a wedding + various cultural vexations

It's funny how the most normal daily activity becomes a traffic-stopping spectacle--putting my contacts in, stretching before bed, doing anything at all on my laptop, I am the subject of interested/confused/weirded-out stares. Is it wrong to sometimes desire to just edit pictures in peace and do yoga without being judged?

I also find it interesting that we can eat bananas for lunch, and then have a banana for dessert…I wonder if I'm the only one who notices? But I suppose they're prepared differently, so it makes it okay--like having a toasted sandwich followed by bread pudding. The lunch-bananas are cooked in gravy, so, you know, no worries about balancing out the food pyramid--it's all good.

Most of all, it's extremely funny** how people decide to explain exceedingly simple things and then speak ridiculously fast and be completely incomprehensible when relaying important information.

**Read my personal use of the word "funny" as: often amusing, occasionally frustrating, usually making me feel like a 2 year old

for instance…

Tanzanian: [Swahili] Now this here is a river. River.

or

Tanzanian [Swahili]: You are eating bananas. We cook them.

versus

Tanzanian [Swahili]: I need you to blah blah blahblah, make sure to blah blah blah blah blah before 2:00 because if you are late blahblahblah blahblahblah!!

Then when realizing I'm not getting what they're saying, invariably the person chooses to translate the one word that I did understand in their sentence.

Tanzanian [Swahili]: Blah blah blah your clothes blah blah blah.

Me [Swahili]: Sorry, say it again?

Tanzanian [Swahili, emphatically]: Blah blah I want to blah blah blah your clothes, blah blah blah blah.

Me: Eh??

Tanzanian [English]: Your clothes!!

Me: *frustration*

I understand that the subject of your instruction regards my clothes. Now I want to know what you want me to do with my clothes. How about slowing down with the verb conjugation, tenses, negation and object infixes that are all crammed into one agglutinative word, not the elementary nouns. And I learned how to say banana like my first day. 

A lot of times, things are also said in a colloquial way that when translated literally sounds ridiculous--I'm sure we have the same things in English--but I regularly feel like an idiot, and respond with a bewildered look, thinking I'm misunderstanding what they're saying, but after they translate exactly what I thought I heard them say, I realize the point of the statement was simply phrased in some cryptic way.

For example--you try to figure out how to respond to the following questions, and see if my responding thoughts are not invalid:

- How are you continuing?…...………(continuing what??)

- You are in the room?………….….…(yes, you can see I am standing in this room with you…)

- [upon greeting] You have said?….….(?!?!?!)

Yeah.

Ok so last Saturday I went to my first Tanzanian christian wedding! 

I had been to an Islamic one in Zanzibar--crazy different: women and men are in separate ceremonies, everyone sits on the floor in a big room, and a taarab choir sings for hours while the women get up and dance in front of them waving money around before they stick it on the musicians foreheads! The bride, face powdered white and dressed in a shiny fluorescent green gown, only came in at the very end for a few minutes to take pictures with everyone.

This wedding had the outline of a typical American christian wedding, but was infused with vibrant African liveliness. A dancing choir preceded the wedding party as they walked down the aisle, while the guests cheered and…um I don't know the word to describe what they do--I think they call it kupiga kelele (make noise) like yipping "HEI HEI HEI!" (haha someone help me out…) During the reception, guests got in a conga line to dance their gifts up to the front and shake hands with the bride & groom. 'Gifts' is truly an all-inclusive term--people were carrying anything from money and nicely wrapped gifts, to plastic chairs and rolls of aluminum roofing…the highlight was when people came down the aisle carrying a fully-assembled and mattress-ed wooden bed above their heads:

(thanks mom & dad!)

They did not, however, bring in the 3 goats that the bride's sister gave the newlyweds. Wise move.

This precious child was sitting in the front with me--the flower girl in the wedding--but I found out that she and her sister are orphans. In fact I think they are some of the girls that are being considered for the orphanage when it opens, so I might get to live with them…!Right now they are living with their grandmother far outside the city. Both were shy initially, but fortunately my favorite pastime is winning the hearts of the bashful. 

James kept coming around from the aisle behind to sit with me--another initially shy kid, hiding his face in his grandma's lap, but I charmed him :) Also living with his grandmother, his parents just got back from spending the last 2 years working in the States at the church's office there--they had to leave him here so he could start school and not be held back by switching from American to Tanzanian school system. While in town they're staying at the pastor's house with me too, but now he's afraid of them because he hasn't seen them in years…really hard!

chillin in my room at home…he's quite inquisitive and destructive with all my possessions

Also the week before this, my Libyan friend Rabia visited from Zanzibar (we went to the Taasisi together). We visited Arusha National Park and saw a decent amount of animals, went to a snake zoo and wore a live snake as a necklace, rode camels, crashed the grand opening of a hotel restaurant to get free pizza and coffee, and here we are dressed up in regal Masaai attire

Some of my sweet notes from students this week:

I love you Linzi 

I wish you are orait Linzi now that you are happy with your new life

Rachel

and God bless you

I love you my teacher

Thank you for teaching us

I thank you my teacher for

teaching us God bless your fami

ly and I am belive God will

bless your family In Jesu

s we belive and we

trust lord and is the lord of

might

(From Praise 

to Linzi I give you)

Dear 

my freind Linzi I love you so much Because to

day you are give good things to do. me friend I love you

Linzi

but remember I love you so much.

I remember.