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Liquid toothpaste, a Muslim wedding and other adventures in no. 177

Even a warm UK house doesn’t have the same effect on toothpaste as the constant warmth and humidity of Sweet Salone. While back in the UK for a short break, I’d become used to a semi-solid state for my toothpaste- ie it doesn’t seep through the bristles as soon as you put it onto the brush, however, it was a slight surprise to come back to SL, put toothpaste on my brush, spend a very few seconds putting the lid back on the tube and putting it down and by this time my toothpaste had disappeared from view due to its more than usually liquid state-ah well, just one of those little things to get used to again ;-)

I went to a Muslim wedding yesterday- I know, a Thursday, but that was their choice of day. I’d never been to a Muslim wedding before, but from what I’d heard, many parts of it were fairly typical. It took place at a local mosque, with the men sitting in their area and the women in theirs- tho’ since there’s a wall between them and only one doorway (where the bride was sitting), you couldn’t see much. In effect, neither the bride nor the groom didn’t need to be there as the focus was on the joining of the two families. The actual marriage itself was the groom (or the representative of the family) asking the bride’s father if he could marry her 3 times and then the father said yes. This (very short) ceremony was preceded by lots of men giving the new couple good advice on what makes a good marriage and was followed by men telling the bride that the husband was in charge and she should not speak more than him and should not ask him where he has been when he comes back etc- I paraphrase slightly because the PA system wasn’t great and my Krio is even worse. Unlike the Christian weddings that I’m much more used to, there was no singing, there were no flowers, and no group photos; most of the photographs seemed to be fairly informal- people sitting round the mosque during and before the wedding. And of course, it all happened in very Sierra Leonean style- at BMT, with the wedding beginning 1.5hrs after it was meant to. However, that’s nothing compared to the evening event; the invitation asked people to turn up at 6pm, when I asked a colleague, he said that it was 6pm BMT and therefore 8pm GMT, I followed his advice and arrived at 8pm, although then had to wait around another 40mins before anything happened :-P

Since it was a Muslim wedding, there was no alcohol, although a good amount of soft drinks were available (Vimto, Fanta, Sprite, Coke and Sparkling Apple juice- the latter confused a lot of people because it looked as tho’ it was in a champagne bottle- even including the metal and cork top, which I have to admit, I did find it slightly amusing that people weren’t quite certain how to open and led to a couple of ingenious methods). The bridal procession then arrived- the bride had changed out of her white, Western, wedding dress into something that I assume is more Islamic- cream with maroon and gold embroidery (matching the groom’s outfit), although it was still fitted and had a small train. What was very sweet was the mini-bride- a small girl, my guess would be about 5yrs old, but I’m not too good at guessing that sort of thing, who was dressed identically to the bride- both in the white, wedding dress and the Islamic evening dress (inc v. mini train)- she looked v sweet, even if she did spend most of her time at the mosque playing with her veil. Then there were the speeches- first the chairman was introduced, then he said a few words, then about 5 speeches/toast proposals, plus a response from a person representing those who had been toasted and at the very end, there was a vote of thanks (by the bride). In the middle of all the speeches, the bride and groom had a dance, the bridal entourage had a dance and the bride and her father had a dance. Then there was the presentation of the gifts-anyone who had brought a present had to go and stand in line to give it to the bride and groom. Finally, two guys doing stand up comedy then did their piece- tho’ the Krio was a bit fast for me to understand everything. After this food was served, there was some dancing and people drifted away home. I didn’t stay until the end (working the next day), but it was certainly a somewhat different experience to weddings at home.

Well, I guess one other adventure I can quickly mention is that perennial (I haven’t found a specific word for ‘every time you arrive in SL’) trip on the helicopter from the airport to Aberdeen (Western part of Freetown), which is quick and noisy and prayerworthy, but allowed me to arrive safely at the helipad and get back to my house before midnight on the day I arrived. It’s one of the more annoying things about travelling to Sierra Leone; it’s more stressful arriving and working out what you do next than it is actually getting to Sierra Leone’s airport in the first place.

And in case you’re not readers of the UN Human Development Index, Sierra Leone slipped back from second to last, to last in the Human Development Index 2007, so it is now 177 again. Some countries, where data can’t be gathered, are not included in this index- such as Iraq and Afghanistan, which is why there’s more countries that are in the UN (193 plus the Vatican city) than are in this index.

A final piece of good news- we’ve had National Power every night since I arrived back in Freetown, which is really quite exciting and will be even more useful when our wiring is fixed so we don’t have permanent ‘mood lighting’ in the house, which means it’s not particularly easy to read in the evenings, ah well- can’t have everything!

posted by Nenya @ 10:49 am