Wedding

The end of last week I was in Kaolack (the regional capital) for a Peace Corps regionwide meeting. While I was there i got a text from my host aunt saturday night that said, "Salut Moussa, je vais me marier dimanche inchallah. Ou es-tu?" For the non-french speakers out there this says "Hi Moussa (my senegalese name), I'm getting married on sunday if Allah wills it. Where are you?"

Completely surprised, i called her right away asking her if she was really getting married the next day. She said yes, they had set the date that morning. After confirming that she was actually getting married, i asked the next most important question - to who she was planning on marrying. While the majority of Senegalese marriages are arranged, my host aunt is a more liberally minded Senegalese and believes in marrying out of love not neccessity or practicality (novel thought). She told me that she and one of my work partners (the director of the program financing the women's groups) had been in a secret relationship for the past 6 months and were ready to get married.

The next morning i headed back to Nioro early so as not to miss any of the wedding. The wedding started with all the men going to the Mosque to pray for my counterpart and my aunt as well as asking Allah to bless their marriage. Afterwards, we all returned back to my aunt's house where everyone wished my aunt and my counterpart good luck and gave them gifts or, more commonly, a small sum of money. We then all ate a large meal of ceebuyapp (rice and meat), which is a common holiday and fete dish.

The typical Senegalese wedding is three days long with specific events for each day but because they are a more modern couple and i think also wanted to save some money the wedding was only for one day, which was fine for me because for the majority of the time at events like this i am just sitting around answering the same questions over and over - where i'm from, what i'm doing here and if i have a wife and why i don't have a senegalese wife. These questions are ussually broken up by the asker stopping to tell his neighbor that the toubab (white person) speaks wolof.

I hope you are all doing well and just imagine organizing an american wedding a day in advance.