WEDDING ZAMBIAN STYLE

Today, the biggest event at Grace was a wedding put on by John and Susan for one of their female workers. We spent the morning setting up the hall and preparing everything and at 2pm the guests started arriving and the chaos began! First some of the guests started infiltrating the gate and they put a bunch of us White "Muzunga's" there to check off the guest lists. The last wedding here, people were photocopying the invitation to get in, and over 70 extra people showed up. The problem was that none of us could understand the African's when they told us their names, so while we scoured the list of 200 names for the right one, we couldn't find them on the list anyway! Finally we got some Zambian kids to come up and translate for us in Bemba, and slowly people started to get let in. The confusion was paramount, and so many people that were not on the list were doing their best to say that they were!!! After about an hour and a half, John decided to close the gate and let the last 20 people in even though they were not invited guests. We threw out extra chairs and the festivities began. The bridal party danced up and down the isle about 10 times in different outfits to the loud catcalls of a sound I can only describe as high pitched tongue warbling screeching around the hall. Let me just say I have never seen such booty shaking in my entire life experience!!! About 40 minutes into the festivities, a bus showed up with about 30 people. (Pic of people all walking in up side of hall). Now that the place was packed to the gills, the concern of whether they were on the list was really important. Turns out it was the groom's family so they had to come in!!! Once food began, it was a real gong show. Understand this is the best meal many of these people will get this year, and plastic cutlery was getting stashed in purses while they kept jumping their turn to get more food. Pop was served in bottles and they were going so fast as soon as one was emptied another was cracked open! As we were clearing away plates, some guests were fighting me to keep their plastic costco throw away plate brought from home. By the end, they weren't even using plates and were just coming up for pieces of chicken right out of the serving trays. The saddest part was seeing some women at the end going through the garbage cans looking for any plastic cutlery they could find. (Pic of lady in yellow shirt). The entire experience was festive, colourful and lively, and I am certain the Bride and Groom had a day they will never forget….I know that I won't!!!