Exciting week (part II): A Ribe Wedding

… Friday night, the 18th, began the long-anticipated wedding in Ribe. We had planned our holiday schedule around the wedding and our host family was coming up here to celebrate, since the groom is Tito’s cousin/nephew of some sort (extended families here get very extended, and quite complicated).

I should give a little background information about weddings in Kenya, since we have learned a lot more about them since we visited part of a wedding a few weeks ago. I still don’t feel I understand how all the details work, but there are traditional weddings and official/religious weddings. In this part of Kenya it seems common for a couple to first have a traditional wedding, which really just means that each person’s parents agree to the union and they start living together and probably having children. (side note: Kenyans don’t think you’re really married until you have kids. Thus they often think we are brother/sister, or that we must have children back in the US.) I don’t think there is much of a ceremony for a traditional wedding, though possibly some dowry might be paid.

An official/religious wedding is held in a church (or mosque, I presume?) and involves going all-out to throw a party for basically everyone you know. Part of the ceremony includes signing a marriage license, so the union is officially recognized by state law and the children and wife are taken care of in case anything happens to the husband. We have learned that the reasons people don’t always have official weddings to start is because they either want to have a “trial marriage” (i.e., like living together, see if they are compatible) or because they don’t have the money for a marriage license and big wedding.

In this case, the bride and groom had been traditionally married for about 10 years and they had three daughters. The wedding festivities started a few days in advance with many extended family members coming into town to do preparations. The day before the wedding, the women do a ridiculous amount of cooking and prepare a large feast for a party that night. All the groom’s family and friends (about 200 people) gathered at his village and had pilau and danced to the music of a live band and DJ. Its closest comparison in the US would be a rehearsal dinner plus bachelor party. I was told that the bride and her family were having a similar party at their home. At one point a group of women from the groom’s side took a bag of presents to the bride’s side. The bag contained personal and household items for the bride to use in setting up her home, so it seems her party could be compared to a bridal shower plus bachelorette party! The gifts they brought her may be considered part of the dowry, but it was probably not the dowry in its entirety.

(Side note: Dowries are still very common in Kenya, and they are either given to the bride’s father (Christians) or the bride herself (Muslims). Asma, our host, is Muslim and obviously thinks they have a better deal! Either cash or goods are given – the groom and recipient decide on a price (or the recipient names one!), and if necessary, the groom can pay in installments. Livestock is a common form of payment to the father, and I learned that 4 cows is a decent dowry (worth 120,000 shillings, or $1,600), but can even go up to $10,000! If the dowry is given to the bride, she might get furniture or other things for the home plus some cash to do some personal shopping.)

The party went late on Friday night, and most of the time the women and men were separated. I (Lesley) got pulled on to the dance floor a number of times by the older ladies who thought it was hilarious to teach me to dance, while unfortunately Chris was stuck with a group of men promising some of the food that never arrived (the men were distracted by the local brew). Finally tired Lesley and hungry Chris found each other and left “early” at around midnight. Others stayed up most of the night dancing and then enjoying mountains of mahambri (triangular shaped sweet bread – like mild doughnuts) in the morning, another wedding tradition. The village women even sent up a tray of mahambri to our house!

Mysara (11), Asma, and Tawfidah (7) all dressed up for the wedding.

We were told the wedding started at around 10 on Saturday … so we left the house at 10:30 and found that by 11ish the church was filling up but the wedding was nowhere near starting. The bride arrived around 12 or 12:30 (everyone seemed like this was completely normal, not her being late) and then the ceremony lasted until 2:30. The ceremony had a lot of singing and dancing performances by the youth group, the women’s choir, and all the women who lived in the bride and groom’s village. The couple said their vows, exchanged rings, and to the complete embarrassment of the bride, even kissed (which was particularly amusing since they have been together for 10 years and have 3 kids … but Kenyans just aren’t big on PDA.) There was also something about popping two balloons, but we didn’t understand that, so we each came up with our own creative relationship-related analogies!

The "bibi harusi" (literally, wedding woman) and "bwana harusi" (wedding man) with their attendants and pastor.

The bride and groom exiting the church, while the congregation sings and dances a wedding song.

After the wedding everyone headed to the village to begin the party, but we were pretty hungry and knew that the food would be a while in coming, so we ducked by our house on the way for a snack and rest. We got to the reception later and discovered we missed some traditional dance performers but were in time for some delicious biryani (goat stew with rice) and the rest of the festivities. It was rather impressive to watch the men cook the food in huge pots and a team of about 30 young men running around serving everyone on big trays. There were probably 500 people there – I know they had to borrow dishes from everyone in the village!

Biryani cooking in huge pots

One thing that surprised us was that there appeared to be party planners who took care of the decorating, tents, chairs, flowers, etc. In the US we would never dream of cooking that much food for a wedding, but would likely do our own decorating if we were on a tight budget. However, here they cook their own food but hire others to decorate! I think there is a correlation to how we live our lives, though – these coastal women are fantastic cooks but don’t have very decorated homes, whereas in the US it’s rather vice versa.

The red carpet and head tent in the middle of the village (groom's house seen behind tree)

Following the food came the time to give presents. The bride and groom sat in the head tent and people lined up to individually to give them their present – kind of like a receiving line plus gifting. It’s funny how gift giving in the US is done behind the scenes and surreptitiously at weddings – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guest hand a present directly to the newlyweds (though I suppose pre-wedding showers are the opposite). After presents, the couple walked along their red carpet to the cake table, where they pretended to a cut a cake (couldn’t tell if it was a real cake or why they pretended) and then all the guests were served bite-sized, pre-wrapped pieces of dry cake and certain family elders were given the display cakes (Chris thinks the cakes must have been real and this is another tradition we don’t quite understand). A number of guests left at this point but we stuck around hoping for more dancing.

Soon we saw a band starting to set up and got excited, but our hosts told us that the dancing wouldn’t begin for a few hours. Everyone takes a bit of a rest in the afternoon (since the night before they went to bed very late, if at all), and then in the evening the bride and groom do a first dance to kick off another late-night party. So with this in mind we headed home for a rest and our weekly Skype date with Lesley’s family. However, after changing out of wedding clothes and relaxing with our host family, we all crashed for a bit of a nap and then didn’t feel like going back down the hill again. We later learned that Asma actually woke up around 2 am and decided to rejoin the party! Needless to say, most of Ribe slept the entire next day.

For us, the wedding was quite a cultural experience, but unfortunately there was a lot we didn’t understand and in which we couldn’t fully participate. Most of the people in the village who typically take us under their wing to explain things were pretty occupied with arranging the festivities, feeding and entertaining 500 people, and cleaning up after them! Nevertheless, we extended congratulations to our friend Dicky, his “new” wife and their families :-)

Ps. I may not be entirely accurate in my understanding of Kenyan weddings, or this may only be applicable to the coastal area where we live. So please don’t make any generalizations, and feel free to correct me if you happen to know more than I do!