You had to be there for the music

Mama Michoux sings her heart out at Bondeko Mennonite Church in Kinshasa

I’ve been thinking for days about the post I must write about the music of the Congo Mennonite centennial celebrations. I must write the post because it was the highlight of the whole thing for me. But how can you write about music? You must demonstrate. I do have clips but I listen to them and think, nah. They don’t begin to do justice.

The only clip I like is this one of our Mennonite cooks in Tshikapa singing what they said was a Catholic song while they worked. This was not a performance although it sort of became one when I heard them and came out with my camera. It shows how music is part of life. Everybody sings, in tune and in harmony.

But the choir music clips are thin, noisy excerpts of the real thing. The real thing was what made the whole trip worthwhile and you had to be there to get the effect.

What is the effect? You feel the thrumming in your chest and you may get teary. You can’t sit still. You are no longer separate but become part of the body of the crowd vibrating to the glory of God. It is quite clear that the music is religious but I don’t know what makes it religious, exactly, besides the words, which I could seldom understand. It is influenced by both traditional African and modern popular forms. It is original. The best choirs compose their own music. Even if you have never heard it before it finds a home in your soul. It infects even the shy and the skeptical with praise.

You lose track of time in two- and three-hour worship services because so much of it is music. The grander the occasion—the centennial, the Bible Institute graduation we attended, and the ordination in Mbuji Mayi—the more music, the more choirs. And you can dance! Here is the Dipumba youth choir leading the Bible Institute graduation procession, followed by the president, vice president, and president emeritus of the denomination and their wives.

I don’t think you could get the effect on a CD or by bringing one of those choirs to North America. The effect is enhanced in a crowded, hot church. The effect depends on a crowd that responds by getting up and dancing, tossing tips into the basket, clapping and singing along. The effect is enhanced when the song can go on and on, building to a climax and shifting rhythms, ending only when the worship leader says enough.

Each choir has its own style. My favorite at the centennial celebration in Tshikapa was the Grand Tam Tam choir from Ndjoko Punda, 50 or so young women and a few men with drums, flute, and other homemade instruments. They started each morning worship with an alleluja that could have taken up the whole service as far as I was concerned. It was the same every morning, and there was repetition within the song itself. It was hypnotic.

Two women who seemed to be identical twins alternated leading the choir. I thought for a long time they were the same person and then I saw one in the choir while the other was leading and I thought this magical person might very well be in two places at once. Here is a clip of her (their) dance. (Try to ignore the tinny quality of the recording.) The dance, too, was always the same and I never grew tired of it.

Ndjoko Punda was the original Mennonite mission station, established in 1912. It is in the middle of nowhere. This particular choir had walked 200 km, some with babies on their backs, to get to the celebration. On the last day of our stay in Tshikapa I flew with a small group of my fellow travelers and the president of the denomination on a small plane to Ndjoko Punda for a brief visit. We were ferried from the airstrip by motorbikes and dugout canoes and braved a wild welcome in a lovely old hot church. Another choir sang. Grand Tam Tam was still in Tshikapa.

We couldn’t fly the choir back to Ndjoko Punda but we raised $750 to send them back down the Kasai River by boat so they wouldn’t have to walk.

What I wouldn’t give to hear them again. I imagine choir tourism, the equivalent of ecotourism. I know that’s the dream of a rich American. Is there a better way to support such treasures?