You think your wedding was cute?

Friday night I come home to my host mom and dad sitting with one of our family friends outside about 9. I quickly learn that the family friend is getting married, and we are planning the wedding meal because we are having the wedding at my house! How fun! When is this wedding taking place I ask? Saturday. As in, the next day. At two. WHAT?! This is Africa folks, this is Africa. In any case, I am really excited. I know there is going to be a lot of work to be done to prepare all this food and prepare our house for the wedding, which I can help with. My host dad also told me to make sure I bring some of my girlfriends to the wedding as well, and be ready to dance! So that night I help my mom prepare these meat ball type of things and get the chairs all outside along the wall. Here in Cameroon it is typical to line up all your guests chairs along the wall, in order to save a big space for dancing on later, and not have the area be crowded. Also great for getting to check out who’s all there as you sit around facing each other and eat your food. On Saturday morning I get up and am ready to go. I made friends with my host brothers girlfriend the week before, and so in the morning she came prepared with kossam (drinkable yogurt) and beignets (delicious pieces of fried bread and sugar) for the both of us to eat while cutting up mass amounts of papaya and pineapple. I then go out back to help my other host brothers girlfriend cook all the fish in hot spackling oil out back on one of the three woodburning fires. After that, I helped my host mom cut up chicken. Thankfully, we did not kill them ourselves at our house, which is pretty common. They killed it when they paid for them at the market. So now, I am completely knowledgeable in the butcherie process of chickens, head and eyes still on the chicken and all. No squirmies here, because in order to halve the chicken, you need to take a couple big blows to the sternum with a huge butcher knife and more often than not, spray a little chicken gunk everywhere. We cooked the plantains, made the rice, and swept and washed the house. After all was said and done, we all washed up and made ourselves look nice, and when the wedding party arrived from downtown signing the papers, (about 2 hours after the so-called start time of the wedding) the festivities began. The Cameroonian torrential downpour of course came at the most inconvenient time, and brought the good majority of the guests inside, but stopped in enough time to not ruin the entire party. Once the wedding party had eaten, everyone else ate, and the food was demolished in the span of about 45 minutes tops. Anne, Doob, Anna and Rachel came over to see the party. Once everyone was done eating, the couple came out and did some of the rituals, which were quite possibly some of the cutest gestures I’ve ever seen. The parents from both sides came up and welcomed the other into their families. Then the newlyweds both took a bottle of champagne, stood facing each other, and popped them at the same time and shared a little of the celebratory drink with everyone. Then the newlyweds said things to the crowd, thanking them for coming etc, etc, and then were cheered on as they had their kiss and hugged each other. They both looked like the happiest people on the face of the planet. Rachel and I were literally tearing up it was so adorable. They then did their first dance, and everyone got up to dance along with them. Things settled down a little after that, while people all got their drinks and got ready to get down! From there, the dancing never stopped. They all thought it was really hilarious and great that we were dancing too, especially since none of us can do much dancing at all. Everyone was dancing of course, the elderly, the young kids, the newlyweds with their baby (it is common to have a baby together before getting officially married here-and the couple had an adorable half albino baby which I was allowed to dance with later!) and my host mom, who’s got moves! All my host brothers were dancing with us, and it was just a really really fun evening. As the night wound down and guests slowly trickled off, I learned more dance moves from my slightly tipsy hilarious brothers and host dad. It was a really fun time, and the newlywed husband told me that it was the happiest night of his life and was so glad we were all there to join in. One great wedding.