Selian Hospital Chapel

My work days have a lovely start. Every morning at 7:30 the staff meets for chapel.The liturgy is matins, Sala ya asubuhi, The chaplains start right on time. The congregation doesn't. The attendance at the start is about a quarter of the attendance at the end which is pretty African.

The speakers are sometimes the chaplains and sometimes hospital staff. They are all inspirational. At least they sound that way, not that I can understand what they are saying. It is all in Swahili so I know about 5% of the words. The typical homily sounds something like, "You .... because ....... this ...... God.......we....three  etc." The ellipses contain 95% of the words.

The reason I like chapel so much is the singing. Imagine going to church where the whole congregation is in the choir.  They sing a cappella harmony. It is fantastic and not like anything I have ever heard anywhere else.  I can't hear 4 parts.  I think the men and women sing the melody or harmony.  Their three part harmony sounds so different from Euro-American harmony.  My musician sons would be able to hear it and know what they are doing differently. I don't know, but it is so African. On top of the harmony, some male or female descants are thrown in.

Some hymns are imports from the German/American Lutheran hymnal.  "Yesu ni rafiki yangu" is "What a friend we have in Jesus," translated into Swahili.  Other hymns are pure African.  Most are sung all together.  Some are antiphonal with the two halves singing different parts.  There was one call and response hymn during communion that a staff member just started singing.  She belted out her flawless soprano part and the congregation would respond in 3 part harmony, of course. It was one of  those exciting, shivers-down-your-spine moments. Absolutely fabulous.

The other great thing about singing hymns and liturgy is that the words come at me slower so I can keep with them.  Even the Lord's Prayer is spoken so quickly that I can't mumble fast enough to keep up even with it written right in front of me.