Wedding Bells!

Okay, before we get down to business today, I must state that for breakfast this morning I had a delicious, flavor-filled bowl of oatmeal.  I brought along a few (too few, sadly) packets of instant oatmeal and it's amazing the happiness those little babies can bring.  So now with my stomach full of cinnamony goodness, I feel up to the challenge of relating to you the events of the Batwa Wedding Spectacular 2008 that we attended a few days ago.

So first, a bit of background is in order, yes?  Many of you have seen my earlier post on the Batwa, including the amazing slideshow that my friend Christie made.  That was the part of the their story that was the tragedy.  This is the part that is joyful!  No matter what the circumstances of the Batwa are (and believe me, they are bad), the Batwa know how to party!

So, last Saturday, we were invited to attend a wedding in which 153 couples were to be wed at the same time. One hundred fifty three.  If you are thinking to yourself "holy moly" then you are along our same lines of thought.   I should point out that the blessed event took place in a room about the size of a typical elementary school classroom, and that it happens to be August in Africa, and that there was no air conditioning or fans.  But I digress.

As we arrived, our car was greeted by a singing and dancing troupe that were highly spirited and very agile.  We were a few minutes late (buke, buke, remember?) so we only saw the last few couples actually sign their papers, after which they posed with a framed portrait of His Honor the Excellent President Regency of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza (Or something like that.)  Not quite sure about the portrait thing, but hey, we pose at our weddings with pieces of cake right?  So, to each his own.

Some brides waiting their turn - dressed in their wedding finest.  Aren't the bright fabrics so fun?

After the i's were all dotted and the t's all crossed,  the dancing part of the afternoon commenced.  Many of the women, if not most, perform these quick-footed dances with babies and toddlers tied on their backs, and I am rather impressed with this feat.  Especially considering that jumping is a big choreographic element of the dances.  Yes, I said jumping.  Did I mention they had 25-pound two year olds on their backs?

Okay, up until this point we were happily watching from some chairs at the side of the room, which was next to a window, which was crucial.  But could we stay like this? No.  No no no no. We had to move on stage for the ceremonial portion of the event. Because we were guests of honor, you see. We thought it would be so awkward to sit on stage as if we were important, so we tried to squirm our way out.  We begged.  We pleaded.  We wailed and gnashed our teeth.  But they were firm.  We must sit onstage and allow everyone to marvel at our white skin or else we would not be fulfilling our duty.

Do we look like we are scoping out escape routes?  It's because we are.

Afterwards we had another duty to fulfill: posing for pictures with everyone.  Kind of like the oversized, sort-of-creepy Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.

I'm including this one just because I can.  Isn't this little princess precious?

Now, Batwa ideas of marriage are a little more flexible and fluid than those of westerners. Right after the ceremonies had taken place, Claude saw a young woman looking frantically around the crowd.  When he asked her what she was looking for, she replied breathlessly that she had lost her new husband.  "Well", Claude said pragmatically in an effort to help, "what's his name?"

She looked at him balefully.  "He hasn't told me yet."

All in all, it was a great event and we were glad to be part of it (except the awkward sitting on stage part).  Everyone was duly married and we got to be part of a little piece of Batwa life.