Saturday, January 16
Attended my first Tanzanian wedding today (Will it be the only time I do so? I've already been invited back for Allen's wedding). It was quite a blast, but I think it helps if the parties getting married are loaded (financially... keep it clean you dirtbags). I attended the wedding of Thomas and Lucy Arusi, who I have never met before and chances are, will never meet again. I think the only reason we (Aiwe, Allen and myself) were allowed to attend is that Aiwe is friends with the Pastor who helped oversee the ceremonies. Hey, a free wedding isn’t bad - especially considering the reception that took place afterwards.
But about the ceremony first - it was held in town (Moshi) in the main Lutheran church. It was a very hot and dry day today and my eyes were bothering me quite a bit from all of the dust and smog. Moshi is a pretty cool town but it is always busy and always dusty. Every time I go there my eyes start watering and I find myself squinting a lot. Part of the problem lies in the motor vehicles used by many here - many of them are in dire need of an oil change and muffler replacement. As a result, many belch a ton of smoke as they start up and as they pick up speed. I find it somewhat hard to breathe there at times. The other part of the problem is the town’s location. Moshi sits at the bottom of a small basin, which reminds me somewhat of Los Angeles. As a result, the dust and smog have no place to go and when the sun heats them, they just lay on you like a blanket. When the wind blows, all it does is blow hot dust and smog in your face. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the last four times I have bathed, I have left a ring around the tub and the rinse water is brown. It is that dusty here. At Masoka it isn’t so bad and at Mwika its even better - both places are at higher elevations. But Moshi - man, I don’t think I’ll ever complain about the EPA back home any time soon...
Anyway - The wedding began at 2pm but we didn’t arrive until about 2:20pm or so. We were late because Aiwe suggested we eat lunch before the wedding started and it took a few minutes to get from the restaurant to the church. I’m glad she suggested it - the ceremony took over two hours and ultimately food at the reception wasn’t served until well after dark. The church ceremony was really nice and Aiwe helped translate for me, much like she did last Sunday at the building dedication. There was a baptism before the ceremony began, and I could never accurately determine if the baby belonged to the bride and groom or to someone else. All I know is that it was the bride’s sister and brother-in-law who presented the baby for baptism, and that the best man and the maid of honor were the baby’s godparents. But information about the baby’s mother and father was never clearly explained to me, and I figured it was none of my business, so best to just leave it alone. The important thing is that I got a two-for-one deal: a baptism and a wedding, both in Swahili. Poa!
Hey kids, did you know that the main participants in the wedding ceremony (the bride, groom, best man and maid of honor) have chairs to sit in during the ceremony? Yep - there were four chairs up front, with their backs facing the audience and the four main players all sat down facing the front as the ceremony went on. I think that is a good idea, considering that they were all up there for about two hours. That is a long time to spend standing in one place, all dressed up in this heat. Another Bishop - this one retired - led the ceremony but I guess he was a friend of the family. He delivered a sermon about halfway through the proceedings, which Aiwe thought was pretty funny. Apparently the Bishop kept reminding the newlyweds that they needed to “cling to each other” in all phases of their married lives and to not let anyone get in-between (including parents and other family members) - you know - the usual stuff you probably hear at a US wedding. I didn’t think much of it, but Aiwe thought it was pretty funny. She kept laughing when the Bishop mentioned, “clinging”. “Oh, clinging” she would say, and laugh. Hey, I’m not going to stop her from having a good time...
The bride and groom looked both beautiful and handsome, respectively - both appeared very nervous of course. I noticed the groom was sweating a lot and that his best man was literally wiping sweat from the top of the groom's head and from his brow. The groom didn’t have to do a thing - I thought that was pretty cool (considering all my best man did was just stand there; yeah, I'm looking at you Sam) - but overall, it was very much like a ceremony you might see in the US; exchanging of vows, putting on the rings, kissing the bride and all that.
For starters, the reception took place at the Mount Kilimanjaro Lodge, which is about 15 minutes from the Masoka campus, on the same road. That was nice and convenient because when it would be time to leave, it would not be a long trip. Keep in mind that Moshi is about 20-30 minutes away from Masoka campus, depending on the traffic. In Tanzania (Moshi in particular), after the ceremony it is customary for the wedding party to drive around town, beeping horns and waving to anyone on the street. Picture about 20 cars and trucks (including us), moving at a snail’s crawl through the town, blocking and clogging traffic the entire time. I think I learned some new Swahili cuss words from other drivers today - man, we went all over the downtown area, through both traffic circles, and then up the hill towards the lodge. Add to this parade of cars, the usual crowd of pedestrians and cyclists as I’m mentioned before, along with the dust and smog I mentioned previously... and it was a long, hot, dry afternoon.
As I said before, the ceremony took a little over two hours. It took just *under* two hours until we parked the car at the lodge. The procession was so slow that we actually had time to run out of the car (Allen stayed behind the wheel), run into a local bar, buy several bottles of maji, and get back into the car before it had moved 20 feet. But boy was that water good -
The road to Masoka is a small, paved, unmarked two-lane road. There is just enough space for two cars and some walkers/bikers near the shoulders. Usually, the shoulders end in very deep ditches, which are used to help water run off during the rainy seasons. Apparently, another tradition (to help pass the time I guess) is for the cars - and some trucks - to start weaving in tandem with each other on the other side of the road. It was pretty cool when everyone was in sync for a bit of time - it reminded me of a snake, it was that fluid and organized. Of course it was broken up whenever a car came in the opposite direction but sometimes the snake would not stop and the other driver had to wait or get hit. Again, I couldn’t drive here - not a car anyway. I'm thinking a motorcycle would be the way to go when I visit again.
So here is the snake, going up the hill - we’re listening to 50 Cent, sitting in the sun and drinking cold water. Life is good - and then we get to the lodge. The lodge is actually part of a coffee plantation (apparently one of the largest in the region). Wow! This is when we all realized how much money these families had. This reception probably would cost $25,000 to $35,000 in the US, by my estimate. I would say over 500 people were there, with a full buffet (set up in three places) for everyone, and an open bar. Each table sat 8 people (you do the math). There was a live band, a DJ, a video screen that was used to show baby pictures but was also used for live video postings of the married couple... there was a lot of stuff. I counted at least six tents covering tables for people to sit and eat. It was all outside and the decorations were not necessarily extravagant, but they weren’t chintzy either. There were fresh pink roses at each table and the head table was covered in pink and light green roses (pink and light green were the colors for the wedding - it looked very nice, honestly). Yeah - I could smell the money.
Of course, just because the families may be rich doesn’t mean that everyone in the families may be. We sat at a table towards the back of the field, but not all the way back, because behind us were several tents and rows of tables that seemed to be occupied by... how should I say it... the “B List” relatives. Many of them looked like they just came for the alcohol (and acted that way) and I would say the US equivalent might be having your distant third cousins show up unannounced - someone you haven’t seen in 20 years, but who suddenly becomes your favorite cousin/uncle/nephew/brother-in-law that day. I suppose that isn’t really a big deal, but where they were required to sit did seem to be interesting.
I haven’t commented on it much, but it seems to me that TZ has a class issue in its society - economic mostly, but possibly cultural and political as well. I’ve mentioned the miserable poverty I’ve seen here, but on the flip side, whoever is rich in TZ is filthy rich - and sometimes filthy stinking rich. There seems to be a very small middle class, if one even exists. And what gets me the most is the expression towards the poorer classes here - there really isn’t one. If anything it seems the poorer classes are ignored, but tolerated somewhat. There don’t seem to be many local or national assistance programs, although I'm sure they exist. But they don’t do a very good job of making their services known, it seems. I mean, smack in the middle of many of these poorer areas are some of the most elaborate gated-in homes I’ve ever seen. They usually sit behind tall walls, with either barbed wire or sharp plants at the top (one home appears to have broken glass shards glued to the top of the wall) and you can tell they are really rich. There’s nothing wrong with that, IMO, but I just don’t know how anyone can live that opulently and that securely in an area surrounded by such abject poverty. I don’t think I could do it. At the same time, I don’t think I could put relatives (no matter how distant) in such a segregated section of the reception. At least I’d like to think I couldn’t do that...
A couple of things about the reception and I’m done - Tanzanian wedding receptions obviously have some different customs and events. One is to have a goat cake (see Sunday, January 10th entry), but a really cool one is toast the couple. And I don’t mean a standard toasting from the other side of the room - I mean making what could be described as a mosh pit in front of the couple and clinking your glass with theirs. There really is no rhyme or reason to it - whoever gets there gets to toast. It looked like fun - so I did it.
Basically I joined this sea of humanity, flowing downhill toward the head table. The closer I got, the tighter the group became. I found myself cheering and clinking glasses with strangers in the crowd and basically glomming into what could only be described as a mosh pit, but without the jumping and throwing of bodies. I was able to get as close as about 8 feet to the couple when I ran into this solid, unmoving block of people. The closer you got, the harder it became to toast. Part of me thought of going back, but no way - I’d come that far, I was going to see it through. I just kept dancing and muscling my way up - trying to be as polite as possible but understanding that I couldn’t be like that all the time - and after what seemed to be a couple of minutes of squirming, twisting, pushing, etc., I made it! Clinked glasses with the couple (who probably had absolutely no idea who this white guy was, but politely smiled nonetheless), and followed the dancing crowd back to the tables.
The music - it ROCKED! The DJ was so-so but his music selection was very good, even to an uneducated hick like me. During the toasting, the song "Ni bebe" was played - imagine a big old dancing party jamming to this -Ni Bebe
The only flaw regarding the music - apparently many people here are in love with Don Williams and Kenny Rogers. Really. In fact they love K-Rog so much that "Lucille" was played several times during the reception. Awkward to say the least, but when you consider that the bride's name was Lucy (short for Lucille?)... well...
One other thing about the reception and then I'll shut up - the open bar. The only observation I have is that it seems in TZ an open bar means you drink whether you really want to or not. I tried a Serengeti beer - it was ok, but I think Tusker is better. Serengeti tastes too much like Budweiser. But I had the worst time telling the servers I didn’t want another one. As soon as the first was finished, another appeared from nowhere, and was open before I could say anything. Rather than be a bad guest, I finished the second one, and the same thing happened again! So I nursed the third one through the rest of the night and when I was finished, a waiter came out of nowhere and offered me a fourth. When I tried to tell him no more (and believe me, drunk mangled Swahili isn’t any better than just mangled Swahili), he left to get another. Fortunately Allen caught him in time.
Allen told me that if I didn’t want another Serengeti that I could have said, “no chui” (choo’-ee), which translates into “no leopard”. The majestic leopard is displayed somewhat prominently on the label of the bottle - I thought it was a cheetah the entire time... So next time I’ll know. If I do want a Serengeti, all I have to say is “chui” and they’ll know what I mean. Its the little things in life...
After that, Allen brought me back to Masoka and went on his merry way. He has been a really good sport through all of this and deserves a lot of credit. I think he has shown me a different side of Tanzania than anyone else so far - we’ve had some pretty good discussions on some of these long drives, and he has given me plenty of tips and pointers (chui being one of them).
The wedding and the reception were wonderful, and I wish I had remembered my camera. I did get my picture taken however, and I was able to grab some handouts from the entire thing,
which I will scan and post with this entry when I return to the US. After Allen dropped me off, I went straight to bed hoping the chui would be a good kitty and not give me any problems on
Sunday.
He didn't - chui was an angry, angry kitty on Sunday. I'll stick with Tusker from now on.
Bad kitty
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