Our Gambian Wedding

Dillon and my recognized union as partners in the form of a Gambian wedding has been 8 years in the making, felt right, and was nice while not having to confront a fear of legalized U.S. marriage. It was also slightly pushed on us from Dillon's Gambian family because they wanted to have an excuse for a party and to have their beloved Dillon married under the eyes of the village. The first step we took was finding wedding fabric we could agree on, and getting fitted at a tailor. Next, Dillon and I made a list of needed items to feed people for 2-3 days: compound residents, guests, village visitors. I would have been stressed, but we just  arranged a donkey cart to meet us in the nearest town, Garawol, to haul the goods back to Sami Koto: Palm oil, rice, mayonnaise, tea (attaya), sugar, evaporated milk, produce, huge tub of peanut butter, and some matching head wraps for the family. We also arranged with his host father to have a resident goat be slaughtered for the event, of which I watched in the main courtyard. The food was really good, and the women worked really hard in the heat of the day cooking all this food over a fire.

Dillon also had a meeting with his family about Mandinka wedding rituals and which one's we felt comfortable with. One tradition is where the bride is taken into the bush and washed by an elder and told the village secrets. This would have been super cool, however, I can't understand a lick of Mandinka and they would not allow any non village women translators to come with me. And I wasn't sure all what "washing" entailed. The second one is where the bride has to stay in her hut for a week after the wedding. After Dillon and I visited two other Gambian brides, I decided this wasn't my cup of tea. It was so hot, the brides were exhausted from guests in their room, and I was already going out on a limb here.

Slowly Dillon's friends, of whom I became really close to, started arriving to Sami Koto. The first day three Peace Corps lady friends showed up to help me during the time when I was to be alone with village women (Dillon and I weren't supposed to see each other) by translating, and helping me figure out what the hell is going on. The first day we all dyed our feet in -Dillon’s sister- Seedah's hut with henna dye. It was really cool looking! Then once it cooled off enough all the women got together and started drumming and dancing! Dill and I were still not supposed to see each other, so we slept separately that night. At  2am, I could hear music, so a few of us wandered to the center of the village where two other brides were sitting and watching a bush monster dance.. It was really bizarre, but also also quite beautiful. The next day was the actual marriage, I didn’t know of any plan or organizing of the event, things just happened when they did and not in any specific order. Me and my cohorts were ushered into the middle of the compound where Seedah braided my hair. She is the best in town. I think it was really hard for her because of the obvious difference in hair texture and it was her first time working with my hair type. After a few hours, I was rushed off with a bunch of Gambian women and Dillon’s mom's to a random compound. It was funny because I could tell they wanted to be careful with me and weren't sure how to go about changing me into my wedding clothes. They put on my skirt, shirt, (Dill's mom sewed for me) put jewelery on me and then as a final touch covered my head with a hot, thick material. The fabric was really nice, but also turned my skin blue, so we joked about my similarity to an avatar. I met the two other brides outside, and as a huge group of women we walked to all the compounds in the village. We would go to each man in the compound, usually the grandfathers, and would bow to them. They would give each bride 5 to 10 dalasai (money). This whole time I was tripping, holding on to the woman next to me because I can hardly see under the head garb. Then, to my surprise I am led to another compound where there are a bunch of curious on-lookers waiting to greet me, the other brides, and to get a look at the other American guests. This time period is traditionally when the grooms are to search the village, like an easter egg hunt, for their bride. Haha but this message was not relayed to my groom. I sat there with my good friends Beth, Alyssa, Lizzie, and Paige laughing and kind of sighing in relief that nothing crazy happened. The last part of the wedding was actually meeting up with Dillon. We all walked back to Dill's compound and met him, but first, I had to "bow" to all the father's and mother's of the compound. Everything is kind of a blur after that, but I do remember a lot of of guests, I mean a lot, came to our hut to congratulate us and then a day or two after Dillon and I made our rounds to the New and Old Sami in our wedding garb. People were really nice and wanted to talk to us and also were generous by giving us bags of peanuts, and money. 

The rest of the time that I was in Gambia, I always wore my wedding necklaces and noticed I was treated differently. Women would randomly grab and admire them, calling out MANYO (bride), and I think people just appreciated that we respected their marriage traditions. Our Gambian honey moon was spent appreciating Gambia's own Stone Circles - Wasu, visiting PC friend's villages, getting a 101 african beekeeping lesson at BeeCause, and lastly spending a few days at an eco-resort called Sandele!