Dude, let's go!: Thanksgiving and Traditional Wedding

November 28, 2011

So last week we all went to Accra for Thanksgiving at the Ambassador’s; the food was delicious! We went out dancing and drinking (real whiskey) and were able to stay with U.S. Embassy families. We got hot showers, real mattresses, soft toilet paper, REAL COFFEE, Cheerios, English muffins; delightful.

On Friday Chris and I headed back to my village because my chief had invited me to a traditional wedding in Bala (2 villages over from Todome). The subchief’s son was getting married and he invited me to attend and take pictures of the traditional ceremony; it would start at 6 a.m. Saturday. So at 6, Chris and I arrive at my chief’s house; he, his linguist and us 2 head over to Bala where we are received by the subchief and are introduced to the son who is being married. The man is obviously in his late 30’s and Chris and I both look at eachother and hope that the wife will be over 20 years old. So we ask questions and this is the deal we find out: The couple to be married are already legally married by the state and church, they have children, but until you have a traditional wedding you are not formally recognized in the traditional village/elders. I still don’t quite understand what this really means, but whatever.

So we promptly drink our first calabash of palm wine by 6:45 a.m. and sit while the men talk and introduce everyone. We are then told that the ceremony is starting and we would move to the wife’s house. We get there and the women of the village start arriving hauling water on their heads; the women pour the water in the wife’s barrels while dancing and singing. The water is poured even when the barrels begin to overflow and this represents giving her love and that she will not have to carry water today. The women start throwing water on eachother and sloshing about; it was a sight indeed. Next they take us to the subchief’s family house where we are introduced to more people and are given more palm wine. After two calabashes of palm wine, I head to the shower house to pee and realize while squatting (and trying not to spray my feet or dress) that there’s a really good chance I’m gonna have diarrhea today (damn American food!). So I go back into the house where we are then shuffled to the groom’s house to watch the procession of gifts to the wife’s house. They carry wrapped presents, a chief’s stool, large cooking pots, and these are all presented to the wife’s family (we still do not see the wife.) After this we go back to the groom’s house where the women have begun to pound fufu. There are probably 15 women pounding while others are still boiling more cassava. They’re singing and dancing; there is more palm wine involved.

Next the men come and fetch me to take photos of the killing of the rams. Ok. I’ve seen goats and cows killed in Ghana from afar and I know it is not a slow process because they saw the neck apart with a knife and drain the blood, and the animal screams and it almost makes me cry. Yes, I know my food was once alive, but the sound and length of pain is what creeps me out. But, I had never seen this done in a ceremony. So I get over there and there is a big white ram and brown male goat (he had as super cute beard, too). A man has a boiling pot of palm soup and maybe 4 men come hauling over the ram. They hold his legs and his head (they are holding his mouth shut, thank God). The man by the soup sticks the ram in the neck and begins to drain the blood into the soup and mix it in. The ram is jerking, but the guys hold him pretty still and he doesn’t make too much noise. His blood drains pretty slowly though, and one guy is holding up the goat and it’s having to watch all this and I thought that was pretty crappy; poor thing. Anyway, after most of the blood is out, the start sawing his neck half way off and then lay him to the side; where he twitches about and I about loose it. I’m not for sure if he was still alive or it was just nerves, but seeing an animal with its head half sawed off and flopping on the ground made me a little queasy; much to the men’s delight. Next up, here comes the goat. Once again they hang his head over the pot and the man sticks his neck; his blood drains super fast and kind of in spurts with his heartbeat. They keep stirring in the blood; I check on the ram and he’s not flopping any more. Next they saw the goat’s head half off, too, and start stoking the fire. At this point, I’m buzzed up on palm wine and it’s maybe 9:30 a.m., I’m slightly queasy from watching the slaughter and the knowledge that I’m going to be expected to eat that blood soup, so I decide to go hide behind a shack and smoke a cigarette. When I get back they have strung up the goat (wrapped around each foot and through the nose) and they are roasting the hair off over the open fire…it was a strange sight. They roast it for a while and then scrape the singed hair off with a knife; same follows for the ram.

Chris is feeling pretty liquored up, so he decides he wants to pound fufu with the women; which everyone loved. They had a blast with it. Next they take us inside the house where women are grinding frankincense with a stone; it makes an army green colored smear that smells really good. Everyone who is a part of the ceremony is supposed to be smeared with it to show they were there; we all got our smear! We were then taken into the next room where the groom was dressed and sitting with his 3 sons. They were smeared all over and dressed in traditional beads and cloth. People were taking pictures and dancing and being silly. The groom (and the sons) are not allowed to smile and if they do, they have to pay you money; so people were being goofy trying to get them to smile.

Next, we were taken back to the family house and served fufu and light soup and more palm wine. While we are sitting there another guy comes in and starts talking; he keeps trying to offer his sister to Chris (as far as anyone knows Chris and I are engaged to be married (it keeps the proposals down)) and this guy doesn’t care that I say we are engaged. “Oh, he will take an African wife.” “That’s fine with me, but I want my African husband.” “No, you can only have one.” “Oh, brother, OWWW (no). If he gets, I get; that’s how we roll in America.” The sister is called and she’s like 17 years old and Chris and I start arguing about it with the guy. Then we start talking about condoms, and sex and AIDS and he says (Serious as shit!) that AIDS does not exist. Oh Lord; my chief and me and Chris, and Jon (a man from my village who I really like and he works at the HoHoe hospital) all start calling him stupid and telling him that is the reason why people die of AIDS because they are ignorant…and yadda yadda yadda. Also in this bizarre conversation, Chris is liquored up and starts telling the men that Sister Boala is all he needs and….(for those of you who don’t know, Chris is as gay as the day is long). Good Lord, he’s flinging hand gestures and my chief and linguist are laughing and applauding my sexual service to my husband…it was completely bizarre. And then of course they all talk about how palm wine increases stamina…they all smile at me and hand out more palm wine. MY LIFE IS SOOOOO WEIRD!!!!!

At this point we are taken back to the groom’s house where they have now skinned and cut the ram/goat into big pieces. Now they will cut 12 pieces for the groom’s family and 12 pieces for the wife’s family. The innards and other bits will be shared with the elders and others at the wedding. After a long time of cutting and dividing and counting, the meat is hauled off to be cooked. I’m not for sure what happened next, but I know we drank more, they fed us rice and stew, and people gave us coconuts to drink. Next thing is we head back to the groom’s house where the now cooked meat is handed out with the blood/soup/smear. Chris refuses his, but I took mine. I got a part of a rib and two big dollops of blood smear in my hand. It actually wasn’t bad. And normally goat makes the soup stink (I think) so I figured the blood soup would be super gnarly, but it wasn’t. (and, knock on wood, I haven’t gotten sick from it). They start to divide up the Akple (rice dough balls) between the families and it’s getting late…like probably 4:30. So Nana (my chief) is as tired and drunk as we are, so he says we are going to leave. The actual marriage nuptials haven’t started. They take us to the wife’s house and let us see her. She is about the same age as the groom (yeah). And then Nana says that the subchief is symbolically offering the girl (the one the turd brother tried to give Chris) to us as our daughter. Ok, great; she was a nice kid and I’m gonna see if I can get her to our girl’s Camp Glow in January.

We go back to the groom’s family house, say our goodbyes, give a contribution and have more palm wine. The kids give me a string with Plumeria flowers and Chris some bananas. We play and dance with the kids while we wait for a tro to our village. They of course sent more palm wine home with us, so we went to the chief’s palace and drank another calabash and talked with him and his linguist. I hang out with my kids and try to have them teach me this dance I’ve been wanting to learn…if you’ve ever been around me when I’m drunk, you know how I like to dance. So I’m dancing with the kids in the palace; Chris gets tired of waiting for me and takes my key to head to the house; apparently he was dialing his phone and fell in a ditch/gutter and hit his head (not bad). When I leave a few minutes later, Gifty decides she should walk my drunk ass home.

So Chris and I are both obliterated and start drunk dialing home. Thank you dad and Jennifer for listening to my babbles…you have to admit you haven’t got one of those calls in a LONG time!

Chris got a call on Sunday from the guys in Bala thanking us for coming; they asked him to please send thanks to his wife.

Ps, the pics are gory.