Wedding Bells...or chants

So I was able to attend my first and probably last Namibian wedding this previous weekend.  Before I explain what all I saw and experienced, let me give a brief description on Namibian weddings based on what I have learned/been told.  Basically, weddings here are two days long.  On the first day, the actual wedding ceremony takes place.  From what I understand, this is very similar to our American wedding ceremonies.  Following the ceremony, people go to the bride’s family.  At this point, hundreds of people come to celebrate the couple (No invite needed. Heck you may not even know the couple), partake in traditional dancing and chanting, and eat a lot of food.  The following day, they do the exact same thing at the groom’s family with more food and possibly different people.

The portion of the Namibian wedding I attended I was the party on the groom’s side, which took place on Sunday.  I’m not 100% sure how Doctor is affiliated with the groom, but this is Namibia and everyone knows everyone somehow.  So basically, Sunday afternoon around 4, three of us piled into the bakki (me, Doctor, and his cousin Patrick) and headed to a neighboring village.  Doctor thought we may be late, but once we arrived, we learned that we were not.  In fact, the party hadn’t even really started yet.  There were a lot of people there, but the bride and groom still had not shown up.  At this point, we headed into the homestead and the guys greeted friends and other people they recognized.  Shortly after, we sat and waited for things to get rolling.  We had some meat and the guys were catching up and talking about past times (that’s what I was told, but I couldn’t tell you for sure because it was not English).

After about an hour, we left the homestead fence and walked to a big tree where people were crowding.  At this specific site, the bride and groom were seated with their wedding party close by.  Older memes were chanting and singing songs, and small girls were performing traditional dances.  This went on for about 30-45 minutes until the bride and groom stood along with a banner announcing their marriage and proceeded towards the feasting tent.  The couple walked around the homestead as guests followed closely chanting and dancing.  As they finished their rounds, they made their way into the tent, guests following behind.  Once in, there was music, food, and of course drinks.  For us, the night ended pretty early because I was tired, there was work the next day, and Doctor had to drive back to Omungwelume.

All in all, it was an interesting event, and although I was exhausted and a bit dehydrated, I’m glad I was able to experience this event before leaving Namibia.  In the future though, I will stick with a more intimate wedding ceremony.