Posts tagged wedding

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how lucky I am. This weekend, though, the wedding of my counterpart to my favorite health extension worker reminded me how incredibly fortunate I am - to be in Peace Corps, to have amazing friends, and, yes, to be in Ethiopia.

When I found out that Brihan (my counterpart, who is intelligent, motivated, and has a great sense of humor) was going to marry his long-time girlfriend Aster (a self-assured, incredibly bright young woman), I was stoked. Even though I don’t understand most of what they say to each other (Amharic is their primary language of communication), you can tell just by watching them how much love and mutual respect underlies their relationship.

Then, Aster told me I’d be part of the mize, the bridal party. I thought she was joking, at first. She wasn’t. As has become the norm for me, I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but decided to go along with it anyway. (Is this a habit that will help me when I’m back in America, or is it a recipe for disaster?)

I’ve written before about the extensive preparation that goes into a wedding. I joined a bunch of the couple’s female friends and neighbors on Friday, primarily chopping onions and washing out old glass soda bottles that looked like they’d been in circulation since the reign of Haile Selassie (Has anyone in Ethiopia seen a Fanta bottle with a blue label?), which were then filled with a non-alcoholic honey drink called brrz. (Maybe there are vowel sounds in there, but it doesn’t feel like it.) On Satuday, I arrived a little late to help make the wat (that is, the meat stew), but the one Muslim woman who was helping had left by the time they added the salt, so they needed me to taste the Muslim stew to make sure they put enough in.

Then, it was round one of the wedding. People started showing up at noon for lunch. After I ate, I went home to change out of jeans and into a dress, then came back to hang out and help where I could. I spent time with some coworkers who were boiling buna, then was happy to help them drink it. I poured water for people to wash their hands, and cleared and washed some dishes. Mostly, though, I got to hang out with friends and neighbors.

The rain had loomed ominously around Mettu for most of Saturday afternoon, but it waited until the evening to hit. When I showed up at the couple’s house on Sunday morning, it was incredibly muddy. After eating a little breakfast (leftovers from the day before), I went with Aster to the beauty shop. I chatted with the hairdressers while they pinned fake curls onto her pulled-back hair. Aster said I was going to have my hair done to match the other bridesmaids, but the hairdressers decided that it looked fine as it was. I tried not to show my relief.

We went back to the house and got dressed, but we were running late. I quickly donned my bridesmaid dress, which was a modern take on a traditional Ethiopian style. Of course, 30 seconds before we were leaving, one of the very kind women who had been feeding guests as they arrived shoved a plate into my hands and insisted I have some food before the long journey. I had barely begun eating when the bridal party started leaving the house. I licked my fingers, threw on my hiking boots, and ran after them.

Of course, when we got to the nearest main road, the bus that was going to take us to the rural area hadn’t arrived yet, so we stood around waiting for it for a while. I had time to run home, use the bathroom, and wash the rest of the wat off of my hands. While we waited for the bus, we clapped and sang spiritual songs (well, I clapped, anyway, and joined in with the chorus when I could). Protestants in Ethiopia are forbidden from singing and dancing except in praise of God, so while we were with the couple, everyone refrained. On the bus, though, while Aster and Brihan were riding in a separate vehicle, their friends of different religions let loose a bit. We sang some Ethiopian wedding songs and even danced in the aisles.

About 10km outside of Suphee, we caught up to the car Brihan and Aster were riding in, which had pulled over to the side. We all got out, a little confused — was this our destination? I asked Aster. “The road disappeared, but there’s another car waiting for us on the other side,” she said. Disappeared? I thought. I turned around, and, sure enough, there was a huge hole where the road apparently used to be. It was as if Carmen Sandiego had come and just snatched it right out of the ground.

We trekked through about a kilometer of woods, then met a pickup truck on the other side. It took the bridal party, the soda, the mosoob, and the sheep Brihan brought. (The groom brings the bride’s family a white sheep as a sign of respect. Brihan informed me that because it’s wedding season, now that Ethiopian Lent is over, white sheep fetch a premium at the market.) The plan was for the other guests to start walking, and the pickup would return to drive them the rest of the way.

We’d nearly arrived at the turnoff to Aster’s house, after which we’d have to go by foot, when the truck came to a stop. Not one, but both of its back tires blew. We waited around for a bit, but when the remaining guests started arriving, we decided to walk the rest of the way. Some loitering kids were recruited to carry the heavy stuff, and we continued down the muddy road, across a soccer field, and between farms to Aster’s family’s home.

When we arrived, singing songs that thanked God for bringing us together, the first order of business was to kill the sheep so that it could be eaten that day. It was pretty gruesome. One of the groomsmen was splattered with a lot of blood (though as it turns out, he’s a doctor specializing in emergency medicine, so I’m sure he’s used to it). Then we entered the house and greeted Aster’s parents and the other elder friends and relatives. We ate our first lunch of doro wat (chicken), k’ai wat (spicy meat), and alicha wat (mild meat). As I was finishing up my food, a friend from Mettu asked me when I was going to go make the t’ibs from the sheep, because that’s the job of the bridal party. I laughed, and said to her husband, “She’s joking, right?”
“No, it’s our culture!”
I turned to the other bridesmaids. “Really?”
They nodded.
Then Brihan chimed in. “Traditionally, it is the mize’s job to make the t’ibs.”
“Are you all in on this joke?”
They weren’t, and we started talking about whether I could do it if I needed to. T’ibs is really just meat sauteed with onions, hot peppers, oil, butter, and sometimes some rosemary. One of the women vouched for my onion chopping abilities, and we decided I could at least help the other two. We headed back to the kitchen, but the women in Aster’s family assured us that they had it under control. So we hung out for a bit, then returned to our seats.

One of the groomsmen read the marriage certificate aloud, and the couple exchanged rings. Once that was all taken care of, everyone seemed to relax a little bit. We took some pictures, and the bride’s family and friends presented gifts to the couple. The gifts were cash and household items, including an electric stove, a wide assortment of cooking pots, drinking glasses, plates, and various injera holders. One of Aster’s brothers bought them a refrigerator!

Next, it was time for round two of food. This time, though, the food was served on communal platters and the atmosphere was much more relaxed. Everyone was encouraging each other to eat, and feeding each other bites of food by hand (a tradition called gursha; it shows love and respect). I had a little 11-year-old sitting next to me who fed me progressively larger bites until I caught onto her game; everyone at the table was laughing about it as I struggled to swallow the final one.

As we finished the t’ibs, one of Aster’s relatives laid a new piece of injera and scooped some more wat on our plate, and one of the elders gave a blessing. He fed the couple, then her parents, then the friends who were representing Brihan’s family. Each in turn fed the groom and the bride. Then the same thing happened for the mize; the elder fed each of us, then we fed the couple. “It is a way of sharing the blessing,” Brihan explained.

It was about 5:30 by the time we left, carrying gifts (including the refrigerator) and empty soda bottles. This time, we were in a vehicle that took the long way around, through a town called Algee, on a road that still existed. Driving with a group of people in good spirits as the sun and a sliver of the moon both set in the west, I felt a sense of belonging that’s hard to find in a country where you stick out like a sore thumb. I felt like I was a part of something. And I am.

(Pictures to follow, once I figure out how to get them off of Kim’s camera!)

…well, not my wedding, but the first I’ve attended here. Peace Corps found each of us a family in our site that we could celebrate holidays with, and mine is the family of a man named Mitikoo. (It’s my understanding that Mitikoo is a name given to a child born after another child dies, supposedly to keep the dead child’s spirit from inhabiting the new baby. It literally means “it’s not me.”)

Mitikoo’s son (or brother? I got some mixed information) got married today — and the whole town, it seems, came by to offer congratulations and eat some delicious food. My counterpart passed along the invitation yesterday (while escorting Kim and I to a clinic, which is another story for another post). I was supposed to meet up with my tutor today, but she said she was going to the wedding, too. And then I found out over buna that my landlord was going, and he would walk with me — illustrating just how small this big town can be.

Luckily, my landlord briefed me on the process before we got there: instead of bringing a present for the bride and groom, you offer some birr (10 or 20) as you walk in, and some helper dudes put your name in a little book so they know who gave what. After that’s taken care of, you wash your hands and grab some grub and a beverage. Today’s selection included two different kinds of delicious itoo foon (meat stew), a red one and a white one, and a drink made of honey and water. You sit down and tabaduu. A young woman from the regional finance office sat down next to me, and we made awkward conversation. She was very kind for putting up with my stilted Afaan Oromo, and even asked me a few questions (How is Ethiopian culture? — Great. How are weddings in the U.S. compared to this? — Pretty similar, actually).

There are a few differences, though. In Afaan Oromo, there are different words for men and women to indicate that they’re married — the male form is something like “he has taken a wife,” and they’re not kidding. Part of the ceremony is the groom going to the wife’s family, where they’re also partying, and bringing her back to his family. Coincidentally, I stumbled across one such caravan picking up a young woman on my way home last night. There was singing and clapping and all-around merriment; I sat with the neighborhood kids on a wall across the street, and we gaped together.

I also noticed that while I was at Mitikoo’s, there was no music, just chatting. I told my new buddy that there’s dancing at American weddings, so that was one difference, but she clarified that the dancing comes later. I’m a little tempted to go back (people come and go all day), but I can’t tell you how exhausting it is to chat in a different language with a few dozen strangers, all of whom are shocked at your mere presence. My foreignness isn’t something that can be hidden, so I feel like a distraction. It would be like if I showed up to an American wedding wearing a Halloween costume — most people would be confused as to why I was there, a few brave souls would want to talk to me to find out why, and I would surprise every new person I ran in to.

Overall, I felt like today was a success. I attended a cultural event. I made conversation. I saw (and remembered) several people I’ve met before, and they greeted me warmly. I made a new friend. Gobez, Joanna.