A Village Wedding (Scott's)

For several months one of my counterparts, Ryford, would remind me every few weeks that he was having a wedding in June and wanted Gina and I to be there.  This usually lead to a brief conversation about the wedding preparations from the man's perspective.  He talked about how he needed to buy several goats and lots of chickens as a dowry of sorts to give to the bride's family.  I asked if he get's gifts from other people.  He said no.  He also talked about how he needed to pay the bride's family several times on the wedding day.  Once to get the bride to leave her village (about 3 kilometer's away), once for her to enter his village, once for her to come to his family's compound, again for her to come into his hut, and again for, well, you know.  He also talked about why he was marrying her.  Nothing about "love" was mentioned.  Instead there was talk of how his mother's health was failing and his family needed help with everything that his mother did.  Shortly after that I met Miriam, the future bride.  She was beautiful.  She dressed in nice clothes, and had a stunning smile.  I wonder if Ryford purposely neglected to mention this, or if helping his family was really the only reason he wanted to marry her.

On the night before the wedding, I heard many women singing and yelling at about 9 pm at night.  Unfortunately Gina had a program out of our village, or else I think she would have been invited to come join them.  The women of our village got together to go to the village where Ryford's bride lived to help her prepare for coming to his home.  About an hour later the singing and yelling could be heard again nearing our village as the women escorted the bride.  The noise would lower to a chatter occasionally and then be punctuated with a loud cheer and vocal hysterics, similar to what you might expect at a sporting event.  I witnessed this with my ears only, as I was not invited and wasn't sure of the protocol for a man's involvement in this scene.  But I could imagine Ryford kneeling and clapping in respect for the bride's family like any good Lunda as he paid at the appropriate intervals for the right to take his new wife. 

The next day was the wedding celebration for everyone.  Ryford's family does not drink, so it essentially boiled down to sitting around, chatting, waiting for the food, and listening to music, with a little bit of dancing by some of Ryford's friends, all men.  At one point there was one radio playing traditional Lunda music on the radio while just 30 ft away a younger crowd played Zambian pop music, accompanied by the dancing.  Here the men dance in a cluster, not necessarily with each other, but definitely not with the women, few of which were around, much less dancing.  Ryford and Miriam were not present for most of this.  They were being taught how to treat each other by a matron, an older village woman respected for being able to explain to newly-weds how to behave.  This went on for about 4 hours and then lunch was served.  Ryford, his brother Ryvus, and a couple of other friends, including me, collected in Ryford's 2.5 square meter house to have a lunch of chicken, beans, rape, and cassava nshima.  There was little room for anything but sitting and eating as half the room was filled with a bed, upon which Miriam and Ryford had recently consummated their marriage.  It was odd, to say the least.  But it seemed to be completely normal, and honor even, for these young men to be together in Ryford's hut.  After we ate, Ryford made sure that the leftover bones of the chicken we had for lunch (of which there were few because Lunda's eat most of the bones) were put back into the pot.  Then the young men in the room added money to the pot.  Apparently this another payment for the wedding.  Miriam came in to join the guys, saying little but smiling shyly.  The matron came in to collect the pot and was not shy about looking in the pot to check to see if there was enough money.  The matron spoke some final words to Ryford and Miriam about how to treat each other, and left these two young Zambians, marrying for utility, to make things work as best they could.  The final payment for Miriam was on the following day when Ryford had to give Miriam's family chickens in order for her to be able to collect her personal belongings and bring them back to Ryford's home.  Ryford's hut was already packed, so I wish them luck to find out where to put Miriam's stuff.