A Concert in the Dark

Can you remember back to the last time your power went out?  I know it doesn’t happen often in America—after an ice storm, maybe a severe thunderstorm, or a bad accident, but can you remember what you did?  First there was certainly a blind scramble for a flashlight or matches and candles since there’s not a need to leave them in prominent places around the house when power outages are rare.  What did you do after the candles were lit?  Did you take a moment to enjoy the silence and stillness without a TV, computer, radio, video game, or some other device with a plug blaring, or did you anxiously check the battery level of your i-phone, laptop, or Kindle and breathe a sigh of relief when you realized there was surely enough juice to last until the power company restored power?

The dorms were out of kerosene for the hurricane lamps during a recent power outage casting the compound into utter darkness after the sun set behind the foothills to our west.  It was a Saturday night, and our normal schedule would have included packing 30-something dusty children into our living room for a much-anticipated movie night.

As Sherwood and I sat wondering when the power would come back so we could use our electronic devices, we heard a choir of girls’ voices drifting through the darkness and our open windows.  The sound of their no-frills singing was beautiful in its simplicity, and it brought to mind precious memories of old friends gathered at my childhood home on Christmases past for caroling.  As the girls’ singing continued, Sherwood and I ventured into the darkness to get a closer perspective.  The girls were gathered on the lawn in front of their dorm in a semi-circle that moved to the rhythm of their singing.  Their untrained voices harmonized in a folksy melody that was beautiful in a different way from highly polished choirs with traditional training.  I can’t explain the sound of their voices or the experience of watching their bare feet strike the dusty lawn in the darkness illuminated only by the starry hosts of the southern hemisphere, except to say that it felt pure and in rhythm with the earth, somehow in harmony with the natural world.   

There are moments when the realization that I’m living in Africa washes over me.  These are times that have a heightened sense of the mysterious and romanticized power and force of the land that is Africa.  This was one of those moments.