playing hooky from church

Yay for cleaning out computers and finding stuff! Playing hooky from church one Sunday afternoon in Micronesia, I assuaged my guilt of not attending the service by writing about it.

"I’ve avoided writing much about Kosrae, largely because I’m scared to fall into the trap of vomiting gross, sweeping generalizations about a place. But, I don’t suppose I can blog forever about the trivialities of apartment life. It is once again Sunday, and I’m supposed to throw on my aqua flowered nuk-nuk and bike on over to church. But today the clouds are dumping water, so I’m thinking maybe not; besides, writing about church is indisputably more fun than actually going. The novelty of attending Kosrean church (where the whole service is in their language) wears off like cheap sunscreen in water. The church itself is quaint enough; an unassuming tin- roofed white building that is splashed with colors every Sunday from the women’s nuk-nuks. Inside, the wooden pews are split down to the T: men on the right, women on the left. While the congregation is separated by gender, the amount of dozing off (which appears to be perfectly acceptable and frequent) and the mindless mumbling of worn prayers are spread evenly all around.

The only aspect of Church that seems to save an otherwise droning service (and wake people up) is the singing, which is probably the God-liest aspect of it all. No joke, these people are good, really good; and how they acquired such immaculate vocal skills is likewise remarkable. My previous experience with musical education involved tuners, sound proof rooms, the reading of notes, music theory, black dresses and recital halls. Throw all the aforementioned out the window, and throw in 15 women sitting cross legged on the floor singing off a ripped piece of paper tacked up on the wall of my host family’s living room, you have Kosrean music class. There no notes, just words written in dried out marker and a lady leading the singing in front. After several rounds, the song and at hand and its particular pitches become internalized, and that’s it. Notes and tuners? Forget it.

Okay, I’m not the world’s best church go-er. So shoot me."