One of the things I love most about this class is the random opportunities that present themselves at the most unexpected moments.

Yesterday, while visiting the shopping center down the street from the hotel, two of our classmates discovered a small market next door. Essentially an open-faced structure, the market houses five or six vendors each of whom have their own room, counter and floor space to display their wares. There were multi-colored woven baskets and mats, pottery, statues, pieces of art, jewelry and clothing in every imaginable color. We were the only visitors at the time and it was very relaxing to be able to shop at our individual paces and talk to the women who own the shops.

On our way out of the market we stopped at Elizabeth’s shop. After speaking to her for a few minutes she mentioned that she would be going to church [today] and invited us to join her! We would simply need to meet her by the market the following morning.

Although I was incredibly excited for the chance to do something non-touristy and authentically experience a Sunday at church in Swaziland, I was also wary of the many variables in our equation. We didn’t have a contact number for Elizabeth—what if she wasn’t at the market in the morning? We didn’t have an established way to get back to the hotel—we would figure that out after we had a better handle on the situation. And the one that really took the cake—we didn’t know where the church was, or what it was called. All we knew was that a woman who we had met the day before (we still don’t even know her last name) invited us to meet and then travel with her. But why travel all the way to Swaziland if you can’t handle a little bit of adventure?

As most things do, this experience turned out to be completely fine. Getting to the church was a little bit exciting—we hired two private taxis, but couldn’t convince Elizabeth to come with us. Instead, she sent her brother to guide us and waited to take public transportation by herself.

Church itself was actually surprisingly similar to church services I’ve attended in North Carolina. They opened with prayers (by which I mean individuals stand and pray out loud, which can take a very long time, depending on the person) interspersed with hymns. Similarly to southern church (in my experience) all hymns are sung from memory. Although they gave the page number for certain hymns, there were no hymnals in sight.

The music was also similar; they had one man on keyboards (with built-in drum tracks so we had percussion as well) and a booming sound system. Seriously. The volume was up so high my ears were ringing when we finally left 2 hours later. The preacher was also very similar to the southern preachers I’ve encountered in that he spoke with his entire body. (One notable moment was when he actually spoke into two microphones, one held from each hand, at the same time. I’m not sure why he was doing this, but had we been able to understand him, I’m sure it would have emphasized a point in his sermon). Just a note: the majority of the service was conducted in Swati, but the preacher, who met with us before the service, found an English interpreter for the sermon. This was incredibly kind and made me feel very welcome. However, it was also pretty funny. The preacher would alternate between speaking Swati and English, which in turn forced the interpreter to pay close attention during the extensive sermon to which language he then had to translate into, which led to a lot of confusion and repetition in the same language without translation into the other.

In my opinion, the best parts of the service were the offering line, in which people dance while they wait to give their offering, and the choir. They sounded great and even had a choreographed dance to their anthem. If the internet is cooperating I’ll upload a video of the choir.

In all, I wasn’t nearly as out of place as I expected, mainly because the people were so welcoming (there were also other visitors from Mozambique and Botswana) and because of my experience with church in the south. However, the one thing that threw me was the sex-separation. For some unexplained reason all of the men sat on the left side of the church and the women sat on the right side. Visitors sat in the middle section with other women and children. While this is different than what I’ve experienced before, it was also not very overt. No one referenced the “women’s side” or the “men’s side” and it wasn’t until halfway through the service that I noticed the distinction at all.

Overall, today was pretty amazing. I was also reminded that I can’t sit through long services (I fell asleep…) and that people, even complete strangers come through for you. Elizabeth’s friend drove us back to the market after church ended.