One of the members of my organisation celebrated the send off of his daughter yesterday. She will get married on Friday and Wednesday was the first step of the celebration.
In the morning I get on my pikipiki (motorbike), drive to my workplace, pick up a colleague and drive into the bush. After 20 minutes on a dirt road, we leave the main road and enter a path going up the hill. I am still amazed that a path of 10 centimetres can be wide enough for ‘traffic’, but, again, I manage to reach our destination without falling. We park the pikipiki and enter a house. I can’t possibly appear on a celebration wearing my jeans and trainers and I can’t possibly ride a motorbike wearing a long skirt and sandals. This problem gets solved in 5 minutes and off we are again. We walk further into the fields passing the ‘usual’ farms with banana trees, peanuts, cassava and beans. Every now and then I get a glimpse of the terrific view on the lake. Soon I hear the first noises appearing from the middle of nowhere. A music installation is put on maximum volume, which makes it easy for us to find the house we are going to. It appears that the neighbours are also having a celebration and 2 music installations are competing with each other to be the loudest. The member of our group gets tears in his eyes when he sees me appearing from the bush. He’d never expected I would really come and he immediately starts running around to make special arrangements.
While he runs around I observe the typical African last preparations going on. Although 300 guests are waiting for the ceremony to start, the bride mates’ dresses are not yet finished and the last decorations still to be put on the walls. I meet someone I have met before, she looks very tired. When I ask her what's going on, she replies that she started to work on the decorations of the house and surroundings last night and did not have any sleep since she could not finish on time. Mind you, she does this for a living, so I would assume she could have imagined it taking her 2 days instead of 1.??
My protests against special treatments appear not to have worked..... : the other 300 guests are sitting on the ground, I get a chair next to the grooms father, the others are queuing for food, I get it served at my place, the others drink rainwater, I get coca cola,.... The special guest also gets the best place in front of the celebration hall, next to the speakers. Lucky me! At the beginning of the ceremony I have the opportunity to introduce myself to all guests, lucky me! I get double the portion of cooked bananas and spongy meat, lucky me!
I do enjoy the celebration though. The opportunity to see how things go is great and my colleague is the best in explaining what is going on. My view on the village elders getting drunk from drinking local beer is excellent. Watching how some people get vouchers to allow them to go to the front to get a soda or cash money instead (?) and seeing the faces of the people who don’t get one, is interesting. Seeing the future bride come in, grieving because she is going to leave her parents home soon, is fun. Seeing the future father in law dancing around when his future family member (and probably best servant) is being introduced is even better. And the bride searching for her future husband in the crowds is reason for everyone to cheer and shout and laugh. It is great to have the opportunity to attend special occasions like this while being here. And although I do not always appreciate all the special attention, I am very grateful that people realise that sitting on the floor for 4 hours, wearing a long skirt, without space to stretch your legs, may be a bit much for me. And thanks to the huge meal, I can be lazy tonight and just have some tea and fruits for dinner.
