Pulaar Wedding

Hello all, i hope all is well in the good ol' U.S. of A. I have had a very interesting almost two weeks in the village. From accidently calling a town meeting, i had intended it to be just myself and the mid-wife of the village, but because i don't speak pulaar very well she misunderstood and told the entire village i had called a town meeting to discuss future projects within the village. i'm definately not going to use the word "reno" anymore, because apparently it means a meeting for everyone, not just a simple meeting between two people. but this past sunday the women of my village insisted that i go with them to a wedding in a neighboring village. so myself and 20 or so women/young girls made our way in the heat of the day the 3k to this wedding. at events like these men and women are separeted and since no men from my village or family came i was forced to sit with a big group of men and drink tea. after exhausting my pulaar with them i decided to take a nap since i had just walked for an hour and half with the hot blazing african sun overhead. after i awoke the men took me to watch the actually ceremony. it was quit interesting. everyone gathered in a circle around the two men playing these odd looking instruments. everyone sang songs for a big and this man with a big stick was making sure the circle was kept big enough by slapping the ground and peoples feet when they moved in to closely. this did this during the entire ceremony and was really annoying about. i kind of wanted to take the stick at times and beat him with it. i stayed on the outside of the circle. they sang for about 30 minutes and then the presentation of the gifts was made. they announced what everyone had given as gifts and made the people who had given the gifts come out into the middle of the circle. after this the music continued and women took turns coming into the circle and dancing around, it looked like something similar to the helicopter. they would hold both arms out and dance around in the circle waving their arms about. at times there would be two women facing each other doing this dance. this took place for almost an hour, while i watched i ate mangos and drank bissap. bissap has become one of my favorite drinks here, it is bright red and very sweet. it is something similar to hibcus in the states but much sweeter and very good, plus it was cold which made it even better. after the dancing the couple was brought into the circle. i think the funniest part was that there was a guy video taping the whole thing. i had the groom beforehand and he seemed very excited to have a toubaako at his wedding. he wore a brand new white compte and the bride looked like an african prom queen. her dress was blue and her hair was done up very big. she had on full make-up and looked very pretty. all the women from my village joked that i needed to get myself a senegalese wife that looked like her. the bride was maybe 16 or 17, she had too much make-up on to really tell. the guy was fairly young, maybe in his early 20's. they sat on two small benches facing each other, while the music played and the women of their families danced around them. this went on for about 20 minutes while everyone in the crowd sang this beautiful song. after this the newly married couple departed and the helicopter dancing continued. they returned with the bride wearing a different white dress. there was so much detail on the dress it was beautiful. they then walked around posing with everyone while the guy video taped. the new groom brought his new wife over to greet me, she didn't seem to excited to have this toubaako at her wedding. the guy video taping then turned the camera to me and gave me a full up and down. i looked like a complete bum. my sister had told me that green t-shirt and dark brown pants looked fine, i was covered in sweat, was dirty because lets face it i live in a small african village and am always dirty. so forever on this couples wedding video there will be a toubaako looking like a big dirty bum. oh well, i don't know how they're ever going to watch the video considering there was on electricity in the village, so probably no tv or vcr. it was very beautiful, my family asked me that night to explain an american wedding, but after thinking for a few minutes i told my pulaar wasn't good enough so i would have to tell them later. but it was a cool experience and i'm sure i will be attending many more pulaar wedding in the future. i had left my camera at the kedougou regional house so there were no pics taken. but like i said i will go to many more and make sure i have my camera to take pics. i hope everyone is doing well, take care and send me letters, my address is in the previous post!