The wedding 2 Saturdays ago was nice and a wonderful experience. Zacka, our driver was getting married and invited us to the wedding. He said the ceremony started at 11:00 am in a small village about 30 minutes from here. So, being the "on time" kind of people we are, we arrived at 10:30 am (need to get that front row), ha... We drive to the village (or what we think is the village) and or course no one is around. The locals are looking at us, probably wondering what the vazas (what the locals call us) are doing here. We're not sure if this is even the right place. We wait, as the villagers are staring at us and smirking -we felt like we were in a fishbowl. After about 10-15 minutes, we decide to travel back towards Melville, and wait there. Melville is a place where the French hand planted 26 kilometres of palm trees many years ago. The are planted all in a row and have vines and ferns growing up the bark. It is absolutely beautiful. This is a park like area, and not sure what the French had in mind for this. We thought that we would wait there, and see if we could see Zacka and his bride driving down the road. We pulled into a tiny roadway and park facing the main road. There was a local walking down the road, yelling at the top of his lungs and waving his hands. There's no one around, and we're not sure if he's drunk, mad, or what the problem is. He doesn't see us, but we can see him. We decided get out anyways, take a few pictures, then I'm feeling a little uncomfortable with this guy. Course I want to get into the vehicle and leave, but Rick doesn't. He says, relax, don't worry. So, I get in anyways (I can always lock the door), then suddenly he gets in, starts the vehicle and drives out. I'm thinking this is odd, but don't say anything. Once we're on the road, he informs me that there were 2 uniformed locals with clubs coming down the path towards us. Apparently we were on private property and they DON'T LIKE THAT. We ended up seeing Zacka, and followed him to the ceremony. (we were in the right village). The ceremony was in the village's town hall, which consisted of an open air cement building with a tin roof. (picture below) We had to wait almost an hour before the Mayor of the village (which is the one who performs the ceremony) came. In Madagascar, you need to perform your ceremony at a town hall first, then you may have a church ceremony if you wish. Did I mention is was over 40 degrees & 100% humidity? Oh my God! I thought we were going to die. Once the ceremony was over, we came to our air conditioned home for about an hour, then left for the hall. Once arriving at the hall, Zacka comes out to greet us, and brings us to the front of the hall -we're sitting up front with them, unbeknownst to us, we were the Guests of Honor (because Rick is Zacka's boss)! The meal was very good and the desert was a third of a pineapple cut. (picture below) They cut it very fancy, and looked very nice, and was very tasty. In a Malagasy wedding the Groom, his brothers, Father, uncles, and men closse to the groom are most important, unlike North American weddings, where usually the Bride and Mother of the Bride are the 2 most important people. The bride had a lovely short white dress, no veil, and there were no bridesmaid or groomsmen. At the hall, everyone drank, ate, and later on danced. We had to leave, as we had another function that night. All in all the wedding was very nice and similar to our weddings.
That's all for today, as we have a function to go to. Later...
No comments:
Post a Comment