Khady Ndoye au Mariage!

This past weekend I went to a wedding with my family. I'm pretty sure the bride is my cousin, somehow. She came by the house a few times during her preparations, and I vaguely remember an explanation of how we're related. That said, we seem to be related to everyone I meet, so anything is possible. I'm probably related to that herd of sheep down the street. They're pretty baaawesome though, so its cool. 

Anyway, my mother, Mbegue, is pretty much the coolest lady in Ouakam (that's the neighborhood of Dakar where I live), so she knew basically everyone at the wedding. Each person I introduced myself to was super excited to discover that I was Mbegue Ndoye's (adopted, temporary, weird American, toubab) daughter. Naturally, we showed up around 11, because my mom had to help prepare all the food for the day, and my sister was in the wedding party, so she needed hours and hours to fix her hair. Literally. It looked brilliant when it was finished though, so entirely worth the extensive effort. 

So while my mother and my sister were busy being useful members of society and the family, I pretty much sat around different places playing the role of the super awkward, lonely American girl. (I swear I was typecast). At first I sat outside and watched some women cutting meat and vegetables (for kebabs later! excellent) and a man making fataya (also excellent). Then my mother ushered me inside for a while to chill in someone's bedroom with the small children. Mohammet and I became fast friends, which was great. We played with his rubber band for a while, and then we played tickle monster and took some funny pictures. [insert pictures of Mohammed]

Somehow I ended up sitting in the salon (by that I mean living room, not the hairdresser's) for awhile after that, introducing myself repeatedly to the distinguished women who came in and out. Then in the hall some older women formed a circle and proceeded to have a really loud discussion in Wolof of which I understood absolutely nothing. Me and another small child (this time a super cute young girl) watched from the sidelines, as it were. She certainly understood much more than I did, but she didn't seem to want to enlighten me about it. (its likely she didn't speak any French either). Actually, she was generally mute all day; but she had the most beautiful, expressive eyes of anyone at the wedding. Large, discerning, a little sad, but not at all frightened. Kind of compliant in a way that made you think she knew more than she let on (which, to be fair, was nothing), but she was going to go along with the charade anyway, silently. 

Soon after the loud council of large women about matters of consequence, we all sat down for lunch. I should clarify here that by "we all" I really mean the entire world. There were hordes of people there, and this was only the bride's family's side of party. Literally hordes. If we had been orcs, Saruman would say we could have likely destroyed the world of men. Hence, lunch was a pretty big deal. We ate in groups of 4 or 5 around sharing large plates of ceebu yapp (rice with meat, always good), some people sort of floating in between groups, picking up handfuls of rice as they went.

After lunch I sat around again for long periods of time with different assortments of ladies. Notable among these was Khady Wade, who is always really excited to see me because we share the name "Khady." Later, she stiffed me 500cfa for a taxi home and tried to get me to marry her son.

I also spent some time with a lovely young girl who found me absolutely hilarious in every way. Things about me she laughed at: my hair, my sunglasses, my birthmark, my skin color, my inability to speak or understand wolof, my funny faces, my chapstick, the list goes on. We shared some good times until I went to the bathroom and Khady Wade told her to leave me alone. (Khady Wade and I do not really see eye to eye on what it means to share a name, apparently.)

Later, I spent about 20 minutes sitting on this nice woman's lap because there weren't any chairs and she insisted. I am not one to refuse an order from a commanding elder, especially when I don't really know many ways to politely refuse in Wolof. She gave me a brief explanation of the wedding ceremony and was generally incredibly friendly, despite the bony toubab sitting on her lap.

After I got left out of the dessert plates being passed around, my mother ushered me over to follow a lovely girl I'd never met to the reception, about five minutes away. The reception consisted basically of a ton of chairs facing a tent with prettier chairs and tables and cake. The bride and groom proceeded with the wedding party up a side aisle to the tent. For the next 3 hours (or more) everyone in the world lined up to take pictures with the bride. (Not so much the groom, just the bride. I guess he wasn't pretty enough.)

Eventually, I was ushered back to the house, where I discovered a large contingent of loud elder ladies sitting basically around a small group of important women in green, including my host mom. I settled in to observe (and maybe fall asleep) but alas, was accosted finally by griots. Griots are a caste of musicians and performers who show up at ceremonies and celebrations, especially weddings, to entertain. You are expected to pay griots, and they will sing your praises. Of course, no one told me how much you're supposed to pay a griot. So I gave this large, loud, purple-clad woman merely 100CFA, and the entire crowd burst into laughter. But only because she proceeded to sing a song about Khady Ndoye the toubab who only gave her cent francs. Soon after, my host mom ushered me into some other rooms where people laughed at my funny toubab ways, and then she sent me home with Khady Wade. All in all, ridiculous, but fantastic. I don't think I've ever been laughed at so much in my life. :)