A Tuareg Wedding from Beginning to End

 So, I've mentioned that my friend Aminata got married, in fact it's been a while now.  However, I've now stolen some pictures from Chantelle, and am now posting a little picture play-by-play of a Tuareg wedding, from beginning to end!

The Thursday before the wedding (Saturday) I had the privilege of helping Mariama, the older sister of the bride, and some cousins and friends, to help move all of Aminata's stuff into her new house and set it up and decorate it!  This is the back of my truck full of her things--bed, dresser, new kitchenware, etc.

  We picked up the bed from this uncle--his shirt made my day.  If you can read the small print, this is what it says: "n. [colloq.] Canadian term for right?, okay?, please, maybe, thank you, how about it?, don't you?. Used after a statement or question.  Said with spirit and pride even to Americans and other visitors."

Mariama and I assembled the bed--yep, we're pretty amazing!  In fact, I have yet to hear that it's fallen apart, so I think we must have done a pretty good job! 

 Upon our arrival, we went and greeted the bride--she spent the day in this room.  At this point, she was just about to have her hair braided in the traditional Tuareg style.  According to tradition, the woman who does the braiding must be a married woman who has never been divorced.

Aminata had had her hands and feet henna-ed the day before.  This is probably the coolest, most amazing henna I've ever seen!

After visiting with the bride we headed to location #2, across the street, where we joined the party of young people--I even got suckered into dancing and let me assure you, this white girl can't dance to save her life!

After a while, we returned to visit the bride.  Her hair was done and now all the was left to do was to kill time until much later that evening.  I showed Aminata the pictures I'd taken of the party that was going on outside in her honor.  I even showed her the video of me trying to dance--yes someone had the foresight to film it.  I know you're all dying to see it, but the sad news folks is that my internet is too slow up upload embarrassing videos of myself.

Tradition also states that the bride must spend the day looking sad and somber, so why is Aminata killing herself laughing in the picture?  Well, she claims that it's all my fault, even though I can't remember what I said or did to invoke such laughter, but I think the take away from this is that I am hilarious.

 Late afternoon, the party began to die down.  Some people went home and called it a day.  Otherwise returned to their houses to exchange their wedding wear for their fancy evening wear to be part of the party that would accompany Aminata to her new house and waiting groom.  We however stayed with Aminata and participated in nap time!

Hour nine and the insanity begins to set in.  It's at this point that I suggested to Aminata that we could sneak her out and go to a restaurant for cold drinks and have her back before anyone noticed.  She agreed until she realized I wasn't kidding.  So we didn't go because one, tradition dictates that she can't leave and two, I was by this time, shoeless for the second time that day.

The hour is nigh and it's time to get the bride all dolled up for her grand debut!

 Voila!  The beautiful bride is ready!

 Aminata was then tucked away in her family's house, with her head and face complete covered by the traditional blue veil, awaiting the arrival of an entourage sent by the groom to pick up his bride.  When the group of friends arrived, they tried to get into the hut to get her, but it was the girls' job to keep them away from the bride until the friends of the groom had paid up.  Yep, that's right, a bribe for the bride.

These are our confused/worried faces.  Why are we confused and worried?  For one, we were crammed into the bedroom of the newly weds with a million other people who were all shouting at each other.  Secondly, they were shouting at each other because the groom wasn't there!  The girls demanded to know where the groom was and why on earth wasn't he waiting to welcome his bride?! The friends of the groom claimed that the groom was shy and wouldn't come until all the women left, and so we broke out into a loud chant, calling out, "On est la!  We are here!"  Don't mess with us....okay, well in the end we lost the battle.  Leaving her two closest friends with her, all the rest of us filed out and headed home...a little anti-climactic, if you ask me.

So there you have it folks, a Tuareg wedding from beginning to end!  It was definitely a cultural experience filled day.  It also invoked a variety of emotions.  Happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, pity, love, the need to protect...  I'll be honest, I've been to several other Tuareg weddings.  This was my first one that I went from beginning to end, and I will probably not attend all 11 hours of the wedding festivities again, until another one of my VERY close friends ties the knot.  But I'm very glad that I got to walk through this experience with Aminata.