Its wedding season...Malian style

Spring in Mali means two things, its going to be hot, and there are going to be weddings. Recently there have been quite a few weddings going on around and in my village, many of which I have participated in. While always a good time, weddings in Mali definitely have some differences from weddings in America. First off, in Mali, the big ceremony that takes place for three days when the wife comes to live in the husbands concession usually takes place about a year after the wedding itself and is called a kognion (spelling??) For the first year or so after actually being married, the woman does not live with the man but continues to live in her parents concession, the kognion is the ceremony in which the woman's family officially gives her to the man's family, and is usually the bigger celebration of the two. The other week I was at a wedding/ Kognion ( both at the same time...weird) in Koula. The English teacher Osman was getting marriend to his second wife and asked if I would come and celebrate with him. Since this meant good food, I immediately accepted. The celebration started out like any other wedding I have been to here, a bunch of people sitting around and hanging out. After about an hour of sitting around, we all moved the procession over to the mayors office where the official wedding was going to take place. This commenced a period of numerous pictures of the new bride and the husband with me being forced into many of them. Part way through the pictures a huge commotion started taking place. There was this one guy who at first I swear was starting a fight with someone. He was yelling really loud and pushing people away from him. Then I realized that no, he was in fact the griot. The guy that is hired to sing the praises of the husband and talk about how great the wedding is going to be. This guy was a pro let me tell you something, and I am definitely going to hire a griot for whenever I get married. Anyway, after the pictures were done we all crowded into the mayor's conference room which was pretty small for the hundred or so people there. I sat in the back with my friend Drissa and some of the other teachers from the Wolongotoba school. However, once again being the token white guy, that was not going to fly for long. One of the cekorobas (old men) immediately pointed at me and said that I had to go up front and sit next to the mayor while the papers and everything were signed. The room being as crowded as it was, that was easier said than done and after reversing directions several times I finally ended up climbing over soem people to reach the front. The marriage process is pretty mundane and civil. The mayor handed the couple a bunch of documents to sign, they had their witnesses sign them and then he gave a speech about the importance of marriage and bringing families together. The one pretty funny part was that in America, the man and woman both have to confirm their desires to marry the other. In Mali, where showing affection is rare between a man and a woman in general, it was a huge ordeal. First the mayor asked the man if he wanted to marry the woman. When the man said yes, the mayor made him say "I want to marry her" much to the delight of the crowd which started cat calling and yelling at him to say it again louder, which he did. Then this same process was repeated with the woman. At the end, the man and woman kissed french style in the sense that they pecked each others cheek four times. I think it was the first and only time I have ever seen a Malian man kiss a Malian woman. After the wedding we went back to the grooms concession for food and to hear the best man speeches. These speeches are a little different in that it is pretty much the griot yelling the greatness of the groom for about 15 minutes. Afterwards, one of the old men got up and said some things, after every sentence the griot would yell ou KOSOBE!! or NAMU!! which means very much and speak on it. Of course midway through the cekoroba's speech he points at me and states that the groom is so highly respected that even the white kid has come out for it, I was like great, just leave me out of this. However, it was all worth it, they served fried rice for lunch with meat, cabbage, sweet potato, and ognion. Very nice.

Anyway, that is my little story about my wedding experiences in Mali, I am going to my friend Drissa's Kognion next week which I am actually looking foward to much more and should be a good time. Oh I forgot one thing, up at the mayors office he had a notice board tacked with all the names of people that were marriend that season and their ages and hometowns and what not. I would say that the average age of the women getting married was 19 and the average age of the men they were marrying to be about 36 or so. This in itself isn't that unusual but taken that many of these girls were being taken as second wives, and most of them being younger than me it struck me as a little different.

Besides that site has been the same old same old. The worst of the hot season is pretty much over and rainy season is beginning although so far only about a day or so of rain. I have finished my rabbit hutch so I am in Bamako now to buy some rabbits so that I can raise them and eat them, little bunny foo foo is delicious let me tell you. The soccer games are still going on pretty strong and give me my hour of fun during the day. I have been helping some of my villagers build a house for an old man who can't rebuild his before the rainy season, which means lots of bogo barra (mud work) and joking around with the guys. I am going to start tutoring in math over at the local elemntary school, I want to eventually get them flash cards so that they can become comfortable with their basic math skills. ATT won the presidency as expected despite me repeatedly telling my villlagers that Madame Sidibe won (they got a laugh at that). The election process happened really smoothly with no complications which is good. Other than that, I am just hanging out in Bamako until tomorrow when I go back to site, I am looking foward to seeing everyone when I come home in June. Take care guys and I will talk to you later!