A wedding can take many forms here. There
are lots of different possible ceremonies and events. Somehow we have ended up
doing ALL of them.
Amongst it all there is a lot of gift and
money exchanging, speeches, dancing and eating. The overall intention seems to
be to prepare the bride and groom, and also to create trust and respect between
the two families. I think this is really nice, although I have strongly
disagreed with a lot of the advice I have been given (the real low point being
that I need to be sexually available to my husband any time and anyhow,
otherwise he will find himself a girlfriend). NB: this is NOT true of Atkins.
If it were, I would not be marrying him.
We are also both uncomfortable with the
emphasis on the woman having to prove her worth through cooking and obedience,
but have decided that it is important for us to experience all of this. We can
still shape our marriage the way we want to, but doing all of this earns us a
great deal of respect from our Zambian family and community, and gives us a
real insight to the culture that we would never get otherwise.
Bana
chimbusa and ba shibukombe
These are the female and male elders that
myself and Atkins meet one-on-one with to be prepared for marriage. It’s not
appropriate for me to share the secrets here, but for me they focused on ‘the
bedroom’.
Chilanga
mulilo.
This literally means ‘showing fire’. This
where the woman and her family show the man’s family that she can cook, and
also to show the man and his family what he will be eating in his married life.
Ladies from the school I initially worked at, and some friends of theirs, very
kindly did this for me. It ended up being a BIG occasion with a huge amount of
food, including chicken, nshima, beans and local vegetable dishes. I
contributed meatballs, macaroni cheese and lemon muffins.
Also part of the day for me was drumming
and dancing, and being shown how to cook nshima. The food was taken to Atkins
and his family on a truck with all the women singing and drinking beer. It was
pretty epic!
Kitchen
party (or in my case a slightly smaller event we are calling a bridal shower)
Traditionally, this is where the bride is
given everything she needs to set up her kitchen. Details of mine to come.
The
actual wedding
Some people do the church/reception
version, others do something very small and traditional. Details of ours also
to come!
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