Wedding!

On Saturday we got to attend the introduction wedding ceremony for Dr. Joseph (NAR board member who set up our internships). Quite an experience.

This was the part of the wedding where the bride and groom each pick a representative (sometimes the father) to negotiate the dowry price and decide if the groom is worthy enough to marry the bride. It's all symbolic- the bride and the groom already know they are going to be married, and it is a sort of entertainment for those in the audience who can understand what's going on. We couldn't understand a word. The entire thing was in Kinyarwanda, and about half of the audience was American, so at least we were not the only ones out of the loop. There was no food, although periodically (2-3 times in 6 hours) they brought Cokes and Fantas out to people. Near the end of the ceremony, the bride makes her appearance (I'd be pissed if I had to sit in a house while everyone else is enjoying my wedding and talking about me!) and "meets" the groom under a sort of straw hut. The cows are given (she was worth 2 cows!) after some scary men yell songs really loudly, possibly blessing the cows? Or more arguing? I'm not really sure. Then there was celebration- traditional Intore dancers and drums and singing. Amazing. Pretty much worth the wait.

Following the wedding we all went back to Dr. Joseph's house, where we were told there would be food. Sarah and I enjoyed a glass of wine each, only to learn there was no food coming. Boxed wine doesn't sit well on a stomach full only of Coke. The nice part, though, was that Joseph's "negotiator" gave all of us Americans a play-by-play recap of the entire process we had just witnessed, which is quite interesting in its entirety. Definitely not for me, as I don't believe in the whole "dowry" and "giving the bride away" thing, but good to learn about another culture. However, I think it's the last Rwandan wedding we'll be attending for awhile.