Living closely in community with others enables a great deal of living life on life with one another. In addition to our houses being physically close to one another, the majority of our neighbors do laundry and bathe at out door wells, along with grill and smoke fish outside. This results in people being around all the time and a great deal of awareness of what is going on with one another. For example, we often hear small children throwing tantrums, usually in the morning when they don't want to bathe. Conversely, our neighbors hear when the boys are running around the house or when we took Evangeline outside the other night because she had croup. The next morning one neighbor confessed she thought it was a cat making the noise.
As we continue in language and culture study, living in close community with others is very beneficial. John and I have probably been to more weddings during our five years here than we have during the whole rest of our lives. Weddings are a big deal and the guest list is usually quite extensive. Though most weddings look pretty similar to us, I recently had to the chance to see some of the preparations first hand.
Preparations often begin four days to a week before hand. Aside from decorating the house, food preparation and invitation delivery are the main tasks for the week before the event.
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Whitman and Evangeline standing against a decorated wall at the groom's house.
This living room area will be used to host and serve guests a meal before the ceremony.
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| Invitations are usually printed at a shop, but stuffed and addressed at home. All invitations, when possible, are hand delivered by at least one male relative in traditional dress. (above right) |
I visited the groom's home a couple times prior to the wedding to see all that was taking place. Relatives and a couple skilled cooks were, like usual, asked to come help. Though I stayed only for an hour, the main task of the day was to prepare the ingredients for the sweet and spicy fried cassava.
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Women peeling shallots.
There must have been close to 10 pounds of shallots.
Once they were peeled, they were sliced, all by hand.
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Preparing the sweet and spicy coating for the fried cassava.
The coating consists of shallots, chilies, garlic, and palm sugar.
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Mixing
After shredded cassava and peanuts are fried, it is placed on a large tarp to mix with the boiling hot coating.
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It was amazing to the see the mass quantity of ingredients being prepared. The finished product was then stored at the groom's house. And I only witnessed one menu item among many being prepared.
At the end of the week we attended the wedding together as a family.
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The groom being accompanied by all his guests to the bride's house,
middle in green and under an umbrella.
The wedding ceremony takes place at the bride's house.
It was a clear and sunny day, so the umbrellas were used for shade as most people fear any kind of tanning of the skin.
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In other news...
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Evangeline
"Pack my toys! I'm going to Grandma's."
For the first time in her life...
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It is nearing the time our almost two-year-old will set foot in her "passport" country (or country of citizenship) for the first time in her life. Yes, we are returning to the States at the end of this week for about a six month stay. We are looking forward to many things about our time, but mostly the opportunity to connect with the dear people in our lives that though far away by distance, have been closely involved in all going on here in Barat.
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible!
