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Stories No. 1: Train Church

Stories No. 1: Train Church

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Santu Mofokeng

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From book blurb: 

Early-morning, late-afternoon and evening commuters preach the gospel in trains en route to and from work.
The train ride is no longer a means to an end, but an end in itself as people from different townships congregate in coaches - two or three per train - to sing to the accompaniment of improvised drums (banging the sides of the train) and bells.
Foot stomping and gyrating - a packed train is turned
into a church.
This is a daily ritual.
This sudden religious ecstasy struck me as odd. These office cleaners, clerks, factory workers and general labourers enjoined in a cacophony of song and prayer, a catharsis of spirituality in a moving landscape.

Photographed over a weeks in 1986 on the Soweto-Johannesburg commuter line.