Church Nigerian style

I am always fascinated by the different ways people do things. I think that my fairly isolated upbringing taught me how to keenly observe life.  I say this because I happened to visit a local Anglican church last Sunday, where the majority of the congregants were Nigerian.  There are an enormous number of foreigners living in South Africa.  When the country became a democracy, our then President Nelson Mandela, opened our borders and the people from up North flooded in. Zimbabweans especially, flocking to South Africa in their millions, in an effort to escape their despotic president with his irrational ideologies.  

Anyway, to get back to my story.  I happened by chance to choose a Sunday when, not only was the priest being installed by the Bishop as the new Rector, but it also happened to be the day the congregation had decided to hold their annual  
monitory drive, in order to collect the much needed money to offset the deficit many churches find they have, at this time of the year.  

A very bossy lady dressed in a black and white uniform came to the front.  Pointing to a large round receptacle standing in front of the altar, she proceeded to half cajole, half chastise the congregation into coming up and placing their "paper" money into it.  

She had everything worked out to the last detail.  First came
the men's forum, followed by the women's association, the local Nigerian community, the choir, the teenagers, the young altar girls in their red dresses, the tiny tots and finally the visitors.  This whole procedure took about an hour to complete.

The men's forum danced their way to the front two by two. Shiny, pointy, black, patent-leather shoes.  New brown leather ones and grey suede, crocodiling their way to the front. All cultures have a distinctive way of dressing and Nigerians are no different.  Traditional dress for the men are fancy pajama-like suits, and so dancing to the front were black and red checks, floral creations with white yokes, white linen with black embroidered trimmings, gold ones, bottle green ones, and glittery diamond shapes on a blue background.  Down the isle they pranced, bobbing and weaving from side to side, to the accompaniment of a man on a keyboard and a woman singing very upbeat songs, which would not be out of place in a Mexican or Cuban bar. 

Then came the turn of the Women's association, who were all dressed in the same black and white uniforms as the bossy lady at the front.  The leader was a young woman who advanced forward with much backward heel kicking.  She shrilly blew on a police whistle to the beat of the music, whilst mercilessly smacking into submission, a small leather cushion attached to her right hand by means of a piece of elastic.  Pow! pow! pow!  She looked as if she was having the time of her life dancing and whistling and beating the cushion to death.  I felt quite envious as I thought of my own staid and controlled existence.  I seemed so 
incongruously out of place there.

On and on they went, dancing and singing and slapping their money into the wide, open mouth of the expectant bowl.  This might have gone on all morning had the Rector not intervened when the bossy lady tried to get the Men's Forum to come up for a second time.

What struck me forcibly was how few women were in the congregation in proportion to the men.  I do however have it on good authority, that women in Nigeria seem to be second class citizens.  The word which comes to mind is chattels.  I was told, that the men can do as they please with their wives. I was also told that the function of the wife it to bare the children, cook the food and look beautiful.  A bit like a trophy wife.  The dresses which Nigerian women wear are something to behold though.  Full length, snugly fitting creations in brightly coloured floral or geometric patterns.  Matching head pieces twisted this way and that to form beautiful regal adornments.

Finally, three hours later, the pageantry came to an end and we were ushered into the hall for refreshments.  I sat down at a table in the middle of the room, only to be told by a man with a large badge on his lapel which said "ASK ME", to go and sit in the one corner with a bunch of old whites who looked as if they had been ferried in from some frail care centre in an old age home.  When I asked why I had to sit there, he said it was because they had prepared special food for the whites.  He seemed a little apologetic when I said I didn't need special food and I was white.  On looking around the hall, I realized that we had all been categorized into men, women, black and white.  So, so sad when we are desperately trying to escape our ugly, segregated past.  I decided that I was not going to have some man in zooty PJ's tell me what to do, so I excused myself and went home.