Weddings in Africa vary from one place to another due to diverse cultures. ln my village, weddings are actually a matter of life and death. lt is a ceremony that brings out both the best and worst of behaviors of people in my village. There are those who hold lifelong grudges just because they were not invited to so and so’s wedding.
A wedding in my village is never a wedding without the feasting and merry making, otherwise your wedding will never make it to the village’s local top ten wedding charts, l mean no one will ever talk about it if not to sneer.
During our time as children it was even more fun than nowadays whereby weddings have become more private to the society at large. There is no longer the euphoria that would grip the village once a wedding was announced.
I remember how the village messenger would arrive in the homestead on his noisy rickety bicycle with his bell ringing irritably, you had to get out of the way quickly because his bike never had breaks.
He would use the soles of his funny brown boots that had seen better days to apply friction on the ground until he would stop violently almost capsizing his bicycle but he never fell over to our disappointment because as children it was fun to see an adult fall down.
You could always guess the reason for his visit from the look on his face and he had many faces for different occasions. After exchanging pleasantries, he would go into the tedious task of opening his brown bag.
By the time the bag got opened, we would be so mad with him but when he fished the many wedding invitation cards then it was time to celebrate. The messenger would then leave to go to the neighbors to make another delivery but only after taking several cups of tea. The same ritual would be repeated at the other neighbors’ houses. Of course we knew this because we went to the same school with our neighbors’ children and we discussed the issue in details. l remember how one time we had a hard time trying to calculate just how many liters of tea the messenger took after visiting all the houses in the village. We never got the right answer.
By evening, the whole village would be in a frenzy mood, women would be seen in groups discussing what to wear and what to cook on the big day, they would even discuss the scenes in the last wedding, Mrs Mambo, who was the most talkative one would be heard speaking in a sneering voice about how so and so behaved or misbehaved, she had a high pitched voice .There was also Mrs Yala, a very humble lady but it was the many ducks that she kept in her house that scared children, we never wanted to go to her house because of the ducks, what she fed them no one knew. She never talked much, all she did was to nod to everything that was being said. Mrs Otwelo could be heard singing all evening, she was tall and snooty but when she walked, it was like drunken three legged giraffe trying to lean on one side. My cousin Mary always got me in trouble because she always laughed at her.
Men never seemed to be bothered by attending weddings in my village but there were some who made it their duty to avail their fortune telling skills, the only reason they attended weddings was to predict how long the marriage would last, if the bride was beautiful enough, these men would scrutinize every everything about the bride. Mr Maka, a tall slim figure with a beard that would put the Taliban’s to shame, walked as if he was a president in waiting, his strides were confident but it was his “fortune” telling skills that people respected, even if whatever he predicted never came to pass, people still believed him. At one time he was only seen by appointment.
During Mr Jona and Pat’s wedding he made an observation that baffled everyone, while the ceremony was going on, someone asked him what he thought of the bride, he looked as if he had swallowed a bee, then his jaws fell, and he looked sad then he became angry and said “what a waste!! This young man has been taken for a ride, look at the bride, don’t you have eyes”? The startled neighbor was lost for words, obviously he loudly wondered why Mr Maka said such nasty words. On further inquiry about what was wrong with the bride, Mr Maka said” just look at how the bride is smiling all the time, she is actually laughing at him, she knows she is just in the marriage for Mr Jona’s money, she just wants to separate him from his money then leave him poorer than he found him.
Before long word had spread around that the bride was a gold digger, someone even swore that she was wanted in a distant village for fraud, nevertheless, the wedding went on and Pat became Mrs Jona, Mrs Jona is still happily married to this day ,however, Mr Maka doesn’t have his fortune telling “powers” any more.
All in all, weddings brought people together, the villagers felt they had a sense of belonging during these wonderful times.
This painting is all about life and its challenges, if you let people put you down then you will surely stay down, just like Mr.Jona who lived with one part of him worrying about Mr Maka’s predictions but another stronger part in him pushed him to look on the brighter side hence his marriage survived the ups and downs of my village.
