Clementine & Mohammed's courthouse wedding
This week. I swear, forces that be were trying to kill me. I got sick, like really, really ill with a viral infection. Then “the weather” descended on us, socking us in with inches of snow even in urban Portland, and Francis was home from school and looking for me to entertain her all day long. The courthouse wedding happened Wednesday, quickly followed by a Gospel choir practice. I raced from place to place, trying to smile, trying to have a good attitude, but mostly just wanting the week to hurry up and pass!
Wednesday’s courthouse wedding was a bright spot for us, as it was simple, lovely, and we had very little to do to make it happen. Mohammed and Clementine were happy, although Brad and I had the sense that they wondered why all the Americans were making such a big deal out of this ceremony. Bantus just have a party and call that “the wedding”. All this paperwork and such didn’t mean much to them! After the service, Mohammed caught a ride back to Seattle to complete his training for a new forklift job. When Clementine was asked if she was going with him, she replied, “No, why should I?”. To Clementine and the Bantus, maybe they weren’t really married yet?! The next day at our house, everyone seemed exactly as they had the day before:
But not for long! Saturday came with gale force winds, a few inches of snow and ice. We thought the weather was bad before, but we hadn’t seen anything compared to this! Calls started filtering in either saying that they wouldn’t be able to make it or asking if the event was still on. I had never seen such a storm in the city. I actually don’t remember such snow since 1996 when I lived in Toronto. But this is Portland! It is mild as the day is long!
“The girls” showed up at about 11am and commenced to wait around. The girls were like Clementine’s entourage of unmarried friends, but as she is “older” for Bantu marriages (almost 21! Gasp!), these girls weren’t really her actual peers. She seemed to find them remotely irritating, (which I related to even as I was struggling to be open to this different culture). I guess waiting around was sort of expected as no one seemed too surprised. Did I mention that Clementine was gone during all this? She was off getting her hair done professionally for the first time, as feat that I would have loved to see myself.
What can I say about the girls without sounding like a jerk? Not much I guess, but I guess it is valuable to reflect on your interactions and assumptions when dealing with another culture. The girls are teenagers, so they didn’t interact with me willingly unless they needed something. That is not so different from some American teenagers, but I still struggle with my newfound identity of “old person” that I have gained in the African community. Mohammed and his people need to have some context for Clementine living in our household, and they can only seem to conceive of me as “Clementine’s Mom”, which is just SOOOO NOT ME! Come on people! I am young and hip (right?). I guess for the purpose of the wedding, they need a “mom”, so that is me. (As a side note, Clementine HAS a mom who lives in Burundi. Clementine hasn’t seen her since she was 8 years old as they were separated during the war in Congo in 1996, but as this woman actually birthed her and nursed her and fed her, THAT woman deserves the title of “Mom” of this lovely young bride.)
Anyway, My sister pointed out that the Somali Bantus are some of the most tribal of Africans, and have limited interactions with Americans or people of other cultures. I had noticed that Mohammed and his family don’t eat different foods or try new things. They don’t come with the same Pan-African experience that someone like Clementine has. She is Congolese, but has lived in Zambia, interacts with Burundians, Ugandans, listens to music from across Africa (and other places in the world too). ” The girls” were hard to read sometimes. At one point, they stood around the stove starring with visible disgust at what I was cooking. They were also impressed and shocked at the natural gas stove. ”How do you do that?” one girl asked me. They brought their own food in one big bowl which they plunked down on the floor in the kitchen and crouched around eating it with their hands. Even though they did not want to touch my food, they are open to some recognizable sweets. Everyone was amazed with my chocolate chip cookies. ”Can you teach me to make these?” a girl asked. I chuckled thinking of how I dutifully followed the recipe on the chocolate chip bag… I am just NOT a baker.
The one charmer was Amina, the littlest girl. Brad took her sledding with Francis and Zephyr in the morning and she was super cute. She also helped out a lot with Inez, bringing her to me when she was hungry or needing attention.
The evening came on and we realized that the weather was really a lot worse than we had thought. Drifts of snow had formed around our car and more was coming down all the time. My parents were stuck in Sheridan and unable to make the punch or bring the coffee supplies that they had volunteered to take care of. It was miserable out!
Adding to this, we suddenly had no plan for what to do with the kids when they got tired at the reception. My parents had been our plan, and suddenly we were on our own. Luckily Francis and Zephyr had napped adequately that day. I proposed to Brad that we just keep them there all night. He didn’t like that idea much as he was already crafting a way to escape the party. We packed some blankets to try to make the best of it.
We rushed off to the wedding really early as we didn’t know how long it would take to traverse the 8 or so miles to St Johns. We also needed to stop for punch and coffee supplies and make the drinks once we got there.
Here is the problem with being me: I take my responsibilities really seriously. I internalize them, wanting to do a good job and I define that good job as doing my very, very best. Sometimes no one cares though, and at those moments, I would be smart to shake off the worry and anxiety that I have put on myself. I struggle with this though.
I got to the community center. No one was there. I was freaked out about making the punch, but there was no punch bowl or cups. I was freaked out about organizing the tables, but the people with the table cloths weren’t there yet. I bossed Brad around about the tables until about 20 young men descended upon us and moved everything we had carefully argued about! They were friends of the groom, or maybe just friends of the DJ, but all of a sudden, the room was a whirl of masculine energy, barking orders (or maybe just talking?) in Somali, moving tables here and there, whisking my coffee table right out from under me to put to service as the DJ table. ”These guys have a plan,” Brad said. ”I can feel it”.
And they did. I told them that I needed to figure out where the punch and cake went. ”No no no! We bring out the cake at about midnight and then put it in the middle…” Woa! This party was not going until midnight, a detail that the boys seemed in complete denial of. Plan or no, these boys were there to DANCE, which they started doing immediately. After their perfunctory moving of tables, they settled in to get down for the rest of the evening with immense enthusiasm. It was sort of charming, even though I was annoyed as hell trying to find a new home for the coffee maker.
So there we were…. us and 20 boys, no wedding party in sight, no table cloths, no punchbowls, no nothing to do. I was way stressed out with “my duties” and yet had no way to execute them. And no one cared. They just wanted to dance. Man, I just needed to shake it all off!
The other thing about the boys is that they play their music at a truly skull-busting level. I don’t think it is just because I am old. I mean, I love to listen to live music. I love the crowds, I love the bass pounding through your body and shaking your internal organs. I can handle loud music, but this was ridiculous. I worried for my children. I worried for the lack of fun that we would have if this decibel continued. I worried. And fretted about the stupid punchbowl. In short, I wasn’t having much fun.
Finally, the rental stuff showed up, but the punchbowl was missing. No matter. At this point I had actually worked through my emotional freak out and had accepted that nothing this evening was goin to go as planned. The bride showed up about 5 seconds after the table cloths and flowers were thrown on the table. Here is the grand entrance:
Francis leads the way as a flower girl
You know how I said that the Bantus consider what we westerners would call a reception, actually a wedding? Their ritual part is this walking in procession. They do this two or three times during the party, with the bride and girls changing outfits for each walk. There is also a sort of circle dance where I was led up to hold hands with Clementine and we just sort of bop back and forth.
Mohammed's brother is upfront with two of the girls
You can sort of see Clementine in this picture. She has awesome hair and a gold headdress thing.
Clementine and Mohammed are seated at a head table
She looked lovely of course. Mohammed looked handsome too! Francis was thrilled with her important job of walking in next to Clementine.
Not much to say about the rest of the party. We struggled with a variety of inter-cultural communication issues (the other women on Clementine’s side of the “family” dug about 30-40 metal forks out of the trash where party goers threw them. Why? I don’t know. The boys threw away a bunch of sparkling water as “there was something wrong with it”). A adult friend of Clementine’s harassed the boys every time they turned up the music, so thankfully, it stayed at a mostly sane level. She marched right up there each time it snuck up! Awesome!
I did start to have fun at a certain point, but it was an exhausted, over-extended, sick-of-all-of-this, sort of fun. I wanted to go home, but I also wanted to be there for Clementine. I wanted to be responsible and helpful, but I also wanted to hide. I wanted to be understanding and culturally sensitive, but I also wanted people to quit throwing forks in the damn garbage can.
In short, this event really stretched me. But it is done! Wooo hoo!
I wish I could show off my dress better...
Clementine is now gone and the house is quiet. Thank God it is all over. Thank God for this life.
1 Comment | In: Current musings, General bitchin', Uncategorized, family | | #
I made this!
In honor of, well, me, here I am at 6. What do I remember about being 6? Well, I think life was pretty good. I was in kindergarten and I loved my teacher. That year, our school burned down and we went on a strange “double shift” program where half the kids in the school went to class super early and half went super late. I think we were the super early kids. My mom’s journal (from when she was 36!) seems to say that we were often very tired.
