Catching up: The Wedding

No, not ours.

A few months ago we were lucky enough to be invited to attend a traditional (we think?) wedding between a Kalenjin lady and a Masai man. Geemi (our trusty assistant) is of unknown relation to the groom, and the wedding took place in his home village. After much questioning, we think that he and the groom may be second cousins once removed, or something equally complicated. Either way, he was tight enough with the groom to feel comfortable inviting two muzungu (white) guests.

We had very little idea of what to expect. We wanted to be sure to be respectful of the occasion and bring an appropriate gift and so asked quite a few local friends what would be acceptable. Everyone said to bring either a set of tea mugs or a 'flask' (a gigantic thermos). I imagine brides and grooms across Kenya receive a lot of mugs and thermoses for wedding gifts. So, gift-wrapped mug set in hand, wearing our best Kenyan outfits, we ventured off to the wedding.

It took place in a very rural community, perhaps 10 kilometers off the main road, and I don't imagine they get many muzungu visitors up there, judging from the amount of attention we received. Geemi was clearly really proud to be accompanied by two glowing white wazungu and we were stared at by approximately 500 people for the next 4-5 hours.

Because we had no idea what to expect, it was fascinating to watch the events of the day unfold. At first, Geemi tried to finagle us a special spot in the shaded covered area that the wedding party and their family were arranged in. We felt super awkward about that and insisted that we should just be treated like one of the regular guests and sit on the grass in the large field surrounding the covered area. (It appeared that perhaps the entire village of 500+ people were there?)

The central covered area sheltering the wedding party and family from the sun.

So we sat, in the sun, listening to the music blaring from the car battery-megaphone-radio set-up that was sharing the music with the entire hillside and surrounding villages. After about an hour, we realized that there was some action taking place (prior to this, all that had happened was people watching us sit down, then people staring at us while we sat.) Two men stood up and started to lead a song (a wedding song?) and the guests quietly joined in, while the men (who turned out to be co-pastors) sang lustily into the microphone. Then we saw the female half of the wedding party approach, decked out in matching peach or turquoise gowns. They moved in a coordinated dance/step procession, slowly approaching the male half of the wedding party who were gathered with family and village elders in the covered area.

It took about 30-40 minutes for the bridal party to crest the hill, cross the field, and enter the covered area, while the pastors continued to lead the guests in (the same) song. While this took place, the assembled guests alternated between watching the bridal party and watching the muzungu.

This is when Nathan and I noticed some peculiar things. First, there appeared to be three brides, as there were three ladies in bright white, lacy wedding dresses. We thought at first that this might be a polygamous wedding and our interest piqued. After some questioning of nearby guests, it turned out that only one of the ladies dressed as a bride was actually a bride, and the other two were akin to special bridesmaids. We thought this was a genius re-use of wedding dresses. The other thing we noticed, and have yet to fully understand, was the occasional plumes of shaving cream that one particular member of the bridal shower occasionally shot into the air, or vaguely aimed at the bride. (See the picture above for an action shot of the shaving cream.) In fact, during the wedding ceremony at random yet seemingly deliberate intervals, the same lady approached the bride and groom from behind and doused them with more shaving cream. No one seemed to bat an eye. We've since asked a smattering of Kenyan friends about this and all say that it's a normal part of the wedding and that the foam smells like perfume.

The one in the middle is the real bride.

Once the bridal party arrived at the covered shelter, the ceremony seemed to start. In actuality, we're not sure when the ceremony actually took place, as the next two hours were spent enjoying a long sermon. For the convenience of the guests, some of whom only spoke Kalenjin, the sermon was delivered in both Swahili and Kalenjin languages. We were pretty impressed by the preacher's translation abilities. The first preacher would heartily (and by heartily I mean holler) preach a sentence or two in Swahili and the second preacher, matching the enthusiastic tone of the first, nearly seamlessly translated to Kalenjin.

The sermon took about two hours. Of very intense shouting/preaching. And slowly came to an end, which is when the real fun started. The preacher (it may have been the village chief or mayor at this point, my mind was a little sun-addled) then gave a greeting to the assembled guests, thanking them for attending, hoping they enjoyed the sermon, and then describing how the wedding meal would be served. (This was all translated to us by Geemi.)

But then. All eyes turned to us (at least, the eyes that weren't already on us) and it was clear that our presence was being pontificated upon by the preacher/mayor chief and the hundreds of guests. Geemi said that our presence was being requested and that we should come to the center of the field and give a speech and present our wedding gift. Oh, dear, awkward.

All eyes on us. 

My Peace Corps training kicked in right as Nathan started to audibly protest. We grabbed our gift and walked across the hot, grassy field, all eyes still trained on us. (Nathan grumbling the whole way.) Geemi took the microphone and introduced us, explained where we were from and that we wanted (wanted??) to give a speech. I took the microphone (Nathan wasn't having it) and blathered our thanks for allowing us to attend, that it was our first Kenyan wedding and we were so happy to be there and hoped the bride and groom would have a long and happy marriage and how welcoming everyone was. Something like that. Then we handed over the gift to the stone-faced bride and groom. We thought that might be all... but no. They wanted pictures. Thus commenced photo shoot #1 of 2, and we spent the next 15 minutes posing with various members of the wedding party (none of whom we'd ever met) before we were released to eat.

Geemi kindly took us on a tour of the compound that we were on- and we were fascinated by the cooking set-up... it takes a lot of beans, rice, potatoes and ugali (a maize paste) to feed a crowd of 500 people. Check out these HUGE pots. I was awed by the ingenious cooking set-up... the networks of coal-pits dug into the ground were able to cook all this food at once.

Largest container of beans, ever. 

While we checked out the outdoor kitchen, the kids were served first (I'm not sure why, I think to maintain more order?), and then the adults lined up. Geemi had really wanted to bring sweets for us to hand out to the kids, and against our better judgement we brought a few packages containing maybe 100 candies. Not nearly enough. Perhaps the most awkward part of the day (for me at least) was being mobbed by probably 200 kids desperate to see the muzungu close up and grab a sweet. It was mayhem and I felt so uncomfortable with it. I'd also brought a bunch of sheets of stickers that my mom sent from the states, and shared those with a bunch of kids- I finally recruited middle-sized girls to hand out the stickers for me and they were able to keep the crowd calmer.

Nathan calls this my Angelina Jolie moment. I call it awkward.

Look at the tiny cute baby peering around her back!

Stickers and sweets distributed, Nathan and I were then taken to a small hut to eat. It was very kind of Geemi to set aside food for us and let us eat in the privacy of someone's house so we didn't have a huge audience. We had some rice, potatoes, and goat meat, and then wandered around some more.

In the foreground are some excited kids (Nathan kept chasing them and scaring the bejeezus out of them) and in the background are ladies lined up for the wedding meal. 

These ladies were helping behind-the-scenes with the wedding meal preparations. The house they are standing in front of is typical of this area- mud and stick walls with a thatched roof. 

Another typical house. We have been trying to figure out the significance of the little spire on top (it seems about half of the houses have them) but aren't sure yet what it indicates.

I thought this baby was totally adorable. The mom was bemused by my wanting to take a picture but I couldn't resist! 

As part of the second photo shoot, we took more pictures with assorted wedding party members, the pastors, the mayor/chief, and other unknown individuals. But our favorite shot was with this lady- she is Geemi's great-aunt (or great grandmother, or step-aunt, or ?) and she was awesome. She is a very old Masai lady with a ton of spirit. She asked us (in Masai) to please bring her an older white guy next time. We liked her. 

After a few more rounds of chase-the-small-children-and-terrify-the-living-daylights-out-of-them, Nathan and I were ready to go. Geemi escorted us out of the field as the entire village looked on.