16 Oct. 2010
“Here comes the bride…all dressed in…” red
Weddings, obviously can differ from country to country, culture to culture, religions to religions. Differences in what is work, what the women do, what the men do, the dancing, the presents, the cake, etc. Within a country, weddings can differ. Just look at the USA. A wedding in the south differs from a wedding in the west. And even more differences occur from religion to religion. My idea of a good wedding: a mix of all the best things from all the different weddings. Of course, me plus a wedding means I have to get married. Remember, we are talking about me, Mandy Nurrenbern.
Anyways, the answer to your unspoken (or spoken for all I know) question is yes, I did go to a Mozambican traditional wedding, and yes, I am going to talk about it here.
I asked my mama here what I should wear and she told me just pants and a t-shirt, no big deal. And, of course, she was right. But at the wedding/ceremony (all really one thing) we (the women) received capulani’s (surangs) that we wore over our pants. They make an outfit bonita (pretty).
I’m not going to lie, it definitely started off slow. I sat in a lawn chair in the yard under the shade. As the sun moved throughout the day, we moved throughout the day to stay under the shade. The bride and groom at this point were in a room with their parents , eating and probably saying the “I do’s”. At one point, they walked out together and marched around the guests and got pictures taken. (Pictures are serious…no smiling). During this time there was a lot of chanting and dancing around the bride and groom Chanting was out of the question for me since my language skills are low, but I did pick up the dancing…
Dancing is definitely a big thing as the day/night went on. There was some dancing I knew and some Mozambican style, but it’s too hard to describe here. I did love that the women coule dance and did dance versus the traditional Indian wedding where the women didn’t dance. They were amazed I could get low with the rest of them!
The wedding gifts are individually given to the bride (and groom). We did small dance steps with a chant as we went up and presented a gift each to the bride. The gifts were all very practical to life here in Mozambique. Cups, a tray, fleece blankets, a couple of capulani’s, a pilao (giant mortar and pestel thing), etc. After presenting the gifts, we got in a circle and one person would go in the middle and dance to the chant and then go out and someone new would go in. Surprisingly, I did not go in the middle… Why? Maybe it was the intimidation of the Portuguese.
The wedding cake: It was a 10 tiered cake, huge, tons of sweet icing, 2 dolls on top representing bride and groom…NO! It was simple, nice, easy. It was a small cake with simple icing. Not everyone at the wedding received a piece of cake because of the size, but everyone did receive a bite of cake. They cut the cake into bite size pieces and put in a bowl. The bride and groom walk around with the bowl and we grab a bite of cake. Simple, nice, easy.
I did get my camera out and it was a hit. Why? Because it’s a digital and the picture is seen right after the picture is taken. They wanted a dancing picture; they wanted me to sit at the DJ chair, hold a CD case and get a picture (with the kids surrounding me). I think this will be a good reminder to me to take pictures! J
A little side not here: I saw 2 men chase down one of the goats around. Not too much after that, I saw that same goat hanging by it’s feet from a tree being skinned by the 2 men. Then for dinner, I had goat.
The End.
PS – My style of dancing fits in with Mozambique better than in the US. Another sign this my place to be…Africa…my motherland….:)
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