Palm Sunday

Last week, I told Canon Titus that I would be coming to the cathedral to worship, even though my time of Sunday placement was over.  He said I would take one of the readings, and then he told me to bring palms.  Now, I knew that today is Palm Sunday, but I thought he was kidding.  Until I remembered that I’m in Africa, where there are tons of palm trees.  Of course, many of them are tall like these in front of the library.  Clearly, I cannot take a palm from the tree in front of you (with apologies to “The Princess Bride”).

But some are smaller, like this one in front of Bp. Muhima’s house in Rukungiri.

Even with the instruction, it seemed strange to pluck some palms from a tree (all the ones around me are tall; there’s a short one on the cathedral grounds, but I didn’t want to take palms from there).  And yet, about 2/3 of the congregation came with palms.  Fortunately, someone shared her palms with me so I wasn’t bereft (after all, this is Africa).  I’m just so used to being in a place where they don’t grow.  I’d love to know how much the Prince William Marina spent on their failed attempt to grow those palm trees here, as well as how expensive those ugly plastic replacements were.

Back to Africa:  The children came forward to sing some songs, somewhat akin to how we have the children marching in procession around the church singing “Hosanna.”  I wish I had my camera; imagine close to 200 children of various sizes, up near the altar rail, then going down the main aisle to about halfway down the church, waving their palms as we sang.  Naturally, they were compacted together, which made for a good number of palm tips to the eyes, but no one seemed to mind too much.  One dear little girl kept blinking because she kept getting swatted.  Poor thing couldn’t move away either, because they were fairly well packed in.

I wish I was going to be there for Easter, but I will be at another cathedral, All Saints’ Kampala.

Oh!  As I was checking my wash on the line, a futile prospect to be sure, because it rained yesterday while we were in the exam, then early this morning, I noticed some lilies up the hill a bit from where the wash dries.  Perfect timing for Easter!