Family Matters

On Sunday, one of my colleagues at the Corporation's local affiliate in West Africa asked me to attend the presentation of his new baby at church. I asked him if it was his son's baptism, and he explained that he's an evangelical Christian, so they only do adult baptism, but this would be the formal presentation of his son to the congregation, and mark his entry into the church community. I felt very honored by this invitation: the opportunity to witness this important event in a friend's life, to meet his family, and to experience a church service in this country. Not even the realization that much of my day was bound to be spent without air-conditioning could dampen my soon-to-be-sweat-soaked spirits.

Another colleague was supposed to pick me up at the hotel between 9:30 and 9:45 on Sunday morning, so I assumed that meant that the service would begin at 10 am. Since my ride didn't show up until 10:30, and when we arrived at the church shortly before 11, the service was already well under way, I guess I'll never know exactly when it really started. But that didn't seem to matter much--the baby-presenting family was just driving up as we got to the church, and the service ended at about 1 pm.

The church is in a new building, made of concrete cinder blocks (you can see the walls in the photo below), with a corrugated metal roof. There were huge industrial-sized fans everywhere, so the temperature was bearable until about the last half hour or so. The congregation was seated in those plastic/resin lawn chairs, and I would estimate there were about 500 people there. They had a band (big drums, trumpets, electric guitars, etc.) and sound system with enormous speakers. The preachers (there were several, and the entire service was bilingual, with everything translated from French to English and vice versa--why, I'm not sure, since this country is almost entirely francophone, although it did have the benefit of making the service twice as long) were good, old-fashioned, fire-and-brimstoners, shouting for our salvation. Imagine all that amplified noise reverberating off bare concrete walls and a metal roof! I didn't even realize exactly how loud it was during the sermon until I saw a woman one row ahead of me taking her baby out of the church. As she was leaving, I vaguely wondered why, and then when she was just a few feet away from me, I saw from the baby's face that she was obviously crying very loudly. And I couldn't hear a peep from her, nothing but the sermon. Wow.

But I can tell you that for any of you who were worshipping God in a quiet, WASP-y way yesterday, that we made up for your lack of enthusiasm: Jesus was praised in West Africa! Shortly after I arrived, the preacher announced that now we would stand up and sing and dance and celebrate God. And so we did! The band played, the choir and the congregation sang, and everyone danced to the beat of the African gospel drums. Just in case the sound system didn't get the praise out into the whole neighborhood, many of the congregants had their own party-makers with them. A lot of people had white handkerchiefs that they waved in the air as they sang (or during important moments of the sermon); brightly colored plastic whistles were also a popular way to add to the jubilant noise; and I saw a couple of tambourines and paper trumpets out in the congregation as well.

My favorite part of the service was the celebration of the events of August. They asked people to come forward for marriage dedications, and at first I thought that it was some kind of blessing to follow up civil marriage ceremonies. It turned out that it was a blessing for all the couples who had a wedding anniversary in August. They were asked up on the stage/altar area and danced together to celebrate the gift of another year together. Then everyone clapped for them, and the couples cut a special cake and fed some to each other (after the service, the cake was broken into little crumbs, like communion bread, and distributed to the whole congregation). It was really quite lovely. After the marriage dedications, then people brought forth their babies for presentation. There were half a dozen or so being presented yesterday, and we crowded up to the front to stand in support of our colleague. Although the babies weren't baptized, the preachers anointed them with oil (literally, from a plastic bottle of vegetable oil).

The first photo shows me and several colleagues with the baby and his mother (to my right, in light blue) in the church after the service.

The second photo is of a few colleagues at the lunch reception--the man in dark blue is the baby's father, and the woman is his mother.

It's very interesting to me to talk to people here about their families. This is a country where polygamy was historically very common, although it's less so today. The father of one of my colleagues (the one in the black and white outfit, on the far left of both photos) had eight wives--my colleague's mother was the last one. When I asked him how it worked, if the wives fought or were jealous of each other, he just laughed and said that it all depended on how the husband handled everything. His father had a total of 48 children, and the family all lived together in a sort of complex with many houses. His father died several years ago, and all of the siblings gather once a year in memory of the father and to have a sort of family meeting, led by the eldest brother. They catch up on each others' news, support each others' business endeavors, and make sure that the youngest children have what they need to finish school (the youngest sister, who is my colleague's sister "same father-same mother" is still in college).

My colleague thinks that in the past, polygamy was a demographic necessity. There just weren't enough men, because of wars and the ravages of slavery. As the gender gap has narrowed, fewer men today are polygamous. My colleague who has 47 siblings has just one wife and one son and is very concerned because his new job at the Corporation here in the south of the country means that his wife is going to have to quit her job in the north to move here to be with him. He feels guilty that her career is taking second place to his and tells me proudly how good she is at her job. He also called her on his cell phone after the church service yesterday, so that she would be able to "meet" me over the phone, and yesterday evening, he stopped by the hotel with his little 7 year-old son, to introduce him to me as well.

It's really very touching to see how attached these men are to their families. When I was here in May, the father of the baby who was presented at church yesterday told me all about the maternity leave system and the problems he and his wife had to find good childcare for their two sons. In June, one of my colleagues in Washington was getting married, and the team in West Africa sent him a really beautiful e-mail, congratulating him on "this wonderful event in the life of a man." That phrase really struck me--maybe I'm wrong, but in the U.S., it seems to me that although we may congratulate a man on his engagement or his marriage, we really treat weddings as being more emotionally significant to the woman.

I come to this place full of judgement on the inherent sexism of polygamy and leave very moved by the grace and dedication the men I've met show to their families.