Last weekend I attended my first Zambian wedding! The wedding was for our language trainer, Ba Leonard, who taught Ellyn, Ricardo, and myself Bemba during training. Ndola is in the Copperbelt Province, and is one of the big mining cities in Zambia. Ellyn and I decided to go and learn about another part of the Zambian traditional culture. There were three parts to the wedding, starting with the church service in the morning, followed by the “kitchen party” for the women, and finally the reception in the evening. Most of the wedding goers wore three different outfits, one for each event. We had citenge suits (traditional African dress) made by a tailor in Kasama, and decided just to stick it out with one outfit.
The greatest cultural shock at the wedding was that the bride was unhappy all day. The Zambian tradition (possibly even just the Bembas) is that the bride is in mourning on her wedding day because she’s leaving her family. During all of the wedding activities, she never smiled, and kept her gaze to the floor. It was pretty strange to us, since it’s supposed to be one of the happiest days in our culture!
Our favorite part of Ndola was Shoprite. Shoprite is the grocery store in Zambia; we have one in Kasama, but it’s nothing like the one in Ndola. Ndola is comparable to Lusaka in terms of development, due to the copper mining money. Ellyn and I were so overwhelmed by the variety of foods that we spent 2 hours looking at things like cream cheese, Doritos, and pasta sauce. It’s the small things, right?
Life in the village is rainy! I couldn’t believe when my family told me to put my bucket under the runoff from the roof during a storm instead of drawing water from the well. Just one big storm filled my 25-liter bucket completely! That’s a lot of water!
I used some leftover paint from the world map project at school to paint my sitting room this past week. Now my house is neon green! Photos soon to come!
It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Without snow, a tree, ornaments, cheesy decorations, Christmas music, obnoxious commercials, crowded malls, good food, or good company, it sure doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. Instead, it’s hot and humid, rainy, and the mosquitoes are sneakier than ever. Good company is the only redeeming quality, as I’ll be leaving for vacation later today with 6 of my closest Peace Corps friends. Hopefully I won’t be complaining about the lack of snow or materialism once I’m sitting on a beach in Malawi in a few days! Merry Christmas friends and family, I miss you all dearly!
No comments:
Post a Comment