Church

(after 3 days of no internet)

Everyone goes to church here on Sunday.  The whole province.  When I was here in November, I went where the majority of the faculty go and was informed that it would be my home church.  It is all in Mizo and I understood nothing.  Ruata is the pastor of the English speaking congregation and he has invited me to go with his family.  He says they have a wide variety of internationals, so that will be a better option for me.  Staying home is definitely not an option.

The college has chapel every morning Monday through Friday.  They are still singing from the Presbyterian hymn book and I actually know many of the songs.  Occasionally they sing one or two translated into Mizo, and there are a few indigenous hymns, which sound just like the Presbyterian hymns.  All the songs are in major keys, 4/4 rhythm accented by the native drum, which is similar to our bass drum.  Boom boom boom.  There are always an extra few booms between the stanzas with one loud one so you know the next stanza will start on the next beat. They also do some choruses, but ouch!  The boom boom just can't pull off any lively or syncopated music.

They hymn book is notated solfeggio, d, r, m, f, s, l, t, d₁, etc. in four parts.  The letters are spaced with hyphens according to the length of the notes.  The hymn books, which have been published locally, have many, many typos which some students have corrected by hand in individual copies.

In the local church they have “dancing”.  The people, mostly men, walk around in a circle, counter-clockwise as was pointed out to me by more than one person.  I am not sure of the significance of this.  I sort of resembles some native American dance displays, only much less vigorous.  There is no dancing in the college chapel services, but the wonderful thing about the chapel services is that the building was built with wonderful acoustics and almost all the students are male.  The sound of so many men singing in harmony is just glorious.