Paul and his classmates had a half day of review for the parasite test. The boys and I had signed up for a cooking class. It was really really fun and the kids really enjoyed it too. We made samosas (sadly samosas are extremely labor intensive and take about 3 hours to prepare and they are so delicious that you can eat an entire batch in minutes. A nice eye opener for the kids and they were so proud of them they saved one for Paul and one for Grace- so cute), a very common local tasty salad, Ugali (what I have written about before, the maize cooked THICK eaten with fingers and used as a vehicle for other foods), and cooked greens and meat to go with the Uglai. I bring this up because we thought we'd missed our chance to go with Paul to the wedding (long story) and when finished the class and ate our fill of food.
Paul contacted us just as we arrived back home and said take a taxi and come out, have Kelvin (the taxi driver we use a lot) call this number and get directions. So, we excitedly, and hurriedly, changed into our nicest outfits and had Kelvin get directions. He had no idea where the specific place we were going was and he doesn't speak a lot of English and I try to jabber away at him and pretty much every taxi ride he laughs a little and tells me 'umm. I don't understand' and turns his head away as if wishing by not looking I'd quit. So now we are driving and it's becoming more and more lush and like the country side and we are more and more off the main road and banana trees shading coffee trees are all you and see. It's quite pretty, the road is more and more bumpy. He keeps stopping to ask where this place is and people answer with various degrees of confidence and length of speech. Each time 'I say what did they say?' He would then answer 'this way'. I keep offering my phone for him to call the mystery person to guide him in, all the time wondering if Tanzanian men have the same stereotype as men in the states asking for directions, I feel grateful that it's Kelvin we are with not someone I don't know because I feel like he won't leave us in some random place. At one point we are getting very close (but I don't know it) and he picks up a woman who guides us the last of the way. Turns out we have been directed the whole time by the bride's father who meets us at the road and walks us in. He introduces us to the woman who rode with us, who turns out to be his sister. He is a very funny, extremely warm and gracious host.
We walk through the celebration area which is filled with chairs (and many are filled and I see people just watch us walk by) and back through a gate into one of the houses. The chairs are all along the open spot and back 3 deep between the banana trees as well as in the middle of the open area. Once in the house we are offered drinks and told to eat. The kids and I are not really very hungry since we just pigged out on our cooking food (and I found out later the kids were even more full since they had kept sneaking handfuls of the samosa meat mix all during the class because it's aroma was just too good). We are polite and take a little of everything. There are several traditional dishes, one of which has very firm whole green bananas and meat in it and another that has parts of the organs and what not, of cow. I ended up with a, very generous piece of black something. I think stomach or ruminant- I never ended up deciding if it was best to chew it with the smooth thick facial side against my tongue or feeling the geometric pattern of ruminant pressing down, if you ever eat a piece you will have a very long time to decide for yourself as you chew on it. Paul and his friends (the king and one other classmate) were drinking the traditional banana beer from wooden mugs. I was excited to try that having heard about it from another local person. It really does taste of banana and it is like banana and sort of like kombucha mixed. There is a thick chunky like froth on top that you have to blow aside or let just rest against your upper lip and drink the liquid underneath, a skilled drinker must filter it with their lips. It made me think if that is how mead used to be maybe? The kind they talk abut in Pillars of the Earth and the Songs of Ice and Fire books.
The ceremony were able to attend was the groom's family coming to give gifts to the bride's side. We walked back out of the house and sat, at the very last minute, with the king (her father joked that his daughter was so important that even guests flew in from America to attend). They introduced everyone in the different sides of the family and elder members of the community. There is more ceremony and then bride's parents and grandparents are wrapped in blankets and the aunts are wrapped in kangas (the cloth they tie up as skirts and more) this is all happening one individual at a time. At any point a family member can refuse these things and the proceeding has to start over or they can say it's too cheap and you have to give them a little money too. The bride then pretends she doesn't want to come out and they have to bribe her and she puts on a show, then she has to go around the crowd and find her groom who is 'hidden'. He will then ask her, in front of the whole tribe, to marry him. All of this is done in good fun drama and her father was the MC (I am sure that isn't what he is called though) and I could tell, even though it was all in Swahili, that he is a very charismatic and funny man. Around this time some men come hefting out two big plastic open barrels of traditional banana beer. People in the Scio area will know these types of barrels as the kind the local farmers ferment hog feed in. The barrels sat quietly and bubbled the top froth over the sides. The bride then uses guards on handles and drinks a little herself before giving some to her husband then to his family, the elders and so forth. Eventually this drink is poured into small clean buckets and passed then large plastic cups. After that we all ate again! We were sooo full. After eating there are traditional dances where the women invite the men's family in and so forth.
The boys sat very well through all this. L had a small pad of paper and was drawing various things after we had finished eating. This was very interesting to the local children who began to gather around. I gave one of the sheets of paper to O to fold into origami, I told him do the balloon, the kids eyes got so wide when they saw a flat piece of folded paper get blown up into a cube. That sealed the deal and the mass of children grew and O kept folding. They all wanted one. They were also taking L's drawings but I discovered it was to just run them around to O to fold up! L and one of Paul's friend's each took turns drawing the parasites they'd been looking at under the microscope. I had Paul's classmate label them in Swahili but I kept that one! By the time it was suggested we could sit and visit in the house there was a crush of kids about 3 deep around them.
The boys both knew the two of Paul's classmates from their time at school in lecture and they seemed at home chatting and joking with them. Later in the night Paul's friend, the another classmate, his father and brother in law give us a ride back to town. It was so incredible to be included in the event and they were all so very sweet and generous. We felt really special to be included. After we arrived home Grace told me she had set out some of her dinner for me to try. So I ate another helping of food, this time it wasn't a full serving at least!
Tonight I tried to tell the night guard I want to run tomorrow so I will need the gate unlocked at 6 am. This Massai man doesn't speak English. I told him what time, in Swahili. Then Grace said I had to go tell him in Swahili but in Swahili time as well, so I did. But that ended up confusing things because he had a cell phone and he showed it to us then she asked me 'is it English time?', I think because she uses the 24 hour clock. In the end the three of us worked it out, and he tells me I will not need to find and wake him up like the other morning (this is all Grace translating of course). By now I know where all the keys are to the pad locks and doors so I can let myself out of the actual B&B (and Grace sleeps in another building out back) but not to the gate to get OUT onto the street (no, dirt road really). The other morning I knew my cab was waiting but there was no way out until I got the guard up and it took some doing, who technically wasn't supposed to be tucked away sleeping. When I signed/English/Swahili-ed my explanation about the guard sleeping and me trying to wake him for so long, Kelvin the cab driver, just laughed.
The boys both knew the two of Paul's classmates from their time at school in lecture and they seemed at home chatting and joking with them. Later in the night Paul's friend, the another classmate, his father and brother in law give us a ride back to town. It was so incredible to be included in the event and they were all so very sweet and generous. We felt really special to be included. After we arrived home Grace told me she had set out some of her dinner for me to try. So I ate another helping of food, this time it wasn't a full serving at least!
Tonight I tried to tell the night guard I want to run tomorrow so I will need the gate unlocked at 6 am. This Massai man doesn't speak English. I told him what time, in Swahili. Then Grace said I had to go tell him in Swahili but in Swahili time as well, so I did. But that ended up confusing things because he had a cell phone and he showed it to us then she asked me 'is it English time?', I think because she uses the 24 hour clock. In the end the three of us worked it out, and he tells me I will not need to find and wake him up like the other morning (this is all Grace translating of course). By now I know where all the keys are to the pad locks and doors so I can let myself out of the actual B&B (and Grace sleeps in another building out back) but not to the gate to get OUT onto the street (no, dirt road really). The other morning I knew my cab was waiting but there was no way out until I got the guard up and it took some doing, who technically wasn't supposed to be tucked away sleeping. When I signed/English/Swahili-ed my explanation about the guard sleeping and me trying to wake him for so long, Kelvin the cab driver, just laughed.
