Choir Album Dedication

Paradiso Choir, ready to sing


Paradiso choir singing and dancing


Neema

Later this week and next week we'll do the final two posts about Mara language groups (Kwaya and Zinza). For now, though, this post is about our experience last Sunday at a dedication for a choir album.

Neema, one of the Jita translators, is part of the choir at her church, the main Mennonite church in Musoma. She loves to sing and spends a lot of her free time working with her choir on singing and choreographing the dancing to go with the songs. Choirs in Tanzania don't just stand quietly in rows and sing; they put on a show to go with the music! In fact, quite a few choirs just play a CD and lip sync while dancing.

Neema's choir, which is called "Paradiso", recently made a DVD and CD (also available in VHS and cassette tape, which many Tanzanians still use) and Sunday was the big dedication event. Since the invitation card said it started at 2:00pm, we showed up at 2:15, knowing things often begin a bit late. Sure enough, at 3:00 people started arriving and things began.

Several choirs other than Paradiso were there and each sang a song or two. Well, some of the choirs sang and some lip synced. One choir from a town about an hour away really got into the dancing and it was like watching a full-on aerobics routine - they were really working up a good sweat as they were kicking and jumping and snapping their arms around in unison!

A very important part of events in Tanzania is the honored guest. There must be one important person invited to be the honored guest, and that guest is treated like royalty throughout the event. For this choir album dedication the honored guest was the mayor of Dar es Salaam. We weren't sure if the had flown him in just for this event or if he had other business in Musoma, but whatever the case, we were impressed they'd gotten such a big person to be their guest! As the role of honored guest requires, he had a very long speech and cut the tape covering the DVDs/CDs.

Fundraising, Tanzania-style, was a big part of the afternoon. People were called forward to speak into the mike and say their name, what organization or group they were with, and how much they were giving. Some shockingly large amounts were donated! We weren't entirely sure if the money was going straight to the choir for their needs (new speakers, a vehicle for transport when they have events, choir outfits, etc.) or towards a youth building for their church. What we were giving towards wasn't the big point, it was who you were and how much you were giving.

Raising money this way is very common here, whether it's money for a wedding or a church or something else. If a church needs to pay their electricity bill or buy new chairs, they'll extend the service by having a fundraising time where people are called forward and asked to announce how much they give. The very public nature of this giving can encourage people to give a bit more than they might if nobody knew how much they were giving, so it's pretty effective! It also makes us very uncomfortable as outsiders who aren't used to doing things this way.

So all in all it was a pretty good afternoon, albeit a bit long and with more fundraising and less singing than we would have liked, but it was a decent cultural experience.