"I've got antelope liver stuck between my teeth"

Last Sunday I went with Pastor Hofferman and Karleen to a Swahili church (i.e. non-Maasai church) and it was really fun. Here are some pictures that tell about my day.

We drove for at least 2 hours to get there. Here is picture our the windshield of the car. The road here was unusually smooth and flat. I tried to take some pictures where the road was bad, but the pictures are so blurry you can't see anything. It is common to see people walking or biking at the side of the road. As you can see, it is very green at this time of year.

The road we drove on over-looked a town. I thought you all might enjoy seeing a Tanzanian town from above. This was also taken out of the car window. After this picture was taken we went through a rain forest and crossed a very scary bridge.

After we parked the car we had a 10 minute hike to get to the church. The above picture shows us walking to the church. The church is the little building to the left of the picture. Pastor Hofferman is the white man in the blue shirt.

After we arrived at the church we were invited into the lay pastor's house for tea. (Lay Pastors are Tanzanian and go to 2 years of Bible college, but can't give communion, baptize individuals, or perform marriages). Once we are sitting in the small dark room, the lay pastor's wife comes and pours water over our hands (this is in the place of hand-washing because there is no running water). Then she brings out some already sweetened tea and pours it into mugs. After that we are each given a little saucer of doughnut type times (unsweetened) and pieces of meat. I was sitting across for Pastor Hofferman and after the lay pastor's wife left he quietly says in English, "One of my greatest pleasures I get from my biology degree in Africa (his BS degree is in biology) is being able to identify the organs I am eating." He holds up a organ and asks me what it is. I say, "It's a kidney!" and then I look at my plate and say "Oh look, I've got the other one." We speculate which animal the kidneys in question have come from, and and we agree that they are too small to have come from a goat. Pastor Hofferman is informed by the Lay Pastor we are eating a small antelope called a swala. Pastor Hofferman and I both consume our antelope kidneys with great pleasure. Then Karleen whispers in my ear, "You won't be interested in slightly burned hunk of antelope liver, would you?" It doesn't look very appetizing, but I tell Karleen that if she takes two of my huge greasy unsweetened doughnuts I will eat the liver for her. The liver tasted about how you would expect it to taste. I realized after I had finished that I could say for the first time in my life, "I've got antelope liver stuck between my teeth." I don't know when I will be able to say this again, but it was pretty cool.

After tea we went back to church and listened to the singing for about an hour until church started. Everything is in Swahili, but we are able to understand a little bit more now, so we can sort-of follow the service. However, we usually don't understand the sermon.

After we had the baptisms and communion we had the offering. Now they had a basket for people to give money, but some people brought other things and just put them at the front of the church - for example goats a case of soda, huge bunches of bananas, etc.

After the offering we have some closing hymn. Then everyone files out of the church while singing and shakes hands with everyone else and then we stand in a big circle.

After we are all standing in a circle we have the 'offering auction.' Some people go in and bring the offering outside and then a church elder auctions off everything. The goats are auctioned first because they were really irritating and kept trying to eat the bananas. The goats went for about 40,000 Tanzania shillings each ( a little under $40 US). Last week during the offering auction I bought a clump of bananas. This week I was more confident with my Swahili skills and bid a little more aggressively. I bought some more fruit to take back to the language school and a piece for fabric for the lay pastor's wife.

After the offering we are invited back into the church and they give us each a huge pile or rice with another piece of meat perched on the top. This time I got part of the antelope's vertebral column. I am pretty sure it was from the lumbar section, but I wasn't completely sure.