Rude Awakenings

Sometimes life does not hand you exactly what you'd expected when you woke up that morning. And often the little surprises that present themselves are fun to share. So here, I present you with some "rude awakenings" from this week in Chad: On Tuesday, I had the responsibility of surveying final exams for an English class. Now, one of the benefits of living on campus is, of course, that I can leave my house a minute before class and still be one of the first teachers to arrive. So that's what I did. I stepped out onto my porch and while I wasn't feeling the need to rush, I definitely was planning to move with purpose across campus to the classroom. Instead, what I quickly discovered was that the screen door separating my porch from the rest of the world was padlocked shut from the outside! 

Typicalll, I thought. You see, this wasn't the first time I'd been locked in. Among other things, my house has become a hub for everyone who's anyone to charge their phones and electronics, as most of the time it is the only location with a working outlet. Too often I think people, especially the guards, forget it is also my house, so I arrive or exit to find them guarding their phones with a padlock. Twice before a guard has come by my house while I've been inside and locked me in with his phone.

 In the past I hadn't been in a particular hurry, but this situation very quickly became a desperate one because not only had the children mostly all passed on their way to class, but as I stepped out I heard the familiar ping of rain on my roof. Have I mentioned that the rains have returned to Moundou? It has been one of the joys of my year to listen to the showers and thunder from the comforts of my house or porch. However, with the rains today I saw some of the last students make a sprint to class, leaving me totally alone! I called to some boys in the distance to get the guard, and they stopped and looked at me, so I thought the message had been received, but five minutes later when he was nowhere in sight I called the only faculty in my contacts, the coordinator of campus events, and explained to him that the guard had locked me in. It was now raining very hard and I could hardly hear him, but he said ok. Ten minutes later I called him back. "Did you reach the guard? I'm very late to survey exams!" He laughed and said yes yes, the guard was coming. Finally the guard approached and I tried to figure out how I was going to be polite and forgiving, yet firm that three times of this was really enough, but when he arrived he called angrily, "who did this??" Turns out, it wasn't him, and he didn't have a key. So he spent the next several minutes looking for something to break open the lock. This wooden stake? Nope. This metal construction thing? Perfect. The lock broken, I ran to class and was able to do my job, but with a story that amused my colleagues, prompting them to believe that some student just really didn't want to take his English final!

 The next day, Wednesday, I got out of my house pretty successfully. I had spent the night with my host family in town, so the first thing on my to-do list for the morning was to bike back to school at Altonodji. I attached my bag of things and some clean clothes for the week to my bike rack and started down the street. Immediately I was greeted by little children on their way to school screaming, “Nassara! Bonjour!” I passed a house where a young woman and her family stood. She called out to me in a sing-songy voice, “Sister! Pedal pedal! Carefully!” I waved, laughed, and continued down my street, where I had to navigate around some small puddles. It was just such a beautiful morning. The weather was cool, the air was dry, and people were out and about.

It was when I turned off of our small little street that I saw what huge puddles had been deposited on the road by the last big rain. Many roads in Moundou are made of dirt and full of bumps and crevices that warmly invite water to gather and stay awhile. The particular puddle that I was faced with as I turned the corner was something more accurately described as a pool, extending across practically the entire width of the road and maybe fifteen feet before me. I started doing some problem-solving in my head. In the middle of the pool, if I swerved left, there was a path a few centimeters wide that seemed to be the way other people decided to approach this from the look of the tire tracks. However, I could hear a motorcyclist quickly approaching behind me and I had a feeling that he had the same thing in mind. Wanting to avoid a collision, I turned my attention to the right of the road, where there was actually a good foot of dry area lining the side. The problem with this was that there was a very steep hump over which I would have to navigate my bike. Forgetting that I had the option of breaks to give me a little extra time to go over the pros and cons, I gave myself the old “move with purpose,” talk and took the path less travelled. Within three seconds I was already at the top of the hump, regretting my decision as the earth tilted, my bike tottered, and I tumbled theatrically into the pond.

When I emerged from the depths, of course my first thought was how to make it look to the surrounding audience that I had NOT just launched my bike into the water, but upon deciding that was impossible I instead took inventory of my soaking clothes and electronics. Once everything was arranged as best as possible, I walked in as dignified a manner as possible to the end of the puddle, smiled at a group of men sitting outside a boutique, and said, “It’s a beautiful day, no?” Then I mounted and made my way to school. The remainder of my free morning was spent washing clothes, putting things in rice in the sun to dry them out, and explaining to people, “I had a little accident.”

I also thought these two would be notable enough for a blog, but ever since I first thought, “That was an amusing way to start a day,” I’ve been realizing a pattern. The next morning, while I thought I still had nearly an hour until I had to survey final exams, I was alerted by a frantic boy at my door that the whole class was waiting for me and they were going to leave if I didn’t come soon and no there was no time to get ready I needed to come now now now! Turns out I was not in the wrong, but simply no teachers had come to school and I was the only one available. Then today, while I was writing this and sipping my Nescafe at 7:30, the coordinator of events knocked on my door and told me that they needed all of my couches and chairs for the nursery school’s end of the year ceremony, so I allowed several male students to come clear out my living room, then ended up attending the ceremony and even offering the closing prayer.

These events have all brought me back to what I said in my last entry, about how sometimes the “bad” unexpected things that happen to us can be better than whatever we had planned. Somehow, I think this is true for all of my “rude awakenings” this week. If I had the option to go back and have everything go perfectly smoothly and comfortably, would I? I certainly would not. It’s the rude awakenings that add spice to my life, and I think it would be a sad day to wake up and be assured I’ll have no surprises!

The Choir is Powerless!

Three days ago, I performed with my church choir- “Chorale Revelation de Christ”- as an opening act for a visiting church choir from a nearby village. I believe I first knew about Sunday’s concert on Saturday evening at our regular choir practice. This is such a typical experience for me that I hardly considered that it would be of interest to mention, but that is just the nature of my participation in this choir. I simply never know what is in store, and it is difficult to gage how much others are equally flexible or if I’m just constantly missing messages. However, even at the end of practice on Saturday night I heard our director say he didn’t know what time the concert was going to start, but that was ok.

On Sunday, I heard the concert would be at 3:00 so we should arrive at 2:30. Obediently, we got to church sometime shortly after 2:40 and hung around outside, as hardly anybody had yet entered the sanctuary. At 3:00ish we donned our brown graduation robes and caps- typical concert attire- and made our way to the side pews. I believe our intention was to sing two opening songs for the visiting choir, and also maybe the offertory. I can’t say for sure because was we buttoned up our robes and adjusted our tassels, we were still deliberating among ourselves which songs to perform, and whatever was planned was so far from what actually transpired that it hardly seems important now.

We sang our opening numbers for a tiny audience. After all, it was only about 3:30 and who comes to a concert within the first half-hour of its announced starting time? I’ll tell you, about 30 misinformed people. So we sang our opening numbers and then returned to our places to watch the visiting choir.

In Chad, attending a concert, even a church concert, does not mean sitting placidly in your seat and letting the music wash over you. It doesn’t even mean tapping your foot with a smile on your face. Attending a concert in Chad means being on your feet, singing along whenever possible, ululating if able (or, in my case, unable but willing), and being visual evidence that it is a positive experience. As a result, as the visiting choir launched in to their program and the crowd began to grow, I hardly even noticed the people performing at the front. From my vantage point looking out at the audience, I was having too much fun watching the party unfolding before me. I filmed the crowd. I filmed some of the more flashy dancers in my own choir who were cracking me up with their colorful moves. It was as if the choir was providing background music for the audience’s show.

This next event was, in a less than ideal way, a perfect demonstration of just how true this observation could be. Three young women from the choir, wearing matching t-shirts and wrap skirts, made their way to the front of the church and positioned themselves on one knee in a prayer stance. This looked familiar. It reminded me of the way the choreography started when I danced in a Christmas program with one of my students. Sure enough, the familiar music began to spill out of the speakers: “Louez l’Eternellll. Car… Il est bonnnn.” Excitement stirred the crowd. This was a definite favorite, a sure crowd pleaser. Our own choir had performed this song not long before and it is a truly epic one. It starts off slow with this sort of 70s ballad feel, then abruptly switches into an upbeat dance piece, followed by a section of dialogue that people love to rattle off along with the recording, Finally there’s a part where a leader belts, “I will not die!” and everyone screams “NO!” “I will not die!” “NO!” “I will live!” “YES!” “I will live!” “YES!” “He saved me!” “YES!” “I WILL NOT DIE!” “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” etc. We were in for a treat.

Well, the 70s ballad started. The dancers rose from their knees and did some synchronized swaying.  A hundred voices had already joined in to at least match if not practically drown out the canned music. Then the mood switched. We’d reached the second part of the song. People threw their heads back and sang louder and with more energy. Everyone was out of their seats dancing along, most of them more animated and bouncy than the performers. Smiles abounded.

Then, the music cut out.

No power.

…Well, whoever let that rattle anyone in Moundou, Chad? We just kept singing! We didn’t miss a beat. Except for one thing. The dancers had stopped. They were looking anxiously at one another. (For those of you who are Mean Girls fans, it was the moment when the CD started skipping at the school winter pageant, before Lindsay Lohan saved the day by singing and rallying the whole high school to join in performing “Jingle Bell Rock” to carry the dancers through.) Except that this time everyone was already singing! And harmonizing! And percussing! And doing a better rendition of the song than could be found on a recording. But dejected, the dancers sank back down to their knees, staring gloomily at the ground and waiting for the “music” to start back up. The crowd did not give up. They sang louder and louder, more and more joyfully, carrying themselves confidently through the many complicated transitions, and willing the dancers to get back up and give us a show! It went on and on, with the audience performing earnestly and the performers sitting silently and self-consciously. A textbook picture of angst. After at least a full minute, someone circled around shushing the crowd into submission.

I wonder how many times we haven’t realized that we were better off when things WEREN’T going as planned… that whatever we had planned was not as special as the things that actually happened…

The dance number was followed by several minutes of unstructured downtime for everyone in the church. Eventually, someone beckoned our choir to stand up and announced that the choir CRC would do something now (..anything!). What followed was a real testament to how much of the Evangelical Church of Tchad repertoire I have integrated into my own this year, as we stood and sang a medley of about ten different songs. We would sing one song for a minute or two¸ and then the leader would point to someone in the choir and mouth a few words, and they would belt out the solo part of a new song that we would then launch into. As unplanned as it was, this was fine by me. Being a product of the Mennonite singing school means I have zero qualms with singing unaccompanied, and really enjoyed the break from electric keyboard and guitars. For once I could hear myself and all the harmonies. And, as always, the crowd provided moral support by singing along and dancing like pros.

We never did get power back. The concert ended with all of us, members from both the home and visiting choirs, standing together and singing a song we had learned the previous day that says, “We are one in a line of love.” We held hands and raised them high. It did not go unappreciated by me that I was singing this song amidst hundreds of people whom I so easily could have gone through life never knowing. We prayed, handed in our graduation outfits, and went out into the evening.

Until the next concert. As far as I know, we could have one tomorrow.