My First Tanzanian Wedding and Send Off Party

I wrote this about a month ago, however I was unable to post until now, POLE!!!

I had a wonderful local experience yesterday with my first Send Off party for our seamstress Monica. Traditionally the bride’s family gives a large celebration to send off their daughter to marry and live with their new husband. The wedding is then held within one or two days at the husband’s home or town. In this case the prospective groom lives very far away and the send off party and wedding are to be held here locally at TEC.

The invitation I received indicated the timing of the event was 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 pm. Having lived in TZ for a year now, I knew better than to show up at 2:00pm. Only a few of us were invited so we took a car down at 4:30pm. We drove up a huge mountain, only to get out of the car and walk down half of the mountain, which I must say was very steep and slippery. As we arrived the procession had just begun. It was the bride, the groom, the best man and the maid of honor. All were given very colorful leis made out of Mylar and plastic flowers. We were literally lifted up to the top of the leveled out area where the houses were build into the side of the mountain. Graceful, I am not! We were then escorted to a little tented area that was built from all kinds of fabric and decorated with lace, flowers and colorful fabrics. There was a head table and two benches on the side. All of the Wazungus (white people) were put in a place of honor on one side of the tent and the head mamas from RVCV were placed on the other side, this was a great sign of respect for us and the village. I imagine that most of Monica’s family was supported by her work with us and therefore they were showing us their honor and appreciation.

An interesting tradition of this particular event is that the bride looks very somber and sad and never smiles. If she smiles, it then it shows disrespect for her family because she should be sad she is leaving them, not happy that she is getting married. There were songs and the minister spoke for a long time, then four girls from our village sang two beautiful songs about Monica and Rift Valley that they made up. We were then served a soda and meal of goat meat, rice and fruit. I must say, it was all I could do to get the goat meat down, but it was rude not to eat, so I did my best and ate away. After the meal of the wedding party, the rest of the guests were served rice and beans. Then the dancing started and Nano (our Chairman of the Board) got up and danced with the group.

All and all it was an amazing experience and I am so glad I made the trek up the mountain for it.