No Excuse

I cannot even come up with an excuse for why it has been so long since I have posted. It is just pure laziness on my part. I will try over the next few days to get everyone caught up on the last month. This post, however, is from the first weekend of october before I even came home.

Our housekeeper invited us to a traditional Swazi wedding. When we arrived at the wedding, Thobile first took us to the area where the groom's family was preparing food. We briefly helped serving food to the guests before Thobile took us down to the river where the bride's family was getting ready. The bride graciously welcomed us. Thobile quickly helped us get ready then had to leave because she was on the groom's side, which left us with a bunch of strangers of whom only a few spoke English. We did make friends with one woman who then the remainder of the ceremony tried to help us understand what was happening. Below is a picture of an elder of the bride preparing the "ring". In Swazi culture the rings are actually a calf and goat gallbladder which is inserted into the bride's hair. There was then a brief song and brushing of everyone's feet before the procession to the groom's homestead. In the front of the procession, was a young maiden carrying the bride's blanket and possessions on her head as the wife would now be staying at the groom's homestead. Once we arrived at the homestead we processed through the cattle kraal. I am not sure the symbolism of this, but the kraal is involved in the first part of the marriage as well. As far as I can gather the Swazi wedding occurs in three steps. First, the bride goes to the groom's homestead with him. She is awoken by his family members early in the morning. She is to come out of the hut and clean the cattle kraal topless and crying. If she does not cry this is insulting and so she is then insulted by the women of the groom's family. This is what I have interpreted anyway from what people at work have explained to me. The second part is called lobola. This is where the grooms family presents traditionally cattle (sometimes now money) to the woman's family. The number of cattle depends on the birth order not surprisingly the class or education of the woman. The final part of the wedding is the ceremony which were participating in this day.

Following the procession through the cattle kraal, the dance marathon started. The bride and the female members of her family literally danced for close to two hours straight. The women dressed in the cloth and black skirt are married or have children. Below is a picture of the maidens. The groom and his brothers also joined in for some of the dancing although the majority was the women. Below is the bride with the groom to her left surrounded by his brothers. At one point, we were pulled into the middle to dance. Obviously everyone got a kick out of this. Here one of the groom's brothers had handed me his shield and club. It is quite possible that after that I am promised to this man. As with any wedding, in addition to dancing there was also drinking. Thobile let us try a sip of the home brew. It was not horrible, but a little chunky. I am not sure how much I could actually drink of it. Here a man had recycled a beer bottle into a homemade vuvuzela (the soccer horns). Somehow in the midst of all of this, Tini and I had caught the eyes of the Mnisi brothers. One insisted on writing his number of Tini's hand. The other just preferred to stand very close to me while professing his love. We unintentionally captured him in the picture below. The wedding ended for us (before the actual party even began) with Thobile escorting us to the car saying, "quick. get in and lock the doors". Never had a more exciting exit from a wedding.
It was great day and fun to see Thobile together with her whole family.