Wedding

Family griot singing/entertaining

The bride finally arrives and the house is crazy crowded

People sitting around wearing their gorgeous fabrics

The bride's family sending off food to the celebration at the groom's family. The bride's family and friends and the groom's family and friends each have their separate celebrations at their own houses.

My sisters and me in our Senegalese finest!

Before I forget, I wanted to write a post about the wedding I went to last weekend. It was definitely a huge privilege to be invited to go see something like that, and I was super excited to borrow my sister's clothes and finally wear a Senegalese outfit for the first time, and watch the ceremony with my family. I loved all the beautiful clothes and jewelry that people had on, and meeting people and seeing people interact with each other was awesome. In the end, though, I definitely had mixed feelings about the whole ordeal.

First off, there's a lot of sitting around and waiting. At first, I didn't know what we were waiting for, so I sat around with the others and chilled with my family for several hours. Finally, the bride came, gorgeous in a white dress and perfectly coiffed hair and perfectly applied makeup, and I was excited to see how the ceremony would commence. There was a lot of commotion when she came, with people clamoring to get a good glimpse of her, and she went around greeting people and chatting. (I found out later that she was going to be the third wife of her husband, which is a whole other post altogether.) Then, as quickly as she came, she left. And then we waited around for several more hours. It wasn't really a party, per se, since there was no food, drinks, dancing or music (except the random bursts of music that the griots played), but a lot of sitting and chatting/not chatting with the people around you.

Secondly, the griots. Now, I realize that the griots have an important role in West African traditions. They are the praise singers, musicians, political commentators, and in general have expertise in the oral tradition of West Africa. Many large Senegalese families have their own family griots who know the family's lineage, history and ancestors extremely well and sing praise songs in honor of the family. During the wedding, the griots sang beautiful songs and played music in honor of the celebration. However, my sister told me that though a couple of the griots at the wedding were invited specifically by the family, many of the griots that came had just heard about the wedding through word-of-mouth and came to make a quick buck. And that's definitely what seemed to happen. I didn't really understand the whole concept of the griot at the wedding, and so when two of them came up to me, started saying something in Wolof and then demanded money from me, I felt pretty trapped. Afterward, when the musicians were jamming with their traditional instruments, I made the mistake of smiling at one of them to show how much I was enjoying it, and the griot came up to me and basically said, "You're so pretty! Give me money, I'm a griot!" So as much as I enjoyed being able to experience something I've never seen before, I felt pretty uncomfortable for the whole time trying not to make further eye-contact with anyone who would ask me for money.

My sisters and I ended up leaving before the bride came back (which was when the reception was supposed to start), and we were still there for 7 hours, sitting around and waiting. From what I hear, Senegalese weddings can go on like that for days and days, which in my opinion, sounds more fun for the family and friends than for the bride. Griots and waiting aside, I felt lucky to be able to see such an interesting Senegalese event, and I feel like I better understand the nature of marriages and families here. When someone gets married, they're not just getting married to the individual, they get married to a whole family. And when women get married, it's the transitional mark from living at home with her parents to living in a completely different household, including the groom's parents, siblings, their spouses and their kids. In any case, I wish the couple all the best and I'm just grateful that I got to be there to see it happen.