Small village church choir wins big

By Young Hoy Kim Kimaro

“We won, we won!” shouted Masuki excitedly as he entered the library where our Rotary Club was meeting. His large eyes opened even wider, baring a sea of white. His smile, extended from ear to ear and would have gone further if it could have. His excitement was contagious. We all turned to him to hear more.

“We got the first prize.” Club members burst into applause. It’s not often that a choir from a tiny village _ Shokony of Mwika _ with a population of maybe 2,500 to 3,000 _ would beat choirs from parishes in cities such as Moshi, which draw talent from parishioners who may number 10 times as many. Choirs from some 170 parishes took part in this Lutheran Church of Northern Diocese competition.

Among a litany of finalists in many categories, the Shokony choir was the very last to perform. At the end of the day the choir members were all exhausted from just sitting and waiting for their turn. Worse, they were intimidated and nervous, having heard some great singing from their competitors.”

Masuki, who is their conductor, mustered his pastoral training to rev up their energy level and to rekindle their confidence. Even as they walked onto the stage, he wasn’t sure if his talk had made a difference. But once they started to sing, the sound of the music so familiar to them calmed their nerves and their confidence returned.

Their final number combined singing and dancing. At the center stage were two little girls (Masuki’s own daughters), 7 and 10 years old, singing and dancing to their hearts’ content. They stole the show. The audience loved them.

Masuki remembers that for a long time his daughters had wanted to sing in his choir and kept pleading with him. Masuki was not sure. “But Daddy, doesn’t the Bible say let everything that has breath give praise to the Lord? Why can’t we sing, Daddy?”

They couldn’t have chosen a better argument to corner their pastor father. Masuki took them to one choir practice. Back home, they surprised him by showing him how well they could sing the songs they learned that very same day. He was convinced. They were in. They were the youngest ones of all choirs that took part in the competition.

Here it is usual for a church to have two or more choirs. Shokony parish has four. Masuki’s was the mixed age one. With his youngest daughter in the choir, ages of its members range from 7 to 78 years.

At Masuki’s invitation we were at his Shokony church by 7 a.m. As we waited and waited and waited for “the” performance to start, my mind wondered aimlessly.

Shokony church is a simple rectangular structure. Two tiers of narrow windows with domed windows on top, run along the length of its rectangular shape. The floor is tiled beige and a band of brown runs down the aisle all the way to the altar.

At the center of the altar, draped in sparkling altar cloth, a wooden cross shaped in Lazarean fashion leans against the wall. In front of it a giant Bible sits open on a lectern, more to set the stage rather than for use.

On either side of it are lit candles; beside the candles, fresh flowers; at the further ends of the altar, splashes of color from bouquets of flowers…plastic flowers.

My mind is immediately transported to Korea in the 1960s, as if in a time machine. I am wearing an Ewha Secondary School uniform. I ask an aunt of mine why she has plastic flowers all over her house all the time.

Looking surprised that anyone could ask such a stupid question, she replies curtly, “No water. Always looks the same.” Perhaps it’s not far-fetched to think that for the very same reason they are also popular here.

Some distance above the wooden cross, bright tube lights form a cross. Above that, a small domed window lets the morning light stream in. And above that, two sides of corrugated iron roofing sheets form an apex over metal rafters.

It was only when the service ended, two long hours later, that the choir was called. Why, of course that makes sense. Why on earth did we not think of that?

The choir delivered a rousing performance for 20 minutes. Those minutes just flew by. And yes, in their final number the two little bright eyed choristers took the center stage, singing and dancing to their hearts content once more. The parish audience too was delighted.

As the choir performed, I could not help studying the faces of its older members. Most were sun-scorched from laboring outdoors on their farm year in and year out. As is the norm with that generation, the majority of them probably had very little formal education. And yet, they can learn their parts even without knowing how to read the music, and sing them with all the intricacies of delivery purely from memory!

The resonance and harmony of their voices and the depth and breadth of their volume … oh, if only they would sing Handel’s Alleluia chorus….

“Yes, we can and we will,” declares Masuki, and it’s as good as done. We’re in for another rousing treat.

The writer resides on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She worked for the World Bank for nearly 30 years and her email is youngkimaro@gmail.com.