Sunday is church-day in Kenya.
As I’m staying with locals I followed the golden “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” rule and went to 10 o´clock mass with the girls.
Antonia and Gladys made me wear the best outfit I had. “No runners. No t-shirt – it is Sunday. You have to look good!” After getting the final OK from the girls we walked to the “African Inland Church” in downtown Iten. Everybody was dressed up for the special day of the week. The place was jammed. As there was no space left the acolytes main job was to tell people to move together and make space for people coming into church late.
One major thing the girls did not tell me was that the mass was held in Swahili and that everybody visiting the church from outside the Iten community must stand up, say prayers and a quick hello to the parish. I think the church has never been that quite during mass when I stood up…
Nevertheless it was a great experience to see how other cultures celebrate the same religion. The mass took 3 hours but time flew by. Lots of singing and dancing with a prayer that, even in Swahili, is hard to beat by any western preacher.
