Wedding, Tanzania-Style!

Our Joshua accountant, Magreth, got married this past Saturday. Invitations were word-of-mouth, and all of the mentors wanted to go (we love weddings and dressing up!). However, up until Saturday morning, we had no idea what time the wedding was! One of her friends sent a text that it was at 12, but her boss on the base sent an email that it was 1! We went with 1, knowing how un-promptly these things happen here. I took the other 4 mentors, and we got to the church (a large "city" church) at 1:15, as the first car there! That told us it wouldn't be any time soon, so we went to a nearby cafe and had cake while we waited! We weren't invited to the sit-down dinner reception, so we thought we'd have our cake BEFORE the wedding! We dilly-dallied till about 2, then tried again. We drove up just as the bride's car pulled up, so we felt good about that. We went into the church, where the singers were warming up, and about 10 people were there! The pastor, a few minutes later, announced that even though the groom wasn't here, yet, we'd go ahead and start! He must have been there, though, because he and the best man came out a few minutes later. Then there was the usual processional, Magreth looked beautiful, and the wedding started. There was a time of praise of worship, then a full sermon by the pastor, then a second sermon by the pastor's wife, then the children's choir sang, then everyone in both families joined the couple on stage and prayed for them, then an offering was taken up! People had drifted in as the service went on and there ended being a nice crowd of 100 or so people there. Altogether, about 2 and 1/2 hours later, it was over! Then, the couple went out front for pictures with families AND the 5 wazungu (white people) - us mentors! We left after that, but managed to be in the bridal convoy for a little while, where we honked our horn and waved!

The funniest anti-climax was that we had to run into the local market for a few groceries, and there we were, in our wedding finery! Not so surprising, really, as weddings are a big weekend entertainment here.