Welcome December - How to crash an Owambo Wedding



Alas! December is here, November was long and ardous. But just like an ugly step sister it (November) is crying a river. While the beautiful sister (December) rides off into the golden sunset with prince Charming.

In Namibia, December is associated with good things. It’s the onset of the crazy (Festive Season) season, families congregate to celebrate the end of the year and one can finally take a holiday. That being said it’s also the Season where people make it a point to peer pressure their single friends. By getting married, and boy do Namibians love weddings. I've witnessed ceremonies where more than 10 couples marry on the same day, how the pastor can put up with 10 prima donna brides giving each other jealous looks and over analysing each others dresses is beyond my comprehension.

December or #NamDecember as its known is just basically 31 days where its perfectly okay to get sloshed and go crazy like a white kid on ecstasy at a rave. I am no expert on marriage but I am an expert on how to enjoy a Wambo Wedding. So just call this an idiot’s guide to crashing a Wambo wedding.
The symbolic white flag


1. Get an Invite - To most light pigmented readers (laanies) this would be the most logical way to get in on a wedding. However the Owambos like other Bantu tribes believe that it takes a village to raise a child. So when that child grows up and decides to marry, best believe that the village will invite itself. Unlike western formality, this side of the hemisphere all you have to do is hoist a white flag atop the tallest tree in your homestead. That white flag is the universal Owambo signal for “Wedding at my place, join the celebration”.


2. Know someone who is part of the wedding party - There is nothing more embarrassing than standing in a corridor of a homestead hungry and thirsty after having showered the bride with ululations. That being said, knowing someone who is part of the wedding party is your ticket to the VIP. Knowing a bridesmaid or groomsmen is just like being buddies with the bouncer at the hottest club in town, absolute bliss.

3. Knowing the head of the homestead (house) - Some times its not necessary to know in whose house the wedding is being hosted, you just rock up and things unfold. During some other times, like when the food and drink distribution managers (old ladies who find importance in deciding who gets fed and who doesn’t) are being selective and ignoring your dry and thirsty lips, then it’s a good to be in cahoots with the head of the house. Because no self respecting Owambo man will have wedding attandedants starving in his house. It's not good for the ego to hear people talking the week after your son/daughters wedding and saying things like "kohango ho koIiyambo inatu lya ko sha" meaning "that pathetic wedding at the Iiyambo's was lame, we didn't eat anything there".

4. tagging along with a parent - This works wonders when I'm with my mom, Betty is very known in social circles. So it’s usually a guaranteed ticket to marathon chicken. Which is the only reason I go to wedding these days because I've outgrown potato salad. The flip side however is that you will be shown off to your parents friends like a monkey at a zoo, which is unpleasant when people ask funny questions like "are sure this boy is yours, he does not look like your other kids". I am not insecure by any means, but I already suspect I was adopted because I'm different from my siblings. Such comments don't help.

However sometimes my mom’s friends bring along their cute daughters, and make it a point to force introductions and play cupid. After all who would not want their daughter to end up with Betty's 2nd last born who has a higher degree that he obtained by flying over the ocean (Mothers can put lip gloss on a story). My Mom spices things by saying that I look at rocks to find diamonds and golds (boasting is not only restricted to teenage boys).

5. Tag along with a respected member of the community - this usually works great when your brother/sister/cousin is a teacher. Unlike the city where engineers and doctors attract respect and thirsty women like its going out of fashion, in the village its teachers who get upmost respect. They just have to turn up and people will start inquiring if "mernier" and his boys have eaten anything. Teachers can command the kind of respect at a wedding that president Pohamba fails to command from his ministers.

I'm sure there is a lot of confusion swiming in the thoughts of many who don't quite get an African wedding. People don't just rock up to a wedding expecting free food and a good time, Uuuhm. Okay, maybe on second thoughts, some people do. I mean potato salad, colored rice and coca cola were not common treats in a village, but that was before the dawn of the 21st century though. We are now very much advancing, even old grannies have cellphones these days and every village kid in secondary school has a face book profile.

What I'm trying to say is that people do not congregate anymore, unless it’s at a funeral or at a political rally during national election fever. So when a joyous occasion presents itself, the village rises to the occasion, it’s also the villager’s way of bestowing blessings on the couple. People will not have much to give but that potato salad and cold drink will bring a smile to them, make them feel noticed and esteemed to have been part of the occasion. It means when they go home, they will pray for your marriage and shower love onto you (if you are the bride and groom). As harry potter has taught us, love is the strongest magic of them all. Trust me: married people have it hard, when the elders start asking for grand-kids, they will need all the help you can get.
 
Weddings at our house, drama for days.


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