Denomination

I was walking back from meeting up with a consultant who’s doing a piece of work for us. A friendly gent who introduced himself as Samuel started talking to me.

Am I Lutheran or Catholic, he asked. Church of England, apparently, according to how I responded. It’s interesting how one responds to questions in the moment. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem about telling a random person that I don’t have a religion, although I am a little more cagey telling colleagues I am an atheist, because some may think I am a heathen with no moral compass.

I guess we all choose the response that we feel works best in the moment. It’s definitely the same regarding one’s personal setup. There aren’t the same norms around quizzing someone openly about this in a Tanzanian workplace compared to a British one, which is what I have been mostly conditioned by. Most of my colleagues have assumed I have a duteous wife and brood of children in either Mozambique or UK, and I don’t dissuade them from the assumption that I’m catching up with family when I do Mozambique trips. However if it transpired that I am not married or that I don’t have kids, it wouldn’t be an issue that someone had to reset their assumption. No one would ever say ‘but I thought you said…?’ or compile a timeline to forensically analyse what information had been established when. There’s a delightful fluidity to facts and information, which can be rather tricky when compiling a project report, but which is healthy in many other ways.

It’s intrusive and completely unintrusive at the same time. If that makes any sort of sense.

The sun set somewhere to the west of Arusha town and another day rolled by in Tanzania.