Sunday 22 August: CCAP and Synod visit

We started the day by attending the St. Columba CCAP (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian-- I don't understand why they phrased it that way either) in Blantyre, a very large church with both Chichewa and English services. We went to an English service, and all of all the Sundays to visit, worship happened to be lead by the children that day. It was very interesting to watch the children sing and dance and recite verses, but it was also interesting to see the different degrees of "Sunday best", particularly with the girls. Boys wore shorts and some sort of t-shirt or dress shirt. Girls though, quite a variety in dress. Some wore skirts with t-shirts (including one girl who had on a Hooters t-shirt, inside out), some with dress shirts. Some wore dresses-- one little girl sticks out in my mind, who was wearing a sea-green colored satin dress with a totally busted zipper, so her back was totally exposed. One little girl who had on a dress with a broken strap. Few wore shoes, but most wore socks. Some were barefoot. It was just amazing to me how they all came together in this one place with the best they had to offer, and how varied "best" can be.

The rest of the day was relatively low-key. We actually spent a bit of time around the Blantyre Synod grounds (for those of you not Presbyterian savvy, a group of Presbyterian churches in some geographic region forms a Presbytery, a group of Presbyteries in some geographic region forms a Synod-- in Malawi, there are three Synods; in the US there are sixteen). The grounds were really lovely.


amazing tree on the Synod grounds that I still need identified... clearly tree of the day

Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.

St. Michael and All Angels church, constructed in the late 1800s by Scottish Presbyterians, one of many beautiful buildings on the Synod grounds

As the sunk sank behind the mountains, we walked around the cemetery on the Synod grounds. It sounds kind of creepy, but it was actually rather serene. I noticed many things as I walked down row after row of graves. It seems people either live to be very old (80s and 90s) or die pretty young (30s, or infancy). I'm sure HIV/AIDS explains some of that away. There's a whole generation missing. A lot of the given names were English and Biblical, or at least related to Christianity-- Blessings, Mercy, Innocent, as well as countless Michaels, Davids, Marys, Sarahs, etc. I saw a Janet (a name that runs heavily in my family), a Deron (I went to college with one of those). We walked by many graves that were well settled before walking into a section full of fresh plots. Months fresh, weeks fresh... and days fresh. Previous to this experience, I had only ever spent time in cemeteries while attending funerals, or walking around Civil War cemeteries with my dad during college. This was definitely different from both of those experiences. It's hard to explain exactly what I was thinking and feeling there.

I wandered to the back of the cemetery on my own and watched the sun set.



We all left together very soon after that.