sorry as usual about the length between blogs, to add to the confusion, I am going to skip over my vacation north (which was AMAZING, will get to that soon), and dive into the wedding that took place in my town (specifically in my backyard) the other day. I live in a little gated compound with my host family (ooh fancy, I know), and their son came up from Antananarivo for three days of wedding related festivities. Not only were there lots of new people and faces, but as this was a Muslim wedding I was able to get a crash course on two cultures at once! Multitasking at its finest.
The first two days were fun and filled with lots and lots of food... I winnowed more rice in these three days that in my entire stay in Mad so far. The best was that every half hour someone how to comment on how gaga I was over the amount of rice (which I hadn't noticed until they pointed it out), and then they would all laugh... over and over. Rice and beans and coconut, freshly slaughtered beef - a friend gave me a raw chunk to season with salt and then cooked it over the coals for me.. I managed to only eat about half of it, as visions of tapeworms danced in my head.
The third day was the actual ceremony, so we ate breakfast (tea and bread), prepared lunch, and then headed to the outside of the mosque to watch the procession of the men from the mosque back to the house. Everyone was wearing their finest lamba, bright colors and sequins sparkled as we walked together and clacked wooden sticks. Back at the house I sat through a couple hours of a ceremony in mixed Arabic and Malagasy, followed by more food, and traditional dancing. I took a break around 4 to go watch the boys play soccer, watered my garden, ate dinner, and just when I thought things were winding down (around 8), I heard singing in Arabic. Out beneath the tent sat two lines of men, singing and doing a traditional Islamic dance, while the women congregated behind and did their own chorus and dancing. I got to join for three hours of this (of course we ate bread and drank tea as well, wouldn't be proper without food), and I would have to say that it was the highlight of my time in Peace Corps thus far.
xoxo chan
The first two days were fun and filled with lots and lots of food... I winnowed more rice in these three days that in my entire stay in Mad so far. The best was that every half hour someone how to comment on how gaga I was over the amount of rice (which I hadn't noticed until they pointed it out), and then they would all laugh... over and over. Rice and beans and coconut, freshly slaughtered beef - a friend gave me a raw chunk to season with salt and then cooked it over the coals for me.. I managed to only eat about half of it, as visions of tapeworms danced in my head.
The third day was the actual ceremony, so we ate breakfast (tea and bread), prepared lunch, and then headed to the outside of the mosque to watch the procession of the men from the mosque back to the house. Everyone was wearing their finest lamba, bright colors and sequins sparkled as we walked together and clacked wooden sticks. Back at the house I sat through a couple hours of a ceremony in mixed Arabic and Malagasy, followed by more food, and traditional dancing. I took a break around 4 to go watch the boys play soccer, watered my garden, ate dinner, and just when I thought things were winding down (around 8), I heard singing in Arabic. Out beneath the tent sat two lines of men, singing and doing a traditional Islamic dance, while the women congregated behind and did their own chorus and dancing. I got to join for three hours of this (of course we ate bread and drank tea as well, wouldn't be proper without food), and I would have to say that it was the highlight of my time in Peace Corps thus far.
xoxo chan
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what an amazing experience - can't wait to see pics!
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