Wedding: Part III

Originally, I had thought that Wedding: Part III would be about the rehearsal scheduled for Thursday the 14th. However, Shem (the groom)'s uncle died Wednesday late afternoon and so he and Sara had to pack up and head out to his family's home village for the funeral, and the rehearsal was cancelled. On one hand, we were grateful to not have to go to it, but on the other hand, it made things a bit more spontaneous and less polished on the day of the wedding!

I will post pictures tomorrow - we didn't have our camera with us, so I need to get some pictures from others to put here.

Saturday morning Shem brought Andrew's suit and my skirt and top to our house, since because of the funeral he hadn't had a chance to deliver them before then. Fortunately, they fit! Since we had no time to make any adjustments, this was a very good thing. Well, Andrew's suit trousers are rather wide in the thigh, but this was to be expected, since that's just how Tanzanian men wear their clothes. Also, the jacket isn't at all fitted - it's cut straight down from the shoulders to the hips. Maybe the tailor was allowing for him to grow a big paunch out front someday.

My outfit was surprisingly great - I'm guessing I'll wear it again when I have to get dressed up around here sometime. It was quite comfortable (albeit a bit warm inside) and I'm very pleased at how it turned out.

Since we were in the wedding party, we made sure we showed up right on time at 9:30. Well, true to Tanzanian stye, we were the very first ones there. People started trickling in and the pastor showed up, and then at 11:30 the wedding began. Even though I've lived here for years and know things get going later than the proclaimed starting time, I still haven't quite adjusted. Church, school, work - these are areas of life when people are right on time. Social gatherings, weddings, funerals - these start later than announced.

Anyway, apparently it is supposed to be the "besty" - the term used for best man/matron of honor - who puts the veil on the bride, but I wasn't quite sure how the comb was supposed to work in the bride's hair, which was piled enormously high on her head in an elaborate work of fake-hair-art. Rukia, one of the Ikizu translators who was there attending the wedding, saved the day. Right before the wedding, the bride, me, and the woman who was holding the bride's train out of the dirt (she's Futakamba's wife), and Rukia trotted out to "hide" behind some of the cars. Speaking in rapid Ikizu the entire time, which the bride understood and which is Futakamba's wife's mother tongue, Rukia put on the veil, asked my opinion, gave me fake flowers to put in the bride's hair, and told me what to do later in the wedding if the veil got messed up. Fortunately, the bride was speaking Swahili (she understands Ikizu, but doesn't speak it) and I was able to understand enough Ikizu to follow along a bit. I think Rukia just forgets that I don't speak Ikizu, and she thinks I ought to learn, so Ikizu it was. Anyway, language issues aside, I was grateful for her help.

Since we missed the rehearsal, we had to wing it going down the aisle. Instead of going in one at a time as we'd discussed, the bride and I walked in together. Shem and Andrew came halfway down the aisle from the front of the church, and she and I came from the back and covered the other half. He lifted her veil (which I smoothed into place), and we all walked to the front together.

Now, when I say walking, I don't mean actually walking! Weddings are all about walking super, incredibly, excessively slowly. You put out one foot, kind of tap it, shift your weight back and forth, and then take a step. And mind you, that step should only be about as half as long as your foot.

Andrew and I sat facing each other in green plastic chairs covered with white cloths during most of the wedding. The bride was next to me and the groom was next to him. It was hard to not talk to him during it! There were two choirs, one behind me and one behind him, and they each sang several times at the beginning. There was a sermon for about 30 minutes, vows (we stood for that part), an oath they read, and signing of the certificate. No kiss. The only time they touched was to put on each others' rings, and then they only touched the ring finger itself. Considering that this couple already has four children and have been together for 18 years, that seemed a little funny to me, but hey, who needs PDA at a wedding, anyway?

After it was pretty much all done, everyone in the audience paraded forward to shake all of our hands, which was the first of many shakings of the day. There was an offering taken, and since I was sitting behind the basket, I could see who actually put money in and who just faked holding money and pretended to drop it in the basket, which was kind of interesting. A little advice: if you need to fake giving money at some point, lower your hand all the way to the bottom of the basket before opening your fingers, because then it's harder for others to tell if you are really giving or not.

We then recessed (very slowly), led by the same group of dancing girls who danced in front of us when we entered (I forgot to mention that detail). Everyone shook all of our hands as they left the church for shaking #2.

Although the reception was being held just a minute's drive from the church, we drove really slowly through town in a parade of five vehicles, honking all the way and going incredibly slowly. Since we live on a busy road, we sometimes see these processions go by in front of our house, and most don't have five vehicles! I guess Shem thought it was pretty fun to have missionary friends, since we all have vehicles and could make a parade for his wedding.

Upon arriving at the reception, the sound system they'd brought over from the church wasn't set up yet, so we just hung out in the car for about 20 minutes, which was incredibly hot. Once they were ready, we paraded in (slowly) with the girls dancing ahead of us again. The first item on the agenda was cutting the cake. Shem and Sara fed each other a piece, and then Andrew and I fed each other, and then Sara fed me one and Shem fed Andrew one. I think Andrew thought that was a little weird to be fed cake by a guy, but hey, it's tradition! Then one of the cakes was given to the bride's family (we paraded it over) and one to the groom's family (also paraded), and the remaining one (about 9"x9" in size) was cut into tiny bits and the guests were given some on toothpicks.

Next came "cheers". Somehow that English word ended up in Swahili, and what it means is that everyone at the reception comes forward and clinks soda bottles with the wedding party. Meanwhile, we're all dying of thirst! We got thirsty about the time the wedding began, and now it's about three hours later. It was absolute torture to hold this glass full of soda and clink it with everyone's bottle and not be allowed to drink any! All I could think about was ingesting fluids.

Finally, we went to the head table and sat down. All four of us downed an entire bottle of soda each within minutes, so I guess they were pretty thirsty, too. In the course of two hours, we all drank a lot of water and soda - 3 bottles each!

There was a gift parade (and hand shaking), some songs from the choirs, a couple short speeches, including one in which a man said, "The best advice I have to give you is the typical marriage advice. You all know that, right?" There was a murmur of consent in the room and several people said the same phrase. Then he said it, "The man should love the woman, and the woman should obey him." Apparently this is the standard marriage line of relationship advice in Christian culture in Tanzania. It made me think of how many couples in the west take the word "obey" out of wedding vows, and here it's just how life is. Oh, that reminds me of something the pastor said during the sermon - that if the wife wants to be a good wife, she needs to take care of her husband. His examples for taking care of him were things like putting the toothpaste on his toothbrush in the morning and getting up early to make him breakfast before he leaves, or else he'll be justified in going over to the neighbor's house to see if a woman there will take care of him instead. The point was the wives need to be good wives, which is fine with me, but I cringed when he made it sound like if you don't help him brush his teeth, it's not his fault if he goes looking for some other woman. When we first came here after getting married, I was given some advice by Tanzanian women here about how I need to take care of my husband. I guess they were concerned that I might not take such good care of Andrew. For example, it bothered one woman that I make Andrew shower all by himself without helping him. I tried to assure her that he was okay with being left alone to clean up all on his own. Another wanted to make sure that I cleaned the house every day so he wouldn't go look for a harder-working woman who was a better house cleaner. I can't say I clean it every day, and I don't think it bothers him, but explaining this to her was a little tricky.

Anyway, there was music and the guests danced whenever they were supposed to come forward for something, and a couple good emcees, including Eliud (see previous posts about his son Zadok). Give Eliud a mic and an audience and he's in his element! The food was surprisingly nice (roasted potatoes, roasted beef chunks, fried bananas, and samosas), and the whole party moved right along on a nice schedule. We shook heaps of hands - some people up to six times during the course of the party! I enjoyed seeing some of the translators having fun and being more free than I usually see them at the office. The two Ikizu translators loved the whole event and were in very high spirits, which was great. Talk about quiet and businesslike at work, that's those two, but yesterday they were like different people! Rukia and Kitaboka were laughing and dancing all day. Shem's Zanaki co-translator, Futakamba, was working in the back the whole time lugging around soda crates and putting out food and cleaning up. I teased Shem that he'd just been waiting for a day when he could be the king at the front of the room and make Futakamba his servant for the day. He thought that was hilarious and agreed with me. But joking aside, I was really impressed that Futakamba let his wife and children sit in their nice clothes and enjoy the party while he worked hard.

So, at about 5:20 the party ended and everyone left. We shook some more hands and drove off, totally sweaty and exhausted, but pleased with how the day went. It was actually pretty fun at the reception! Andrew was happy that we hadn't been called on to give any speeches, and I was happy that we not on survived the day, but even enjoyed it.