Our guest was quiet, unassuming, and soft-spoken—characteristics I wouldn’t automatically associate with a member of a rousing African gospel vocal band. But there he was, sitting in my living room watching CNN. How I came to have a houseguest from Tanzania is a matter of good luck and timing. The New Life Band is touring the U.S. this fall, raising money for a much-needed secondary school in their hometown, and had a scheduled stop at our church; when our pastor asked for host families for the band members for a few nights I volunteered right away. After all, how many chances would we get to offer hospitality to someone from halfway around the world?
For three months the band is touring at the rate of regular rock stars, maybe moreso—I don’t think Blink 182 gets up at dawn to get ready for three Sunday services in addition to a demanding nighttime concert schedule. And what a concert. Anyone who can get a churchful of Lutherans to get up and dance has got some pretty powerful mojo going on. They pulled it off because they believe in what they are doing and don’t have to manipulate their audience; joy and genuineness just exudes from them. They were simply being themselves, and we all got swept up in the fun of it. They even sing a Swahili version of "How Great Thou Art," which should seem pretty apropos to anyone who read my August post about that particular hymn.
So it came to be that Gabriel, who has been with the band for 30 years (wow), had dinner with us Tuesday night. I picked him up at the church and drove back to our house, and as I pulled into the driveway our new motion-sensor light over the garage door came on. Making small talk, I noted how much I liked the new light, because sometimes it’s really dark outside when we get home.
Over dinner we asked him questions about Tanzania, trying to strike a balance between not being too nosy yet not wanting to waste this opportunity to learn about somewhere so foreign from a local. Yet the more we talked, the less foreign Tanzania started to seem and the more it seemed like just a place people call home, where parents raise their kids, worry about them getting good jobs, hope the weather improves for the crops next year.
During our conversation it came up that a lot of people in the villages in Tanzania don’t have electricity, and even some people in the city don’t have it. They use kerosene lamps and schedule their lives around daylight hours. I thought back to my comment about the garage light and how that might sound to someone who lives without electricity. And then I tried to imagine the velvety blackness of someone’s hometown in Africa after dark, a place someone not so different from me would call home.
