Saturday, March 21, 2009

 

How to plan a Tanzanian Wedding

This week, we had an emergency meeting after chai at my school. Emergency means that it was called at the last minute and interrupted teaching. I was less annoyed than usual: for once, I had written my notes neatly enough that I could simply hand them to the class monitor to write on the board. At least my students wouldn't be too far behind because of the meeting.

The meeting's agenda:
1) The teacher's field trip to Lake Manyara Nat Park is still being planned.
2) There will be a party for students who did well on their Form II exams soon.
3) A teacher is getting married.

The third item was the actual reason for the meeting. The rest were just after thoughts, news to tell us while we were there. The actual news--and the bulk of the meeting--was about the wedding.

In Tanzania, you don't plan your own wedding. You get together a bunch of your friends/co-workers/neighbors and tell them you're getting married. Your friends then form a committee to plan your wedding. First they choose a chairman for the committee--people are nominated and a vote is taken, then that person is chairman whether they want to be or not. It's the same for the secretary and treasurer.

One of the biggest jobs of the wedding committee is to raise money. In Tanzania, the entire community funds your wedding. You send out cards asking for contributions, and may get anything between about $2 and $50 from a single person, depending on how well they know you and how much money they make. The average contribution from a co-worker at my school is about $8.

Then, your friends plan the wedding. They find the place where it will be held. They buy the food and cook. Of course they ask you for your input, but the majority of the planning is up to them.

So, we're planning another wedding. The fourth since I"ve been here. At least I"m not the treasurer this time.

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