My African Wedding

I must say, that was probably the easiest wedding I've ever had (or attended I suppose, seeing as this is my first wedding). I'm sure it would've been much more fun if my friends and family had attended, but what can I do? That's what I get for getting married in Benin.

I'd love to post pics within this post, but the internet is wonky... You'll have to bare with me. If you make it to the end of this blog entry, god bless you. It's really long and I only make it to the ceremony. No info on the reception or the following day where we took Maman to the beach. You can check out the pictures on my Flickr site.

The night before the wedding, Mathieu was going to sleep at his mom's house and I was going to sleep at Bernadette's. She and I were going to do each other's nails and drink rosé and be girly. Mathieu was going to do some "traditional" stuff with his mom. "Elle va me laver," he said. I was kind of bummed - why wasn't I getting "washed"? What was this "washing"? Shouldn't we be doing it together??

When he saw that I was interested and sad that I hadn't been invited, he told me to come along. "On va aller chez maman la nuit - il faut se laver la nuit." Weirdo rituals the night before my wedding? I only hoped my skin wouldn't turn green or something.

I told Bernadette she would have to wait for me to return. She told me to go do whatever I needed to do.

Around 9pm, we arrived at Maman's house and hung out in the living room to watch TV. I kept looking at the clock and thinking... anytime we want to get this ball rolling, I've got girly stuff scheduled!!

Maman talked to Mathieu and blessed us (she often will start to pray and bless us, and the only way I know what she's doing is that Mathieu will suddenly look solemn and start saying "ah-min" after everything she says).

Suddenly the power went out. Maman stopped and we hung out waiting for the power to come back on. I played flashlight games with my cellphone's flashlight with Aïsha and Tania. The lights came back on and maman started her business again. Her son Jean brought in this white powder in a bowl, and I wondered if we would have to eat it or something, but nothing came of it.

Outside, it started to pour. "Oh no!" I thought. The rain means we can't leave for a while -- when it pours, you can't ride on a motorcycle.

Mathieu says that Maman says that the rain is a really good sign. It means God is happy with our union. I like making God happy. A happy God is a good God.

We watch some more TV and then Mathieu says, "Ok, we're gonna go wash now." I follow him into Maman's room where he starts to undress.

At this point, I start to get a little worried. Do people know what we're doing tonight? Or are they just going to walk into Maman's room while we're doing this? But I know Mathieu wouldn't let random people see me naked, so I get undressed and follow him to Maman's on-suite bathroom.

First, you have to understand that there's no running water at Maman's house. They have to get water from the well, so there's often lots of garbage bins full of water to flush the toilet and to bathe. Maman's bathroom doesn't have a shower or bath either. Her bathroom is comprised of a sink, a toilet, and lots of large bins of water. The pipes are all there to be connected to the city line, but it's the next step on her to-do list.

Those of you who wonder how you bathe without running water or a bathtub: take a large plastic bowl and fill it from an already-filled large bin of water. Dump it on your head. Lather your body with soap, and dump another bowl-full of water on your head. Repeat until squeeky clean.

That night, however, there was a new large bin in Maman's bathroom. This bin was filled with a yellow-ish water and there seemed to be stuff floating in it. I had to keep repeating to myself, "Don't ask, just breathe, don't ask, just breathe..." Mathieu dunked the bowl into the water and then dumped it on his head. He flung the plastic bowl back into the bin and rubbed the water into his skin like he was lathering it with soap. Then he dunked the bowl back into the water and dumped it back on his head. Little pieces of leaves would stick to his shoulders. The water smelled like medicated tea. He dumped water on himself one more time and stepped aside.

My turn.

I did as he did, except I didn't dunk the bowl into the bin with as much vigor, so as to avoid the leaves and "stuff" that were in the bin. Yellow water was all I needed, thanks. I dumped the water on myself thinking, "oh my god oh my god oh my god, don't inhale, and close your mouth!!" I "lathered" myself like Mathieu did and went again. This time it really drenched my hair and totally covered my face and I threw the bowl back into the bin and lathered again. The third time happened and then I realized that Mathieu wasn't toweling himself off.

"Il faut rester mouillé." I scolded him a little for letting me wear a white blouse and khaki pants to this affair (we'd gone to meet some "friends of the family" that he calls aunt and uncle eariler in the evening, and he told me to dress up for that), so he let me put on the traditional shirt he was wearing (which is nice and warm and kinda flannel-y) and I got back into my khakis. My hair was drippy and I was generally uncomfortable, but whatever.

Outside, it was still pouring. We went back into the living room and Maman smiled at us. Mathieu then told me that there was a part 2 to the washing, but we had to wait a while and I should just lie down on the couch and watch some TV. We snuggled on the couch and I fell asleep for about 45 minutes til he woke me up again. By now it was past 11:30pm and the house was completely quiet. It was still raining.

I quickly txt'd Bernadette to let her know this "ceremony" was on-going, and she txt'd back that there was no problem.

Mathieu led me out into the courtyard where Maman had built this large concrete cylinder with a large bowl up top, filled with "water". The concrete cylinder was decorated with "cori", small white seashells. There is also drippy brown liquid carefully splattered on it. Took me about a week to figure out it was animal blood. I'm not very quick.

Again I was worried someone would walk outside while we were doing this. Everyone's front door leads out into this courtyard, but there were no lights on and I suppose everyone was sleeping. It was dark and raining still, and the rain made it very cool outside. Plus, I was still wet from the previous "washing".

Mathieu got naked first and dunked his hands in the "drinking water" position into the bowl of water atop the concrete cylinder. He poured the water on his head and lathered, as before. I think he did this 3 times until it was my turn.

It was darker here than in Maman's bathroom, so I had no idea what I was pouring on myself. It didn't smell and I didn't see any weird colour in my hands, so I like to think it was plain old "blessed" water. When we were done, we put our clothes back on and went back into the living room. Maman smiled again and then headed outside to wash herself.

By the time we finished it was midnight and still raining. We fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 1am. Mathieu said, "Ok, let's go." We couldn't hear the rain anymore, but when we got to the end of the courtyard we saw that the rain was still falling quite heavily - just more quietly.

Mathieu unlocked the door to his room and we decided to sleep there. We'd never slept a night in his room before -- and it showed. There were no sheets, except there was some fabric laying around and there were pillow cases on the pillows. The mosquito net had been left up for months and was kinda gross, but he wiped it off and brought it down. He swatted at a few bugs while my eyes closed.

Just before I fell asleep I remembered that I should probably txt Bernadette. z z z z...

I woke up at 4am in a panic. OK! WE HAVE TO GO NOW! Mathieu grunted and I realized he wasn't going anywhere. I repositioned myself and went back to sleep til about 6am. I could hear some action in the courtyard outside and I really wanted to get a move on since I had to do all the stuff I didn't get to do the night before, like paint my nails and um, paint my nails? Drink wine?

Again, I relaxed. 15 minutes later Mathieu was ready to leave, but not before turning on his stereo full blast so that the whole house was filled with music. I thought, "Oh no, won't everyone be annoyed at having music this loud this early?" but no, just me. Everyone else was bopping their heads and getting on with their day.

As soon as we got home I showered. Washing myself with random liquid and then spending the night in a no-fan no-aircon zone made for a very gross Maria. I decided to wear my Hello Kitty tshirt and jeans for the getting-ready morning and Mathieu told me to pick something out for him. I love when he wears his greenish tshirt with his grey cardigan and jeans - so cute! At 7:30am we called Bernadette to see if she was up and about. Actually, I told Mathieu to call her cuz I didn't want to wake her up!

She asked if we'd had breakfast and invited us over for some yogurt and nut-granola. She made us coffee and gave us a couple fancy new cups (we've been drinking our coffee out of glasses) as a wedding present. Bernadette did SO much for us, we hardly needed another present, but she'll get them back when I move back to Canada, so it's actually a present to herself. :)

After breakfast I stayed at Bernadette's while Mathieu went to run some last minute errands. She started to do my nails and then let me know that she wasn't actually used to do doing nails. I laughed and told her to hand me the brush. I spent all of first year university learning to give myself manicures, so I'm pretty much an expert.

Then she left to go to the Cyber to print out "something" and I went to get my hair done around 11am. Mathieu was already at the salon and kept calling to see where I was and why I wasn't getting a move on. I had to keep reminding myself that this wedding was important for him because it was his family and friends... mine were far away and it's probably why I had more of a "whatever" kind of attitude.

Then the guy who was lending us his car arrived and wondered where the girl who was supposed to decorate it was. Apparently he thought it was a bad idea for us to decorate the car at Maman's house because it had to be a surprise. So then I had to make calls back and forth between Mathieu who just wanted things to go HIS way and Jean who thought it was a horrible idea and wanted things to happen promptly and his way. By the time we arrived at the hair salon, we'd decided he would drive the car to Marie-Joséphine's house nearby and Caroline (Diana's older sister and Mathieu's niece - who is older than he is) would go decorate it at her house. Everyone was fine with that and I went in to get my hair done.

The ladies stared at my head and were excited to give me something "different". Oh no. Not something different. I explain to them that my hair curls naturally and goes into ringlets naturally. They understood I wanted ringlets and showed me curlers. I told them that my hair curls without curlers. I explain that I have these little flowers that I'd like to put in my hair. One of the ladies starts to do little braids and little sections on the side of my head that I really like. I start to relax, thinking that whatever they do I can fix later.

Four products later and when I try to fluff my hair my hand comes out incredibly gunky. One lady does these spikey things down the side of my face and then starts to flatten these curly-type flat bangs on the front of my forehead. I'm not sure I can adequately explain how stressed I was getting. Then they tell me to sit under the dryer. And sit. And sit. I could feel my hair hardening with every moment. I wanted to scream. MY HAIR ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HARDEN. I wanted soft curls!! SOFT CURLS!!

I touched my face and the spikey "side-burn" things were completely stuck to my face. I started to have some sort of panic attack. The lady sensed it and let me out from under the dryer. I sat back down in the chair. The lady who was going "let's make you different" crazy said, "Que tu es jolie!" OOH no. NO NO NO NONO.

"Ce n'est pas du tout ça que je voulais." Sorry ladies. Get the water out, and grab that diffuser over there and we're going to do this my way. We can do "different" some other time. NOT on my wedding day.

I left feeling much better about the whole ordeal. I left knowing that I could still make it look even better once I got home.

Mathieu was done about the same time I was (looking very dapper), and we walked back to Maman's house. It was 1pm and Caroline was supposed to have been there at 11am to decorate the house and the car. She was no where to be found. Several calls later and finally she was there and then she was off to decorate the car.

Mathieu and I almost got into an argument over all the decoration craziness, but then we realized that we were arguing over stupid stuff and relaxed again.

Mathieu's brother Alphonse drove us home to get ready. I went over to Bernadette's who lives behind us, and Mathieu stayed home. "Do you know how to tie a tie?" I asked. Nope.

I had asked Jean to buy Mathieu a plain white tie and hankie. I was sad that Mathieu's dad wasn't around to help him on our wedding day. I told him he could probably ask Jean-Paul, our driver, when he came to pick me up.

At Bernadette's I fixed my hair some more and grabbed her scissors to make some adjustments to the haircut I'd gotten on Thursday (another time when the man stood there and stared at my head for 5 solid minutes, not quite knowing what to do). Soon my hair was as close to perfect as it was going to get, and I had to leave it alone. I got half dressed and started to apply makeup.

Soon it was 3:30pm and Jean-Paul was knocking at our door to see if we were ready. FIVE MORE MINUTES! I frantically grabbed the nail polish to give all my nails a final top coat, so that they were all even and pretty. One last sip of wine, and one last look in the bathroom mirror. Through the bathroom window in Bernadette's apartment you can see into our apartment (fairly clearly, actually). I could see Mathieu walking around with his nieces getting stuff ready. Soon JP was knocking at the door and helping him on with his tie. He looked so dapper from afar, I couldn't wait to see what he looked like close up.

Finally I was ready to go and Bernadette and I hopped into the car with JP. It was 3:50pm, but Mathieu hadn't left yet.

As we drove along the road, we noticed a bicycle in the middle and a girl was laid down on the road, a splatter of blood under her. Someone was helping her up and off the road. I quickly prayed for everyone's safe arrival at my wedding and hoped she would be ok.

Knowing that we were ahead of Mathieu, we parked the car a little further away from the City Hall office and waited in the air conditionned comfort. It was a beautiful hot sunny day.

Marie-Joséphine, my Director at work and the other witness at our wedding (besides Bernadette), was awaiting our arrival and quickly had a conference with Bernadette while she stepped out of the vehicle to take pictures of our ride.

Soon the actual wedding photographer pulled up beside our car and started to snap pictures of me in the vehicle until Mathieu arrived and he went to greet him. JP moved our car forward and pulled up to the wedding hall. Another wedding was just finishing and it was a wedding much like ours - a white girl to a Beninese boy, except there were a ton of white people outside this wedding.

A wave of jealousy washed over me as I longed for my friends and family. I took comfort in thinking that I looked better in my white suit than her in her big white dress and let the car move forward til she was out of sight.

Mathieu opened the car door and helped me out of the car, except when we got in the hall, we were the first ones there. So we sat where we were supposed to sit, as did our witnesses, and waited as the hall filled up. Oh Benin -- no one is ever on time here.

By 4:20pm, 2 ladies had already come by to see if we could start the ceremony, but Mathieu's mother was still not there. Mathieu kept asking for family members to find out if she was on her way. Fashionably late, she arrived around 4:30 and finally the ceremony started.

The photographer and videographer did their thing throughout the ceremony. The "Chef d'arrondissement" Brice Chanhoun (pronounced Chaoun) did a great job on officiating, although I wished he had spoken more Fon considering the amount of people in the room that barely spoke French. He went through all the rules in Benin around marriage, talked about our responsibilities towards one another. He asked Mathieu if he was marrying me willingly and asked me the same. Then he asked me to talk a bit about why I was marrying Mathieu. So I said a little shpiel and the ceremony went on -- but I totally got gyped!! He never asked Mathieu the same question!

Finally he asked the witnesses to give their little bit of advice to us. Marie-Joséphine talked about commitment and how each of us was representing each other's country. Bernadette spoke about how beautiful our relationship was, and then she invited Marie-Joséphine to read a message from my mom, she read a message from my dad (in English, translated by Marie-Joséphine) and then a message from Pierrette, my nanny growing up, my 2nd mom. Tears welled in my eyes but I managed to keep myself under control. No one in attendance actually knew me or has known me for over 5 months... a very strange feeling.