And a semester comes to a close

So my last final was yesterday. Everyone is making plans to travel now that we have no classes or exams to worry about, and I will be joining them when my mom comes to visit me today. I am so super excited to see her! We'll be going to Kruger National Park (safari central) and then back down to Cape Town. I actually also traveled last weekend and I didn't write about it this week because I was really busy um studying. But no excuses now that exams are done... so you all get a lovely recap.

All of the Americans (one of the only times all seven of us girls have traveled anywhere together apart from our epic journey here back in July) joined a friend of ours from Botswana to go home with her for the weekend to see a traditional wedding. Her brother was getting married and she offered to take us to see the wedding. In this case, and I believe most cases, the couple had already been married legally at the courthouse and this ceremony was more for tradition sake than anything. Our day started out very early. We got up around 6:30 and arrived at the bride's house (where the wedding was to take place) at about 8:00, under the impression that the wedding would be taking place at 9. Now have I talked about Africa time on this blog? I believe I have, but I will stress the idea anyways, punctuality is not held in such intense reverence here as it is in the States. In fact, often set meeting times are more rough estimates at best. This was no different. The bride's family had been cooking since the day before for all the guests, but by the time we arrived, the bride still had not even started to get dressed. In fact, this did not start happening until maybe around noon. The actual ceremony didn't get going until maybe 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon. How did we entertain ourselves you might ask? Well, let me tell you. Teresa introduced to us all this wonderful card game called Monopoly Deal which we got intensely involved in for the better part of several hours. It is amazing and I will be buying myself a set and I advise everyone else to do so as well.

So, anyways, at around 3 we all got out of the van we had been sitting in and got ready to walk over to the bride's house.

The whole gang. Our host is the far left

What I found most interesting was the fact that the majority of the group we were gathered with was made up of older women, who were very enthusiastic. They kept making that stereotypical Native American noise, but instead of hitting their mouths with their hands they would make the noise by moving their tongues really fast. It's much more difficult that way, we all tried to perfect it. We then all gathered together and walked as a group to the bride's house.

And here's a picture of that!

The male section of the wedding party. Since we were part of the groom's side of the wedding we went with him to get the bride

On our walk over we sang a traditional song in Setswana (and by we I mean the older women were basically doing all the singing, though a few of us picked it up after quite a few repetitions). Basically the song we sang was simply asking permission to get the bride from her house, or something along those lines. There was a dance that went with it that involved very specific stepping which we were all getting to be good at by the time our ten minute walk ended. Then the groom approached the house and the flower girls and bridesmaids came out followed by the bride. The two stood together while people sang around them in circles.


I love how much people sing here. And no matter where you are, people harmonize and it sounds wonderful. I wish that was a tradition in America and people could grow up learning how to harmonize like that. I feel like Americans have a lot more reservations about singing in public and even singing in groups, its sad. Anyways, then the bride and groom kissed and everyone danced out of the yard. I am still not 110%, but I believe that little thing right there was the entire ceremony. After the bridesmaids and wedding party all piled into cars, with the bride and groom in a fancy old-timey car, and drove out for about fifteen minutes to this lovely little area near a stream with mountains in the background and took pictures. They set up this cute little table and posed around it.

Ok, there were closer pictures, but this one gets a sense of the landscape

Anyways, after that we piled back into our respective cars and headed back to the house where the meal was waiting. What followed was very similar to what happens after an American wedding I believe. There were toasts (none of which we could understand, but that's ok), dancing, a cake (which no one ate, it is apparently kept for one year before being eaten) and wonderful food. We all had not eaten since that morning, so I think we would have eaten non-edible things like sticks or something, but this food was very good.

Reception tent

Wonderful looking cakes which we all fantasized eating. No such luck unfortunately. One thing I wanted to know about though, why is the couple white? The only explanation people could give me was that the concept of 'white wedding' is more catered to white couples, but I think this is silly.

The wedding party went in and out, each time changing outfits and when they came back they would do a dance to enter back into the tent. It was very coordinated and even the little flower girls participated. I wanted to know how many practices it took for them to get to that level, but no one seemed to have an answer for me. Once it got dark the wedding tent was packed up and we all headed out. All in all it was (for us at least) a twelve hour experience, and a very interesting one at that.

The biggest culture shock moment in terms of the wedding did not occur during the wedding actually. The night before we were all hanging out in the living room area near the door and all of a sudden men start coming through the door with huge sections of a skinned cow. And before our eyes the entire cow crossed the threshold in parts and was placed into a giant freezer, including the head with all its teeth and its eyes. We were told that the cow was a gift from the bride's family to the groom's family. Apparently not everything fit in the freezer though, because when we woke up the next morning and went to cook breakfast, the cow head and neck was just lying on the kitchen floor in front of the oven. It was a little difficult to cook around it because it took up a lot of space, but Kelsey, who was put in charge of the eggs, did an excellent job.

The wedding itself overall felt like an informal section of a wedding I could see in the States, though with more group singing and dancing and less talking and no one really leading the ceremony. I guess that was pretty interesting actually. Everyone seemed to know what to do, but there was no minister or anything comparable to take a leadership role. Which of course meant that those of us who didn't know what was going on really didn't know what was going on. It didn't make it any less fascinating though. I also thought it was interesting how the majority of the people actively participating in the ceremony were not friends of the couple but older relatives etc. Though I don't think this is that unusual. People often argue that weddings are not for the couple, they are for their parents and their friends. I guess I can see how this is true.

I like how weddings like this in Botswana seem to be a melding of tradition and modern, since you have two sort of weddings (one legal and one traditional). A bride price is still figured out (interesting fact, Botswanan currency is named after their word for rain because they are a farming country dependent upon rain), but often the money goes to the couple rather than the bride's family. Also, the bride is 'given away,' which is similar to Christian culture, except that here it seemed like an entire community was involved in the process, where it is just the father in Christian ceremonies. Both of those are obviously more symbolic than anything else, but its nice to keep some tradition to center the ceremony.

Anyways, I have to go clean my room so that my mom doesn't judge the state of my room too much when she gets here. Enjoy your weekends everyone!