I do

One of the things a person most anticipates when spending the better part of a year living in another culture is being included in traditional rights of passage. Well this past weekend, I got just that opportunity with an invitation to a Liberian wedding. But please erase any images of intricate of dowry exchanges overseen by village elders or elaborate bridal attire sewn by a bevy of wizened matrons. Like I’ve mentioned, the unyielding belief in witchdoctors aside, this is a very modern Liberian settlement and people pride themselves on outward displays of modernity and all things American.

The invitation announced that the ceremony would begin at “11:00 AM prompt” which in African time is about 12:30 PM. But being hopelessly western, we arrived at the church around 11:15 and waited around with the groomsmen and bridal party for the service to begin. The church slowly filled up with attendants, who were dressed in the most flamboyantly colorful attire I’ve seen yet. Some of the women were wearing the most outrageous headdresses - think gigantic shinny wrapping paper crumpled into a ball, placed on the head and then let to expand.

I think the best way to describe the service is to say it was like a Southern Baptist revival with an African theme. The Jesus music started as the guests filed in, and when the spirit caught anyone they would simply saunter up to the front of the house and join in the singing or more often dance in an utterly unself-conscious way. It was mainly the women, of all ages and sizes, who boogied up to the front together and you couldn’t help but smile at sense of freedom and sisterhood. If they were particularly impressed with the singer the guests would dance up to the front and stuff some money into her clothes; something I’ve seen done in blues bars on the South side of Chicago but which I know has African roots. The music went on for at least an hour and it was hard to keep still, but we kept ourselves to fanning our sweat to the rhythm. Other than the African dress, we could have easily been in a gospel church in rural Lousiana. At least until the Krahn (a Liberian ethnic group) women’s choir began to sing. They performed a traditional song that sounded almost ethereal in comparison to the gospel, and made me wish my voice recorded hadn’t been stolen a few weeks ago.

All of this chruchy stuff made us wonder if the wedding would ever take place. Then came the processional. And it made us wish that the church service would come back. The 4 bridesmaids literally took 20 minutes to walk 30 feet to the front of the room. It was a lazy kind of step-together-step choreography that took so long we kept exchanging glances of disbelief. Just when you felt their slow promenade was covering any distance, they would do a little shuffle in the opposite direction. I know all of this makes me sound very impatient, but trust me – when you’ve already sat through an hour long church service in 90 degree heat, a person only has so much tolerance for this stuff, no matter how romantic you are. Well, they finally made their way to the front and took their seats, men on one side and women on the other. After this the preacher came in with a sermon for the young couple that reminded me I was in modern Africa.

This guy was totally southern Baptist style, punctuating his points through repetition, loud impassioned growling into the microphone and stomping of the feet. As if all of these flourishes were not enough to drive home the point, after the preacher had made a particularly important insight (like Jesus died for your sins) a drummer would beat out a rhythm to emphasize his words. If the preacher was going for a more somber mood, the organist filled the background with a soft melody to cue us in on the mood change. The crowd played their part, by screaming out “preach on” or “he’s telling the truth” if a particular point rang true. I even heard a “wrap it up preacher” when it was getting a bit long (I love that last one).

So, the meat of the sermon (“ingredients for a successful marriage”) was just about as classic as his style. The first point was - keep Jesus central to your marriage. I won’t say I agree with that one, but it’s a fair enough argument. The second was to marry for true love, not for money, or beauty, or… “resettlement love”. (I.e. don’t marry someone because you think they may be about to be resettled in a wealthy country) I guess it’s a common enough occurrence to have a name attached to it, but it still raised a few eyebrows in our crowd. For the third point he addressed the men. “Talk to them preacher!” He gave a surprisingly feminist diatribe against treating your wife like a slave (don’t ask her to bring you water after she’s been cooking for you all day or wake her at night with “honey, ….”). But this argument was totally undone by his fourth point (“now I’m going to deal with the ladies” “deal with them preacher!”) – advising the women to “not be so lazy, and cook for your husbands like you should. And for god sake don’t make the rice too salty.” The fifth point was advising against dipping in “someone else’s well” no matter how tempting. Even if your wife’s boobs turn to “slipper boobs” (yup. He said that right there in the church) and you long to touch young “iron boobs” (oh, and he emphasized this point by grabbing imaginary breast) you should pray to Jesus to make the slippers feel like iron and should remember that it was you who turned them into slipper titties in the first place. The women erupted at this point with “halleluyah”s, “he right”s and laughter, and at that point I think he officially won them back. We were all too stunned to know what to think.

The last highlight of the ceremony, in keeping with the excruciating slow theme, was when after the exchange of vows Abraham finally lifted the veil from his new bride’s face. He took his time (probably for dramatic effect) rolling up her lace veil neatly in an upward motion with all the attention and care of a tobacco aficionado rolling a cigarette. It was totally comical. It took him about 5 minutes to lift the small veil half way up. Then, the veil slipped from his hands and he had to start the whole process again. But the kiss signaled the end of the ceremony, so we were all relieved.

After the ceremony, we headed to the reception. About 300 people showed up at the camp basketball court for food and speeches and dancing. However, the speakers blew part way into the first speech and so the guests, having eaten and gotten in enough revelry at the ceremony, promptly left. So, we ended up having a 4 hour ceremony and 40 minute reception – in an exact reversal of wedding celebrations at home. While I'm wouldn't have missed this for the world, I think I prefer it our way.