4:30 pm the guest of honor shows up, the Head of the Buguruni Parish. Turns out that this is a fundraiser for the choir that invited us to sing at their church. The other guests that came were the teachers and heads of other choirs in Dar. By the time I realized all of this, all I had eaten and drunk the entire day was that tea and mandazi and half an orange. This is one of the troubles of being kidnapped. After we sang a few more songs and an auction started to see who would pay the most money to open the champagne, we were told to get on line for food. The rest of the evening went well, I was only called out two more times for being white, and I thoroughly enjoyed being with the choir for the entire day. Whenever a new group would say how much they were donating, everyone got up and danced to the music that was being played.

Around 7 pm we prepared to leave. Many women in the choir had to leave early because their husbands expected them home at a certain time and they had to cook dinner for their families. We left the Msimbazi Center around 7:30 pm and got back home in Mabibo around 8:00 pm. I had planned on preparing my lessons for Monday on Sunday afternoon, instead I went to sleep at 8:30 and had a “movie day” in class on Monday (not really a movie day, that’s hard to do without electricity, a tv and movies, but we reviewed what we had learned the previous week).

This was by far the worst, and best kidnapping I have experienced.