A Village Wedding

About a week ago, I attended my first arranged marriage village wedding in rural Zambia.

Since
I arrived at Nyamphande (our ministry site), I was immediately welcomed
as a member of the choir.  Of course, I don’t know how to sing in
Nyanja or do Zambian dances, but I would soon learn.  And that I did. 
With choir practice 3 to 5 times a week, I was able to quickly pick up
what I needed to know.  And I felt confident enough to stand with the
choir at the wedding.

We took off one Friday afternoon, on foot
of course, and after two hours and supposedly two mountains later
(which seemed like many more), we managed to reach our destination of a
cluster of huts just before dark.  Let the festivities begin. 

The
“overnight” began upon arrival around 6pm.  Everyone had settled in and
practiced a little singing and dancing.  I later found out that was
warm up for the evening service.  After dinner, the service began.  Of
course as missionaries we were, as always, asked to share what we had
prepared.  And, as usual, we did not have a plethora of sermons in our
back pocket at all times.  But, Nate was able to get one together in 20
minutes time.  Between three choirs doing multiple rotations of singing
and dancing and having two different messages preached and translated
including Nate’s midnight message, the service was well on it’s way.

What
I found to be most interesting about all of this is that there were an
abundance of people around.  However, the bride was confined to a small
hut and not allowed to come out until it was time for the wedding the
following day.  In other words, like at home, she was not allowed to
see the groom before the wedding.  But, in this case, the reception was
the night before the ceremony and she was not allowed to participate. 
I found this unusual and different.  The groom, however, was allowed to
come and go as he pleased.

Somewhere
around 4am, the crowd of people who were singing and dancing seemed to
have dwindled.  Somewhere under the stars, many people must have found
a patch of dirt in which to rest their head for a few hours.  The four
people from my team, however, managed to stay up all night.  As we
huddled around the brazer (basket of hot coals) and took in the culture
experience.

As dawn approached, the sleeping figures in the dark
started to stir and rather quickly everyone seemed to be awake by 6am. 
We had been told the ceremony would commence at 8 hours.  But, we also
knew from being in Africa for three months, that punctuality is often
not observed.  As we had sweet potatos and tea for breakfast and made
predictions of what time the ceremony would begin, we had several
engaging discussions about the Bible while observing the pre-wedding
preparations.

Hours
later, when the time was right, everyone was in motion.  We were
summoned as members of the choir to dance and sing all the way to the
church (a 30 minute walk) with the precession that included the bride
and groom.  Of course, the choir managed to produce songs and dances
we’d never seen or heard before (something that also happened the night
before during the service while we had a large audience).  But, as the
only white folks, we did our best to blend in (as if that were possible
in an area where many people had never seen a white person before).

We made it to the wedding without incident. 
Once we arrived at the church, we were asked to pose with the bride and
groom (whom we’d never seen or met before, we were invited to the
wedding as members of the choir) and then whisked away to sit at the
front of the church as honored guests.  I felt like a bit of a
spectacle, but it would be offensive to not comply.  As the service
began and the first sermon was launched, I was not at all surprised to
hear the scripture passage would be from 1 Corinthians.  I was
surprised to learn that it was a passage about sex, not the famous
chapter 13 on love.  In America, we rarely hear sermons on sex, but
instead hear sermons on love (particularly at weddings).  This was
quite the opposite.  It was a completely biblical message, but all
about not withholding sex within the marriage relationship.  Certainly
not the typical wedding sermon I’m used to hearing.  It did occur to me
though that since this was an arranged marriage and this ceremony was
the first time the bride and groom had ever met, I should not be
surprised that a message of love was not as the center since they did
not yet know each other, let alone love one another.  Once again, I was
taking in the cultural experience.

After a couple sermons, and the
awkward, uncomfortable, and dreaded kiss (which looked like it really
killed the groom and especially the bride to participate in), the
ceremony ended.  Then we began the 30-minute walking precession back to
the huts.  There we had a late lunch, and then there was a small cake
(which is apparently unusual in village weddings) and the presentation
of the gifts which involved dances and speeches.  Fortunately, our
special cue as to when we were supposed to present our gift was forgotten
and we managed to escape without a spotlight dance and speech.  We were
pretty much danced out and were not particularly fond of drawing
additional attention to ourselves (as if that could possibly be
avoided).