The Country Mice

Sunday morning. I promise Liliana she can have a lazy day with books and her movie-making-program, but first we have to go to church. It’s Anglican, there’s an English service at 9.30 a.m. It’s another cultural experience. It should be fun.

Toast and eggs with Hannah. She says she’s going to church too but at 11 and when it’ll be spoken in Inuktitut. We head off, on quiet gravelly roads. No one else is up and the sky is beautiful and clear.

Because we’re walking quickly we mistakenly take the upper rather than lower fork in the road and find ourselves at the airstrip (this is not a big place). A bit of backtracking and we’re at the church. The door is unlocked, we wander in, but it’s 10 minutes past 9.30 so we figure with no English speakers around, the minister didn’t bother to preach to an empty house.

But it’s quiet and pretty inside so we sit and contemplate life for a while. At the front, behind the altar, is a cross made of two narwhal tusks. At the communion rail are sealskin cushions for kneeling. On the right side are four electric guitars and a couple of amps. On the left side is a set of drums. All in all, pretty traditional.

My back is sore so when Liliana suggests we leave I ask for a few more minutes to sit. She agrees. And then the people start to come in. A lot of people, people in choir robes, people in their Sunday best, a man in a Roman collar. We stand up, preparing to leave. A man in a white robe and a beatific smile brings us an English bible and a book of psalms.

Oh, but we’re just preparing to leave.

Oh, but you should stay, he smiles, in perfect English.

We stay. We return to our seats at the front of the church. Then the priest files in with 18 (!) choir members. The organist follows. The church is now full, except for the front row, where we are sitting.

The service begins. We are welcomed in English and Inuktitut. We are thanked for staying. We are thanked for sitting in the front row. We are told on which page to look for the hymns which we can’t read.

Two hours later, when the service ends, we are thanked for our contribution to the collection plate. The man in the white robe hands me a tiny piece of paper with his name and number and a note to call him, Stevie, if we should need anything during our stay in Pang. Later we see both him and the minister Abraham at the Northern store.

For some reason the three hours spent at St. Luke’s Anglican Church pass quite quickly. Hannah was there, telling the people we were her guests from Vancouver.

I would like to think Hannah suspected something because our post-church lunch consisted of grilled cheese and tomato soup. I was never so happy to see a slice of processed cheese.

But after the promised lazy afternoon of reading and video-making, Liliana and I rouse ourselves to the smell of caramelized tomato sauce. It smelled delicious but similarly gave an air of foreboding.

“Loa-esh? Loa-esh? Time to eat.”

Coming, Hannah.

Sunday dinner. Roast chicken. How could I not know? An entire leg and thigh, waiting on my plate.

The last time… 1979….

Liliana thinks we should ‘fess up on the last day. We already know how to get to the airport.