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Published: November 15th 2012
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the terrified bride
looking pretty nervous, with females fluttering about her all day... Part III Wedding day: overview, venue, outfits
the wedding day overview every wedding needs a wedding organizer, right? and we had one extraordinaire on our hands! though the final wedding date was not confirmed until 1 week before the event, this should not reflect on his months of preparation.
from the taxi onwards,
we have idea what is transpiring around us. we spend the whole day in the confines of the family compound, watching people meander between huts, "the kitchen", shade trees. we let ourselves be dragged here and there. we see the groom running from hut to hut, looking pretty nervous.
one of the first places we are coaxed to is a bit outside the main family compound. to a pool of blood. we are fortunate, they say, to catch the end of the cow butchering. (and i do feel fortunate, actually. there is such respect given here to the animals...).
the funny thing was,
to start relating this wedding to that of a western world wedding, this procession of being led out of the main event to ooh and aah at the cow was not far from being led to the cake
table to ooh and aah at some stupid decorative plastic figurine.
the bride & hairdresser the bride had been coifed all day (and hopefully prepped the entire night before by her mother). we are able to sneak a peak at her, and our wedding organizer insists we take a foto. so we do.
the 12-year-old bride-to-be sits hidden in her bride hut, surrounded by her soon-to-be-sisters. she is getting her final glitter eyeliner applied,
looking absolutely terrified.
G. turns and raises his eyebrows to me. he looks how i feel: guilty, uncomfortable. and with a look of "let's just get through this.
two huts down is the general hairdresser hut. we camp out there most of the day. the hairdresser herself is strangely adrogynous, but doing quite the job of dolling up the other females with make-up crayons and glitter. working her pick through their stiff afrowigs, most of which still have tags hanging from them.
the hairdresser's hut is full of 12-year-olds with babies and pre-pubscent siblings easy to spot since most often they have matching patterns on their dresses. my mind somehow wanders back to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the
pioneers' matching dresses...
the venue the wedding happens mostly within the family's compound - that is, about six huts surrounded by a wobbly but effective branch fence (except against the baby goats, who squeeze through the slats).
just outside the compound begins a dirt field, a socializing area for the cows and goats, the water wells, and then comes the savannah brush forest where the animals are taken to graze. "the kitchen" is in the dirt field today, next to a humongous baobab tree.
the huts, usually a series of bedrooms, each took on a new role today:
1) the ceremony hut: what we never did see, which at some point after sundown, the new bride went into, greeted some family, and came out of. not sure what goes on there, but we weren't invited. (we also heard nothing the next morning of the new pair's hut or the stained sheet. or it went above my head in Peul...either way, happy i can't understand the morning after gossip.)
2) the gentlemen's/ prayer hut: (where my rucksack is stashed, so i get to go laze around in
heeey boubou
typical male design outfit. tho colors range from deep black to flashy yellow. there a bit while they allah akbah'd). this hut has the newest style of furnishings. huge, solid wooden beds, luxurious, gaudy chests of drawers, etc. how do they get this stuff out there?
3) the bride preparation hut: the bride is sitting on a basic steel chair next to a bed where younger girls and her peer-already-married-13-year-old girls jumble up next to one another. more girls come in, taking turns to sneak a peak. the bride was fussed over for well over 10 hours i would say. never left once. didn't she need to pee?
4) the dudes' hut: where boys, teens and young men hang out, they seem to be sneak something once in a while between them, scurrying from their hut to other huts. no idea what they were up to.
...there are also mats set out...where the griots and their mysterious convoy of men in suits with boomboxes and briefcases hang out. the kids run frenzied everywhere.
the outfits i will let the fotos do the talking.
yes, those are orange flowers you see lapeled. my first real (outrageous) Sénégalese get-up.
reflective cloth in area for reflection
the shimmer of the bazin material, especially this baby blue, set in the main celebration area which was later packed with foks and griots and cauldrons when the chilly night air hits, though, i use it as an excuse to change into pants and a long-sleeve shirt, which always causes confusion among the girls. especially since i don't wear earrings. am i a girl, then? they are not so sure.
the men don what are called boubous, these long "shirts" and pants if you will. the boys, too. G. got his as a loner, though later had his own, super fancy one made...slick.
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