Ruth in Chad: Three baptisms and a funeral

Baptisms

My cousin Trésor got baptised on Saturday December 20^th and I was able to help out with the celebration. The night before Adeline and Solomé (the two 20ish year old girls who live with me) walked to the house of my uncle who is a doctor. We arrived around 7:30 p.m. to find about 14 women working in the kitchen. They were preparing for the feast of the next day. Most of the women were taking pieces of boule (flour and water that is stirred until it is solid) with some added sugar and they were breaking it apart into water. So I helped them with this task. Others were cutting meat, and preparing vegetables. Around 10:30 p.m., 10 women lay down on mats to sleep (a few went home).

Wake up call was at 4:20 a.m. and we had a time of devotion before starting work . There was lots to do before the baptism. The main job was straining the boule/water mixture in order to make ‘l’eau de papa’ which is a tradition drink prepared for baptisms and sometimes weddings. Women put the mixture into ‘socks’ and then pushed the mixture back and forth to strain the water. I tried this at the end, and after a couple rounds my arms got tired. My job was to take the boule and then pound it with the mortar and pestle. This also proved tiring at 4:30 a.m. in the morning.

But there were many other tasks to be done, people were preparing ‘jus d’osé’ which is a red sweet juice, others were making a ton of pasta and still others were cutting vegetable and preparing a stew to put on the pasta.

Once the majority of the work was done, I ate my breakfast and showered. The baptism was supposed to start at 8 a.m. By 8:15 a.m. we had not left and I had been waiting around for a while. There was a cousin outside on his motorcycle and so I decided I would go with him (instead of waiting for the car) because I wanted to get there faster. We left and as we approached the river (which runs the length of one side of Moundou) he called someone to verify directions.

We arrived at a baptism and we slowly made our way down to the front of the mass of people. Interestingly anyone with a camera seems to have the ability to bypass crowds at events like this. I was able to see about 8 people go into the water to be baptised by elders. I was happy to see it, but I was also a little confused because I did not recognize anyone and the minister was speaking Ngambai.

It was about at this point, when my driver told me we were at the wrong baptism. So we made our way through the crowd and got back on the moto. We drove across town, following the river to a second even larger baptism festival. But we only stayed long enough for the driver to ask a couple questions to someone (and for me to take a picture) and we were on our way again in search of the baptism place for my cousin Trésor.

After some more phone calls, we did manage to figure out where to go. We made it to the baptism place, but long after the actual ceremony. It was around 9:30 am and people were taking a few pictures before heading to the church.

*** Just a reminder that here in Moundou, there are no street names, or numbers so landmarks are used to figure out where events are. This makes it more difficult to figure out where events/activities are.

At 10am I had a 2 hour practice to prepare for the Christmas Celebration at CENTRAM. During this time, all the 40 who were baptised from my church, went to church to partake in their first communion. (There were about 800 people baptised in Moundou on December 20^th)

After this everyone from my family went to my uncle's house. I arrived around 12:20pm and was able to help with the work behind the scenes. I helped prepare the platters and brought one out for the guests. Those who were baptised travelled in groups of about 6 and went to eachothers’ houses parading and celebrating throughout the day.

Funeral

On Monday, December 22, I went to the funeral of a man named Laotai Samuel who was born in 1948. He worked at the agricultural school ISETAER (which uses the same building at CENTRAM) and went to my church.

In general people morn the loss of someone for 3-4 days with relatives and friends spending the night at the morgue in support of the remaining immediate family. Then the body is moved to the church in a procession on the day of the funeral.

Once the body is at the church, there are prayers and a lot of singing. This began around 9 a.m., but I arrived at church around 11 a.m. I joined the choir C.R.C. to sing with them. We took turns with the other choir from our church as well as other choir groups present (Soeurs Unis en Christ, Soeur d’Eglise des Frères) singing. Sometimes choirs/women would encircle the coffin and slowly dancing around it.

Around 1 p.m. there was the visit of the body, which means that everyone lines up outside the church, and walks down the aisle to pay their respects to the body. After this, different friends of the man came up to the front to share memories of their friend.

At this point it was after 2 p.m. and so I decided to leave to go home to get ready for my classes. After I left, the body was taken to the gravesite and then buried. The ceremony ended around 4:30 p.m. Many family members and friends will continue to be with the immediate family to support them for many weeks to come.