| (2003-10-21) Fatou's Wedding I work in an office with a woman named Fatou. The other girls call her “My Friend,” because I think they’ve realized that she’s my favourite. I adore this woman. She’s 21, beautiful and very friendly. She calls me “Jullllia” and always drags out my name. Last week, she announced that she was getting married to a man named Omar. She was embarrassed, but seemed to be quite happy. Her main concern was moving away from her compound and leaving her mother- she was afraid that she would be lonely. Fatou invited me to her wedding. I brought along Jinny- so that I wasn’t going to be the only other toubab there. I bought a traditional African dress to wear.
Although I felt stupid, I thought it was necessary. And as Jinny and I walked out of our village, we got complimented by lots of children and men, and stared at by the women. Even more attention than what was normal. Jinny and I went to a bar and waited for Fatou to come and meet us. It was 10am.
When we arrived, we were brought into a two or three room house where she and her entire family lived. We met her aunts and uncles and grandmother and a lot of other family and friends. She brought me to another compound where her girlfriends were cooking. They were very nice to us, and gave us Wongo juice (which is my favourite African drink). They were barbequing a huge amount of chicken.
The women there liked my dress, and spoke to Jinny about being Indian (she had worn a Sari). Some of the girls wanted to put my head tie on, so I let them. Then I felt over-the-top-stupid, and took it off. But not before a picture was taken.
These are some of Fatou’s friends (and the ones who made me wear the head wrap).
This is Fatou in one of her outfits (she changed at least three times throughout the course of the day).
And Fatou and Jinny.
And Fatou and me.
Jinny and I sat amongst about 20 children, men, and women for about eight hours that day. My white skin fascinated the children. They would all giggle when one of them said hello, or called me toubab. It became very tiring very quickly. All the women were busy cooking, and the men were busy relaxing.
At about 4pm, Fatou and about 14 of her closest girlfriends (myself and Jinny included) were piled into a large van, and followed her car, horns blaring, to another location. The trip took about 30 minutes, and it was very entertaining. A hoard of little boys followed the cars for about a kilometre, and it excited all of the women in the van with us. Jinny and I just kept looking at one another with our eyes wide with amazement and laughing at the experience. At about 6pm, Jinny and I were exhausted. Fatou still hadn’t even gotten married yet, but she and I couldn’t take it anymore. We felt out of place- this was the most uncomfortable I’d ever felt in Africa, and mentally, I just couldn’t handle it any more. Fatou wanted to bring me along for the “real Gambian experience,” and I appreciated it more than she could ever know, but I was tired. That, and because we were toubabs, people expected us to hand out cash, and I didn’t have any to give. My gift of money to Fatou and the cost of my dress had cost me half of my entire week’s budget already, and I didn’t have any more to give. I was yelled at (in another language) by a woman more than once for not giving her any money. It was so embarrassing. So we left before the ceremony even began, but it was an experience I’ll never forget. |
