Village Matrimony

Written on May 7th, 2010

I just made it through 36 hours of wedding/engagement celebrations in KJJ. The past two days have been all but consumed with Gambian matrimony and it has been a truly fascinating cultural experience. It all started yesterday afternoon. Baay Saney--a relative/close family friend--was sending his daughter Amie to her husbands compound (which is half way across the village). In the Gambia there are many different stages of marriage. First is the giving of the kola nuts which is basically an engagement, next is the "tying of the knots" where the two family heads/representatives finalize the bride price and the couple is then married. After the tying of the knots is the "chit" or wedding ceremony which is when the bride moves to her husbands compound. Years can go by between the tying of the knots and wedding because it can take a while for the husbands family to fulfill their bride price obligations and this must happen before the bride will be permanently given to the grooms family. Before that however the bride can be given on a "loan" to perform certain wifely duties so often, such as in this case, the bride moves to her husbands compound having already given birth to their first child.
But once the wedding ceremony actually happens that's a whole different experience. The brides family and friends will bring all manner of compound essentials (mainly laundry buckets, food bowls and fabric) and money to the brides compound. This is followed by a loud display of all these items. The griots (praise singers) and drummers come and all the women dance like crazy in celebration. After the gifts are displayed everyone eats a lot of cherey, bena chin and drinks attaya.
The attaya is essential because that night is the sabara--which is a whole night of drumming and dancing. Last night I headed to the sabara at around 10:30. At around 11 they started preparing the area, putting together a circle of benches and splashing the ground (and participants feet) liberally with water. At 11:30 they dug a hole in the ground--stuck a big stick in it and suspended a cheap camping lantern from it. Aside from the stars this was our source of light. Around midnight the band--a few standing drums, an under the arm talking drum, calabash guitar and man with a scratchy voice and scratchier megaphone was set up and got started. To my untrained ear every song sounds exactly the same but the women cheered and clapped at the different praises sung in each one. Women and girls ran up to the center of the circle stomping their feet, shaking their hips and moving their butts in ways I never thought possible. Bathed in the starlight it was breath taking and I tried to sit back and absorb the amazing energy. Of course I went up to dance a few times but the best part was in their joy and excitement they really could have cared less if the toubab danced. By 1:30 I could barely keep my eyes open so I joyfully stumbled home in the dark. But the dancing continued until at least 3:30.
Today was the second half of the wedding ceremony where the bride goes to the husbands compound. If she is going to another village a group of older women will usually go with her but because this was all within KJJ we all escorted her to her new compound. This took the form of a cross village procession of singing, drumming and dancing. At the husbands compound all of the gifts from the brides friends and family are unloaded and given away to the grooms family and friends. This is of course accompanied by more singing, dancing and drumming.
An added element to all of these wedding shenanigans is the ashobe. Think bridesmaids dresses on crack. Groups will all buy the same fabric and get outfits made out of it so you look out at a carpet of fabric. It always reminds me of the scene at the beginning of Garden State when he puts on the shirt that matches the bathroom wallpaper. For this wedding we all (myself included) were visions in orange. The older women (like my host moms) had one print and the young women (me and my host sisters) had another but they were both bright orange. Just consider it one more ridiculous and hilarious experience for Lindsey in The Gambia.