Dancehall Protestantism

My host father, Zideouemba, is a deacon for the local protestant church. On Sundays, we walk in together and sit at the front, and my host mother, Mariam, moves to the right side of the room with the other women, and my sister, Grace, moves to the left with the children. The service is more than three hours long, which is long.

but you wouldn't notice for at least two hours. I promise. The reason is that my dad, the deacon, is in charge of the music, and he is a real rock star. At first, he walks to the front of the church and someone hands a mic over. It's wired directly to a single huge speaker at the side of the sanctuary. He's wearing his Sunday morning best, a traditional Mossi outfit called the boubou which is kind of like a sheet with arms that you put on over a pair of pants. The pants are also like sheets or maybe like sleeping bags, but this time for your legs.

There are two boys sitting on wooden boxes who wait for his cue, and for a second it is quiet and then there is a bit of distortion while he clears his throat. but suddenly he starts to sing and boogie out of nowhere! The section of women who sit on the right start to yip and yell in response. The two boys start pounding on their boxes and make a mean beat and then I wait for it, because this is my favorite part: the old woman who sits two pews ahead of me starts to move with the rhythm. Its just a bit at first, but pretty soon my dad is tearin' things up up front and grandma just jumps out of her pew and really starts getting down.

The music will kick your ass. You might even cry, because sometimes it all just happens perfectly and you realise you are in this concrete church in Africa where it seems like people have nothing, but once you come to church with them, you're not really sure if it's that they have nothing or that they have everything. and it is hot and dusty and uncomfortable outside, but, the music is killing you and it is just too beautiful. Bite your teeth and keep on swaying. It's cultural faux pas in Burkina to shed a tear, especially out of joy.

Grandma is all the way out on the dance floor now and others have joined her. They form a dance circle and people even show off their moves in the middle. Everyone is clapping, and the melody is swift. When my dad yells out during the song he does it in the way someone would yell out "Chicago, make some noise!" at a concert, but he says, "Bark Wend Na!" which means Praise God, and everyone yips and yells in response again, like we did when we were little kids playing cowboys and indians. I get the shivers every time.

We go home after church and clean house and do laundry. The Sunday afternoon meal is banga which is exclusive to Sundays. It is rice and beans with oil but it is delicious like you wouldn't believe. After we eat, I go to my room and promise myself that next Sunday I won' be such a wall-flower. My host dad is the deacon after all, it would be bad form to keep showing up with such stiff legs.