Weddings and Wildfires ...by Lauren Ammerman

Weddings and Wildfires

by Lauren Ammerman

There is arguably no other event as culturally significant as a wedding, and American weddings are no exception. While the ritualistic motivations for exchanging rings, throwing the bouquet, or playful cake wars often take a backseat to the festivities themselves, these traditions nonetheless reveal aspects of American culture that are otherwise hidden below the surface.

So when we were invited to a wedding in a rural Zambian village, I had three questions: 1) What would be our gift? 2) Why would a bride and groom want strangers at their wedding? and 3) What deeper layers of Zambian culture would be exposed for our viewing pleasure?

The first question was answered almost immediately when Ba Jeremy informed us, “We’re planning on bringing a goat.” The second question was also a snap. Weddings, along with pretty much everything else, are communal in a rural Zambian village. The focus is not on the marriage of an individual bride and groom, but on the union of two families that make up part of a greater harmonious community. The more the merrier.

The third question, however, is pretty tricky. One of our group goals is to immerse ourselves in the culture, seeking to understand. We will never fully appreciate what we saw, but we can try to process it, ask questions, and use guesswork to fill in the gaps. This is what I’ve got so far …

We were greeted warmly by the celebrating villagers. Some drummers struck up a beat, and the Zambians began to dance in a spiral around them. We were encouraged to join in, but our dancing was nothing like the coordinated movement of the villagers, whose swaying struck me as the physical expression of joy. Afterwards, Ba Siaziyu told us that weddings are the time to expose sinners in front of the village. While the atmosphere was festive, the actual content of the song revealed a woman of the village to be an adulteress. The village asserted, “You have embarrassed us!” in the midst of their celebrating.

I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the wildfire that before had seemed far away race toward the dancing circle. All of us makua (white people) ran to the opposite side of the village, and a small hut caught on fire shortly after the groom dashed out of it. The fire abruptly stopped just short of the village, at the line where the tall grass gave way to sandy soil. Thanks to our driver Ba Zimba’s quick thinking, the bus was no longer in the vicinity. The black landscape continued smoking.

I was amazed by the villagers’ cool reaction. Festivities resumed soon afterwards. Ba Lou remarked later that Zambians tend to take life as it comes, and they knew there was no way they could control the fire’s course. Plus, I’m guessing that wildfires are common in the dry season.

There were a few self-proclaimed drunkards roaming around and one especially who frequently interrupted the revelry. He even offered drugs to some of our group with impunity (of course they declined). The villagers must have deemed him at least somewhat innocuous, just laughing at rather than scolding him. It was fascinating to see what might be called the underbelly of Zambian society freely associating with the mainstream.

Playing with the village children was an experiment in nonverbal communication. I employed high fives, the game of tag, and big smiles to my advantage. Every time I attempted to say something in Tonga, they laughed heartily and then made me repeat the phrase over and over until they were somewhat satisfied with my pronunciation.

Accompanied by an entourage of dancers, the unsmiling bride left her hut in a white wedding dress and veil. She must display sorrow for the family she leaves behind, and it would be shameful to dance in front of one’s in-laws. A mock bride and groom walked next to the actual couple in order to confuse the spirits.

An energetic officiator led the bride and groom to seats of honor. He used a whistle to transition between parts of the ceremony, which included presentation of gifts, dancing, and a Christian prayer, the latter obviously a relatively new component of village weddings in Zambia. According to Ba Siaziyu, it is after this prayer that the couple is considered husband and wife. At one point, they fed each other and their in-laws pieces of cake, representing their reciprocal responsibility to take care of each other as well as the marriage of the two families. The officiator led Luke and Chris to seats of honor in the inner circle. After Ba Jeremy, Parker and Phil presented our gift of two nkuku (we ended up giving chickens, since the market didn’t have any goats), we left for Namwianga. Weddings are a whole-day affair, so the group leaders decided it was time to go.

The entire experience was surreal. We had actually danced with Zambian villagers and observed a whole slew of traditions and rituals we will never fully understand. We witnessed miniature snippets of real people’s lives: the woman who kept poking her baby with a small stick to stop its crying, the Zambian girl who begged me to take her picture again and again, the older grandmother who taught Parker how to dance and guffawed at the results, and the drunken man who told me that Zambian children are afraid of makua like makua are afraid of lions.

The combination of the smoke in my eyes, the burning sun, the forceful wind, and the flying dirt kept my eyelids screwed shut for the majority of the ceremony. While nursing my eyes behind sunglasses on the ride home, I thought about how physically taxing village life must be, where there is virtually no way to escape the elements. I contemplated seriously for the first time how my life would have been different if I had been born in a village like this one. There would be no culturally assumed forum for economic advancement, negligible personal identity, and monotony in my days and years. Yet at the same time, would I empathize more? Would I forge stronger relationships with family and friends? Would I want strangers at my wedding? Would I laugh more? Would I dance better?