How To Get Married In A Zambian Village

As many of you know, I village “married” Ed back in August of this year. This was a Peace Corps requirement for co-habitation in the village setting, as our organization does not want to offend the conservative members of the community by having volunteers shacking up whenever the spirit moves them to do so. We obliged so that we could stay together until Ed’s Peace Corps contract was up, and also because we knew that this experience would be quite the story to tell in years to come. I have decided to record the village marriage experience in a how-to fashion below. Hope you enjoy!

Step 1: Buy and slaughter loads of village meat and keep it in your living room overnight the day before the wedding.

 

We bought a large pig and goat, as the bride and groom are expected to feed the wedding attendees. The animals were slaughtered in Ed’s living room, gross bits flying everywhere : /

Step 2: Have your bride delivered under the cover of darkness the night before the wedding.

I was delivered by two women in my village, my chosen “matrons.” Once night fell on the eve of our wedding, we took a taxi down to the edge of Ed’s village and were dropped off at the road. We then formed a line, the first women carried a pot of chicken (the food reserved for the bride and groom to eat on the next day), and the second woman and I were covered with a piece of traditional cloth know as a chitenge. The first woman made a really loud high-pitched call (very African sounding) and Ed’s village women answered back signifying that they knew that the bride had arrived. Ed’s ladies then came to join us, throwing money at our feet. When the lead matron judged that enough had been thrown down, we took a few steps and then waited for them to throw more. Needless to say, this was a very long journey and being covered by the cloth, I really couldn’t see what was going on. As we neared Ed’s house, more than 100 people had joined us, children especially, and they were all singing loudly. I was delivered into Ed’s house and instructed not to talk, laugh or smile, as this is deemed the most respectful behavior during marriage proceedings.

Step 3: Sex-Ed with 3 middle-aged Zambian women.

After my safe delivery to Ed’s house, we were given a very detailed lesson on what goes on in a Zambian bedroom. This included the wife’s duties to her husband, how to conceive children of each gender (just change your position they said!), and a smattering of tutorials on other traditional practices such as shaving and bathing each other. The 4 hour lesson was probably one of the most hilarious and eye-opening experiences of my Peace Corps Service. I think Ed enjoyed it…

Step 4: Have your wedding night the night before your wedding.

I think you can understand why there aren’t any pictures to accompany this step.

In the traditional village wedding ceremony, the bride is delivered to the house the night before the wedding so that she and the future husband may “practice” with each other. On this night, the young bride and groom are told to “do it” as many times as possible. It was explained to me that this was the girl’s last chance at getting out of the marriage if the main was unable to perform. The following morning, the matrons return to the house and question the girl on the previous night’s happenings to make sure that everything was working properly. I told my matrons that this part of the traditional ceremony was unnecessary, however they still begged to know…I just told them that Ed was “very strong” and they looked happy and stopped asking questions : )

Step 5: First couple's bath.

In Zambia, it is traditional for husband and wife to bathe with each other. My host parents, for example, bathed together almost every day. Ed and I joked about this before the wedding, but didn’t necessarily expect to partake in the tradition seeing that bathing is done outdoors behind a grass shelter with little privacy. However, this decision was not really left up to us…The morning of the wedding my matron came over to see how our night was. When she realized Ed wasn’t around, she asked where he was. I told her he was bathing. Opps. “Well, why aren’t you in there? You are husband and wife now, you should bathe together!” I gathered my shampoo and headed out the door…

Step 6: Mingle with guests and take lots of pictures.

This is totally not the traditional way, as I should have been concealed in the house and speaking to no one, but I just couldn’t help myself.

Step 7: Cover bride and groom with chitenge and take them to the marriage grounds.

We were preceded by my "line-up," my village sisters and a few other girls from my village who danced in a semi-choreographed routine they had practiced the previous day.

Step 8: Place bride and groom on reed mat.

We were instructed to sit with legs out, hands laid on top of legs and no smiling. This was pretty difficult for me.
 
Step 9: Insert crazy preacher who yells a lot and makes bride and groom do awkward hug thing.

 We pretty much had no idea what was going on the entire time and just tried to oblige this man.

Step 10: Watch some dancing.

Lots of folks performed for us. This is Ed's line-up. Peace Corps volunteers were even given time to perform and they chose the electric slide as a tribute to my ability to do this dance to any song playing at the Peace Corps house : ) (shout out to cousin Jana for teaching me way back in middle school, it has become my party trick!)

Step 11: Eat some cake.

Our Peace Corps friend, Val, made a lovely chocolate-iced layer cake. We cut it only after the knife had been delivered to us by our dancing knife girl, a Zambian tradition that is way cooler than the American flower girl. Maybe a tradition we should try to popularize in the States???

Step 12: Feed guests some cake.

There wasn't quite enough for everyone, so we were told to feed the old men and the white people : /

Step 13: Do some dancing.

We had prepared a thumb drive full of both American and Zambian music, but our DJs didn't quite seem to know how to handle this tiny piece of technology. There was quite a bit of skipping through the play list resulting in us hearing the first 5 seconds of about 50 different songs before they landed on one they liked (this happened every time music was required during the ceremony!). Luckily for the couple's first dance, they landed on Build Me Up Buttercup - at least something somewhat reasonably paced and not containing a beat requiring African hip shaking. Ed and I had no idea we were going to be made to dance, so we were a bit silly looking. Fortunately for us, I harked back to my middle school cotillion experience and tried to keep us under control. I of course had to play the male role and lead "Mr. Rhythm" so that my feet wouldn't get stepped on. The whole time Ed was whispering "hey, lets just dance over here to the side so that we can get off the dance floor as quickly as possibly when the song is over."

Step 14: Speeches.

 
Some meaningful and also hilarious words were said by both Peace Corps volunteers and our village families. The above volunteers prepared a lovely haiku.

Step 15: More crazy preacher action.

If there was a force to be felt, I wasn't feeling it here. I had no idea they had their hands up like that until I saw this picture.

There was quite a bit of yelling at close range from the preacher and head nodding on our part in hopes that he would take it as a sign we got what he was saying and he could move on.


Step 16: Exhaustion and confusion.

This picture is out of chronological order, as the state you see us in here could be applied anywhere throughout the day.

Step 17: Gift presentation.

 
Traditionally, guests dance up and present the couple and the matrons with money and gifts. We said that we would prefer no gifts, but our village friends would have none of that. By the end of the day, we ended up with a nice collection of plastic bowls and cups, several baskets, a new cooking stick, and Zambian Kwacha amounting to about 7 US Dollars.

Step 18: Marital bliss and enjoying village life together.
 

This is us at a recent independence day celebration in my new village.

Step 19: Baby!

 
Just kidding! He’s my neighbor’s newborn that I was asked to name last month. Meet baby Hanny, named after my sister and born on her birthday! I think we do look a bit alike though ; )

Still kickin it in Zambia!

It seems that bog writing has not been something I have been very dedicated to over the last several months. I think that when I initially began writing, I thought that I would have exciting things happening to me nearly every hour of every day. In the beginning, each day seemed like a new adventure, but now, even though those same strange and shocking things happen to me continuously, I think I have become somewhat desensitized and no longer find them as inspiring to write about. I realize, however, that one day, when my life returns to its normal routine in America, I will want to look back and have a record of the things which I hope will have the same shocking effect as they did when I first experienced them. Also, I realize that you all at home may want to hear about what is going on over here : ) So, without further rambling on about this update, I’ll get down to what has happened over the last several months.


Medical

Yes, I know the title of this section sounds absolutely thrilling (not!), but I promise that illness here is something to definitely write home about. Unfortunately, last year, I suffered 2 major illnesses which put me out of commission in my village for a few weeks. The first was a bad case of mono, which was confirmed when a vial of my blood was sent down on a nice vacation to South Africa for testing around June/July. I initially thought that my body was achy from too much bike riding and being out of shape, so the diagnosis, as strange as it may sound, did make me feel somewhat less lame about myself.

My second illness came in October and was a bit more exciting, albeit, definitely much less desirable than mono… My best Peace Corps friend, Emily, and I headed out on our first trip to see the famed Victoria Falls in Zambia’s Southern Province. The trip, which took place the week of my birthday, started out great – we rode in a luxury bus with movies and air conditioning! We made a quick stop on the way for some snacks, and I enjoyed some chicken and chips. We arrived in Livingston, where we checked in at our hostel, and proceeded to go for a nice dinner at a well-known Italian place (in Zambia?! Go figure!). The next morning, we took the hostel’s shuttle out to the falls. We walked around, taking advantage of all the beautiful photo-opts for nearly an hour before I started feeling dizzy and queasy. I told Emily that I needed to sit and rest for a second, thinking maybe a cold Sprite would help. Unfortunately, this was not such an easy fix, and we ended up rushing back to the hostel in a taxi while I tried not to vomit in the backseat of the cab. The following hours leading up to the next morning, were some of the worse I have ever experienced. Rushing to the toilet nearly every 10 minutes is something I would never wish upon anyone. Luckily, Emily was there and was in constant contact with the Peace Corps medical staff, who were assisting us in trying to figure out what to do with me.

The morning following the onset of this mess, Peace Corps sent an ambulance run by a team with funny accents from South Africa to come and fetch us and take us to the airport. I was hooked up to an IV right in the hostel room and whisked away onto my very own private jet (this is what I told myself at least, in order to make the situation seem more glamorous than it actually was). As sick as I was, I did manage to peek out the plane’s tiny window and catch a glimpse of the falls from the air. I count it as a huge success that I did not poop or vomit on the plane, and I am sure that this was appreciated by my 2 fellow passengers riding in back alongside the stretcher. We landed in Lusaka, where I was then taken to a private clinic and kept for 3 nights and pumped full of IV fluids and medicine. The stay in the clinic was almost as difficult as being transported there, as I was sequestered in a tiny room with a half-functioning TV, and left mostly alone by the staff, who I think were under the impression that American’s don’t like to be bothered with chit-chat. I wasn’t prepared for a vacation in the hospital, so laying up in the bed with nothing but colorful strapless sundresses made me look like quite the ridiculous patient.

In the end, after much speculation and testing, it was confirmed that I had suffered a bad case of amoebic dysentery…Worse birthday present I have ever received!! I am so thankful, however, that I wasn’t alone at the onset and had a wonderful friend to watch out for me and call the doctor when I was too weak to hold the phone up to my ear. So, thank you, Emily!!!

Although I would never wish to go through such an ordeal a second time, and if I had the choice, would have preferred to have never experienced it, I now have bragging rights when chatting about medical stories with my fellow volunteers : )


Work

Work in the village is going pretty well. At 1 year and 5 months into my contract, I have learned who to work with and who to steer clear of. I have narrowed my focus to two main projects – Child Nutrition and HIV Education.

The HIV education program has me biking all over my catchment area with my village counterpart to give a health talk and Q and A session to students ages 12 years and above. The program has gone really well thus far, as the students are very curious about the issue and eager to ask questions. Providing such information on an extremely taboo topic that is often left unaddressed has proven to be really rewarding.

The child nutrition program focuses on rehabilitating the under 5 population identified as malnourished who reside in my catchment area. During a bi-yearly screening, we identified that over 50% of the children between ages 6 months to 5 years are suffering from various levels of malnutrition. The project has a supplementary feeding component, and focuses on teaching the mothers of these children how to cook more balanced meals for their children using local ingredients. The program also includes health education on other issues pertinent to raising healthy children. Many of you have already heard about the program via my recent Facebook message, so I won’t go into further detail. If you aren’t on Facebook, and want more information about this project, send me your e-mail address, and I will forward the information on to you.

I am also doing several smaller side projects. My most recent one has been a hand washing demonstration with school-aged children in the 7 schools in my catchment area. During the demonstration, I use glitter to symbolize the germs that we cannot see on our hands. This visual has been a huge hit with the kids, and inevitably at the end of each session, a few members of the audience have glitter smeared all over their faces for decoration : ) Another repercussion is that I also now have children coming up to my house and holding out their hands saying “Salliwe, look! Ma germs!” The older girls seem to be under the impression that the actual name for glitter is germs and have come several times to my house begging for “ma germs!”

I have also done a few joint projects with Ed. Our greatest success being a community-wide HIV education session in his village. Over 100 people were in attendance! Working as a male/female team has proven really effective, as it allows us to reach both gender populations in the community.


Home for the Holidays 2011

As many of you probably know, I spent the holidays back in the US of A! When I first came to Zambia, I had not anticipated going home at all during my service. I had really hoped that my family would instead come and visit me. Unfortunately, the price of plane tickets and vacation for 4 in Zambia is much more expensive than a ticket for 1 back home to North Carolina. Timing with the family at home also proved difficult with everyone extremely busy with work and my brother and sister pushing to get through college. At any rate, when the idea was proposed for my family to bring me home instead of them coming to me, I was thrilled to be going home to visit the exotic place known as High Point, NC! It sounds cheesy, but there really is no place like home. After being away for a year and 5 months, it was so nice to walk on Carolina soil again! I did feel a bit like an outsider for my first few days though. My first shock came when standing at the Subway counter at Dulles waiting to pay for my fist American meal. For one, I felt like I smelled, having been on an plane for 20+ hours and wearing clothes that hadn’t seen a washer/dryer for over a year, and two, I felt stupid struggling to count out the American money to pay for my food!

The weariness suffered from the long hours of my overseas flight soon gave way on my last leg of travel from DC to Charlotte, and a frantic search for my family began as soon as I pushed my way through the crowd and off the plane. The reunion was amazing – seeing my family, led by my mother, arms waving in the air as they rushed over for a hug, is something I will never forget. I am sure that the line of 100+ people who stood as witness to this while waiting to get through security will also never forget, as there were a few tears shed : )

Settling in at home was like being ushered into a palace. I have never slept in a bed so soft, eaten food so delicious, or felt so clean in my entire life! (Sit back and take a few minutes to appreciate the comforts you have!) It was so wonderful to visit with family and friends and catch up on all of life’s happenings over the last 17 months I’d been away. I brought home some local food (nshima) that we cooked over a fire in the backyard. The Zambian dishes were by no means as big a hit as the traditional hotdog cookout with neighbors and cousins, however, the new foods were better received than I had anticipated.

As short as the 2 weeks at home were, by the time the holidays were over, I was ready to head back to Zambia and finish out my work in the village over the next year with renewed energy. It also helped that Ed had remained in Africa for vacation during the time I was at home, and I was eager to get back to him and brag about how wonderful America had been : )


More Exciting News!!!

Lastly, I bring you a more personal update. As many of you already know, I have found my partner in crime while serving in Zambia. His name is Ed and he and I are Peace Corps Volunteer neighbors, living in villages just 3 miles apart. (Who knew it would take coming all the way to an African village to find a decent American guy?!) The past year with him has been so much fun and until he came along, I didn’t realize how much I needed another American nearby (and not just any American, of course). It is great working with him on joint projects, seeing each other on weekends, and traveling together when we have vacation time. Our relationship has been quite the show in our villages, as our neighbors have watched the romance unfold as if we were in a soap opera on television. I can’t go anywhere in my village without people inquiring about “Mr. Edi” and asking me to pass their greetings on to my “husband.”

Because I couldn’t imaging leaving Zambia without him in the plane seat next to me, I have applied to extend my service until his contract is up in April 2013. Thus far, I have been approved to extend in my village; however, ideally we would like to live together. This option requires a bit more paperwork and approval from a higher level and we are still waiting to hear about this. If granted, we are required to have a village wedding so that our co-habitation is not frowned upon by our village neighbors, who feel that such a practice would be inappropriate. We will keep you posted on what becomes of the situation, and perhaps I’ll be a Zambian bride before the year is up ; )

P.S. I have begun posting my pictures on Facebook in addition to more frequent updates on my daily village happenings, so if we aren’t already Facebook “friends,” send me a request if you want to be kept more in the loop : )