I will start with Friday and walk through one of the coolest weddings I've ever been to! Friday night all the groomsmen and bridesmaids came to the campus of ANU for the rehearsal and to spend the night so there would be no complications in the morning. The rehearsal was, well, a wedding rehearsal (slightly painful but necessary), and I had 2 groomsmen spend the night with me in my flat. It was a nice time, though Samsung (the fellow I was sharing my bed with) didn't come to bed till 4...some folks have some seriously weird sleep cycles/body chemistry. Saturday morning we woke up nice and early and headed to where Dibo (the groom) was getting ready for breakfast and harassment. I'm proud to say all the groomsmen were there on time, the ladies were a bit late, but all in all the ceremony was extremely punctual, starting at 10:30am with a published start time of 10:00 am (bravo!) This is very foreign for African weddings, evidenced by the fact that very few people were at the ceremony when it first started (even 30 minutes later than what was on the invitation!) Dibo tells me that guests were still arriving at 3 pm, surprised that they missed the ceremony...so funny.
African weddings are awesome. Even Americanized ones. Everyone was SO excited. It reminded me of the state of the union address in that the pastor could not finish 2 sentences without the crowd bursting into cheers and applause (though the cheers and applause were definitely more genuine then they are when our president speaks!) What else was cool? There was a troupe of women from Dibo's family and from around campus who surrounded Jeannette before she even entered the church, singing dancing and celebrating. Such a cool tradition. During the reception they have public presentation of gifts - which was great. It was fun watching Jeannette figure out what to do when one of Dibo's relatives gave her a live rooster. The reception was very nice and wrapped up by about 3 o'clock. Dibo and Jeannette stayed around to spend time with Jeannette's mom (Cathy) who flew in from Oregon for the wedding.
You can find some sweet pictures from the wedding on my Picasa page.
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| The Dibo Wedding |
Sunday was also a very neat day - church was a lot of fun. My Congolese neighbor's son Gustaf decided he wanted to sit with me on my chair while I was playing my drum during worship...so that means I was multitasking keeping him well behaved (no shadows in the projector), keeping him from falling off the chair, and playing my djembe the whole time...it was quite the challenge! After church Pastor Gift grabbed me and we went to help fix the roof on the home of a church family...it was hot work, but it definitely helped (when it rained the water flooded into their front door, so we put up an extra piece of sheet metal to help keep the water out.)
It is eye opening to see some of the needs people have in Kenya - they are often so simple to meet. Just a few dollars can make such a difference in these peoples lives who are struggling to feed their families, much less buy material to keep their home from flooding!
Tuesday was a very fun day as well. I spent the morning working on data entry for the registrar (slightly more fun than invigilating...slightly...) and giving Rao Yi an english session. After that I met up with Jeannette, Dibo and their Mom to go see some elephants. Unfortunately we were 15 minutes late to their feeding which means we did not get to see them. Very sad. We went and got pizza to make up for it. After lunch we spent a bit over 2 hours at St. Paul's children's home playing with the kids. It is so great having Dibo there. He's got such a gift for children's ministry, and he knows Swahili which is a huge help. Jeannette got some pictures, I'll start a Picasa album for St. Paul's. Though the kids kind of go crazy when there are camera's around, so I might avoid pictures more than I want to.
Lots of walking, lots of friends and good times in Kenya. Like I mentioned, I'm doing data entry for the registrar, doing my best to get to the orphanage whenever I can and I'm also helping the student council plan their "cultural week" in February. It's hard to plan things here - lots of hoops and you're forced to hop through.
I miss the snow, but I'm loving the weather here. It's perfect, and I have the most impressive farmers tan of my life!
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