The Dowry of Dogomadji (Emelie's last name and a nicely alliterative title, but now it's all messed up because I had to explain it to you, thanks a lot 🙄)

Post-ceremony dancing with the bride

Since my meeting this afternoon was postponed until an undetermined time in the future, I have a bit of time to write up the events of the dowry ceremony before I forget them completely in the next few days due to old age and chronic lack of sleep. 

I don’t always get lots of chances in Chad to attend cultural events like weddings and dowry ceremonies. I have a weird work/travel schedule. But I do like getting to be a part of these events because they’re usually interesting and fun. In this case, I didn’t just get to attend a dowry ceremony as the awkward foreign friend invited along to give her a bit of fun, but I was an active participant in the ceremony. 

The most difficult zipper to do by myself,
so I used a coat hanger.

Some background: my friend and colleague, Emelie (mentioned frequently in this blog) is marrying an American who cannot be here in Chad due to coronavirus and other difficulties making it impossible for him to travel at the moment. As Emelie’s sole American friend in Chad, she asked me to stand in for her fiancé’s family. I would have attended with him as a sister if he could have come (we’ve met and we are friends in real life too), but she wanted me to stand in for his mother, as the dowry ceremony is more about families of the bride and groom than about the bride and groom themselves. So now I’m Emelie’s dowry mother in law, and I’ve been told she has to respect me. Apparently before it was optional, but now—I have power. 

Moussa and Nadji insisted on a pre-ceremony meeting the day before
the dôte to make sure we were ready. Joe attended because he takes these meetings very seriously.

Lead up to the dowry ceremony involved Emelie bringing many things to my house—suitcases full of stuff, crates of bottled soda, money, etc. I also went to two meetings with her pastor. I had a dress made in fabric she chose and a design she chose as well. I was also warned strongly, after making too many jokes, not to say ANYTHING until I was told to, and then only to say what I was told. But I will say in spite of all of that,  I did get to make a speech all by myself on the spot in 3 languages to WILD APPLAUSE. Wild. Applause. There were cheers and whistles. For real. I am THAT GOOD. At saying two sentences in Emelie’s tribal language. The rest of the speech was not important. 

Pika inspecting the stuff while Lea is packing it up.

The day of the dowry ceremony, I had the dress and the head wrap and permission to wear my own shoes (since I do not own any light purple heels, as previously established), but I realized that I do not know how to tie a head wrap. I made some attempts, documented them kindly to give some fodder to my friends and family for mocking me, and then called Emelie to ask if she could give me the phone number of a mutual friend who lived nearby to come help me tie up the hair. She reminded me that people from the office, including Marthe, were coming to my house to drive to her house together. I knew Marthe would be up to the task of fixing the head wrap, but before she could even get there, Nadji arrived with his wife and daughter, and his daughter Gloria fixed it right up. Marthe came along a bit later and tucked in bits and made it better, according to her. I just let them tie it on and wished I hadn’t washed my hair that morning because what is the point when it is going to be completely covered? 

My head wrap attempts: the undone topknot, the post-shower towel,
the pirate, the bunny rabbit

Moussa overcome by how amazing my head wrap looked.

Gloria hard at work

She fixed it!

I was told by Emelie that the ceremony started at 9:00. I told everyone to be at my house by 8:30. I myself was ready by 8:15. Moussa, also participating as an American because unexplainable reasons, was also ready and laughing at my attempt at a head dress. He said, “No, no really it looks great…” before collapsing on the couch laughing. I did not believe him. Nadji, Tabita and Gloria showed up around 8:40ish. Tabita widened her eyes at my head dress and immediately sent Gloria into action. Marthe showed up around 9:00, but apparently Dieudonne and Christian were also coming and we needed to wait for them. Also, I had thought that we were going to Emelie’s church, but no, we were going to her house, even though I know her pastor had told me the plan was to do it at the church. Emelie, “Of COURSE it’s at my house it CANNOT be at the church! Why do you not know that?” Me: “Oh maybe because I’m not from here and I don’t know everything!” Emelie had a couple of “dôte-zilla” moments (thanks to Naomi for coining the word from the French word for “dowry”), but it’s understandable considering the stress that comes from planning such events. She also yelled at me the day before for not having a photocopy of my passport to give to the guy coming from the city office as a witness, which apparently I should have KNOWN I needed in spite of never having been a representative in a dôte before. I was all ready to defend my ignorance and insist SHE should have told me a day earlier so that I could have been prepared, but before I could get to it,  Moussa calmly took my passport and went to get it photocopied along with his ID since he also needed his for the ceremony. It’s really nice to have calm, patient people around when in the middle of stressful party planning. Anyway, don’t worry: Em and I are all good. And she has to respect me now because I’m her fake mother in law. 

Selfies while we waited for everyone to arrive

The ladies

At 9:00 when we should already have been at Emelie’s house for the ceremony, you would think that the one Westerner (I mean me) would be stressing about the lateness of our party’s imminent arrival at the other party’s party, but I wasn’t. This could be because I grew up in a culture where “jam karet” (“rubber time,” aka flexible timing) is a thing, and I rarely allow myself to be stressed out by the thought of arriving late (unless it’s to the airport). But actually, as I said to Nadji when he was concerned about time—“they can’t start without us! We are the ones bringing the stuff for the party!” And they all laughed and said I was right. Finally at 9:30 we all departed and made it to Emelie’s house before 10:00. I was driving so it could have been faster, but Nadji was in the back of my truck with three crates of glass soda bottles and I tried to be careful.

Packing up the truck to go to Emelie's

When we got to Emelie’s house, the tent was up outside in her courtyard and the couch/thrones for the parents (including me!) were outside and about 50 of her family members were gathered around (I’m sure we were all less than 50 because of coronavirus rules, but I’m also sure that no one counted). We unloaded the stuff, and we (the ladies) all ululated and carried in the stuff where Emelie’s female relatives all took up the cry. Ululating is really fun, and I’ve always known I would be good at it, but it’s not something you can practice without looking like an idiot because you don’t just go around ululating for no reason. It’s not like whistling tunelessly under your breath while you’re working. It must be done at full volume. Technically there are people who do it at church, but never having been one to “Amen” the pastor in my own cultural context, I feel like ululating in church in this cultural context doesn’t fit my persona either, so like I said, I don’t have many opportunities to practice. Luckily, I have been genetically gifted with powerful lungs and the ability to make noise as needed. And in settings when it is actively encouraged, I can participate effectively.

Off-loading at Emelie's

We put the stuff in the middle of the mat under the tent, and then Moussa and I took the Mother and Father of the groom thrones next to Emelie’s parents in the Mother and Father of the bride thrones. We sat there for a few moments of introductions by the MC, Florent (a cousin of Emelie’s whose wedding I went to last year). Then we were all invited down to sit together around a special carpet with some of Emelie’s male relatives. She doesn’t have any brothers so it was cousins who were there representing her. One of them I know and like, and the other I know and really have some serious issues with his behavior in the past, but for Emelie, who is wonderful, I played nice. Sometimes I can do that. 

Emelie's parents in the thrones, plus her auntie

The stuff with Florent as MC in the background

We all sat around and there were speeches and prayers and the cousins gave their speeches in Guley, Emelie’s tribal language for her family. They translated to French after, as no one representing the groom’s side is from Emelie’s tribe. We were a group of Nanjere, Kwang, Ngambaye, Sarh, and Moundang, plus one American passport holder. All of our side speeched directly in French. And then they saved me for last, hoping that I would have learned a thing or two from listening to other people’s speeches. I gave my two sentences in Guley that I’ve been practicing to, as I mentioned before, WILD APPLAUSE. Then I told them since they speeched in Guley for their tribe, I would speech in English in honor of the Americans whom I represented, which I did, before finishing with a brief “petite résumé” en français at the end. 

Sitting on the rug, ready for speeching

After the speeches, there was a brief awkward pause when everyone looked pointedly at me, and I had no idea why. Tabita whisper-yelled at me to get the money, which I did. I handed over an envelope of money in local currency and in American dollars. I had a moment of panic that they were going to make a big deal that we hadn’t brought enough money. After all, Emelie’s family is quite large, and she’s important, and we hadn’t brought any cows with us, and what if I was supposed to bring a cow, but no one told me (like they didn’t tell me to bring a photocopy of my passport)? Tabita assured me that we were fine, that we had brought more than the amount required by law, and it would be ok. Emelie’s cousins, meanwhile, were struggling to count the US dollars. The cash was in various denominations and they kept coming up with different numbers, and no one asked me to help, so I figured I should stay out of it. Florent, the MC, while waiting for the counting, smirking into the crowd said “I guess counting American money is like counting votes in an American election—it must be done over and over again to get the right number.” I laughed for 10 minutes, but no one else seemed to get the joke. Florent appreciated my appreciation for his comedy. And by the time I was done laughing, the guys were done counting, and we moved on to the next portion of the ceremony.

Counting the money like votes in an American election (still funny)

The bride’s attendants came out with a large wooden bowl that was empty. (Note: Emelie did not come out at all during the whole ceremony.) They said: “it is customary for us to bring out a bowl of water, and everyone drinks water from the bowl, but because of this covid-19, we are not going to do that. We have individual glasses of water for everyone.” So you see, Covid-19 awareness is really helping prevent the spread of communicable diseases through common water bowls at ceremonial events—not all bad! (Though I’ve frequently drunk from communal water bowls and never gotten sick—thanks, parents, for raising me in Indonesia with only half-hearted attempts to convince me to brush my teeth with filtered water and never drink from the tap.) 

The attendants coming in with my cool new giant wooden bowl

They handed the glasses to everyone, and I took a genteel sip, as befitted a genteel lady, before I noticed everyone else was drinking it down. So I chugged quickly to catch up, and put the empty glass on the table with everyone else like I knew I was supposed to do it all along.

Serving the water

Tabita got to drink from the little bowl, 
which we all would have shared except that Covid has improved
our cultural hygiene

The bridal attendants inspected the stuff in the suitcases (which I happen to know they bought and packed in the suitcases because they did it at my house), took the envelope with the money in it and went back to Emelie to discuss. Of course, they know that she knows everything that is there because she arranged for all of this stuff to be purchased and prepared. I realized after speaking with the ladies that it isn’t just because the fiancé isn’t here that Emelie knows everything that is in the bags. Even in a normal relationship where both members of the couple are in town, the woman goes to purchase the stuff while the fiancé trails behind her with the money. I don’t think these ladies trust their future husbands to give them the right kind of surprise at a serious ceremony like the dôte. I said, “So basically, at the ceremony you are approving stuff you already approved when you chose them at the market?” “Yes,” she said, smiling indulgently at me because I’m clearly ignorant. 

Organizing all the stuff the day before the dôte at my house

The ladies came back with the money and said, “While we would like to keep this money for ourselves, we leave it for the family, and instead we take this soap and perfume.” (The soap and perfume having been taken out of the front pocket where they had put it the previous day for easy access.) I’m guessing this is the traditional speech to make at that time. To my understanding, the next day, Emelie’s family and any unmarried girls from the fiancé’s family (sorry to all of them who are in the US), come together at Emelie’s house to take presents from the suitcases, which were full of shoes, make up, cloth, soap, perfume, sugar, and other stuff I can’t remember. I wasn’t allowed to go because I was the fiancé’s mother, but I’m sure it was a lot of fun.

Emelie's parents--isn't her dad cool with his walking stick and his hat!

The adorable Daniela, daughter of Emelie's cousin,
the equivalent of a flower girl, I guess.
She knows she's cute and she knows how to work the camera!
We love her.

After the bridal attendants went back to Emelie’s room, we all prayed and ululated again. Speeches were made about the unity of our families forever, and I was given the large wooden bowl (placed on my head), and we danced out the front gate. Then, we broke protocol and danced back in to see Emelie, which isn’t tradition, but we are all her friends and wanted to see her. We danced around with her in her room for a bit. She looked amazing, hair and make up and pretty dress and I hope that she went out later to celebrate with her family because it seems like a waste to keep her hidden when she looks THAT GOOD (unless that was the point?). 

I love this photo of Emelie because she is so full of joy and we were laughing and dancing

This one shows off the dress more though

Blurry dancing photo from Moussa, I think

We didn’t stay long with Emelie. We piled back into the truck and drove to our office, followed by Emelie’s family members bringing food for us. We wanted to have the party in the office so that all of our colleagues who had to work and couldn’t come with us (it was a Friday) could eat with us. Traditionally the food comes to the fiancé’s family house.

It's over! We finished our duties and we are off to get some food!

Lea dropped off the food at the office for us

It was very delicious!

All gathered around the food

It was delicious food, but I knew we wouldn’t have enough plates sent by Emelie’s family, so I waited to make sure everyone had plates, and then I got an extra plate from our office kitchen and joined in. Kadessou (the new Chadian Country Director) asked me, “Amanda, how long have you been in Africa?” I said, “I first moved to South Sudan in 2013.” He said, “Oh, you seem like someone who was born here. You really get us.” And I think that was the best compliment I had all day. Better than wild applause. And I am thankful for my strange, international, multicultural upbringing that has led to to this strange, international, multicultural family that I have.

And now some more photos, grâce à Moussa for those who made it this far and are still interested:

Me showing Marthe my head wrap attempts.
She said, "Some of these are ok."
She did not say that about the bunny rabbit look.

Another blurry dancing photo

I handed off the bowl to Marthe so I could really dance for a bit

Not sure who took this photo, but Moussa insisted we needed one with a Bible in it.

This is like one of those photos where you find a ghostly image in the background and get all freaked out,
but the white thing is actually me.

Thank you, Moussa, for this really important photo that you took and posted on Facebook.

Also thanks for this one. The world definitely needed to see this.

Socializing

Fatime stuffing me with sweets.

Depending on the country you live in, you get one day or two days or three days holiday after Ramadan to celebrate the Eid (or Idul Fitri, the bastardized Bahasa version of the Arabic). This holiday was one I dreaded as a child because it meant I had to dress up in fluffy clothes and pinchy shoes with my hair twisted into painful curls to go house-to-house visiting my parents’ friends. We would sit awkwardly on their couches, eating Idul Fitri snacks, greeting hundreds of thousands of people (Java is one of the most densely populated islands on earth, and there are always hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, all the time) with hands pressed together, in the traditional way. I actually really liked the garlic peanuts and the little cheese cookies. I didn’t mind the orange powder juice we were served either. Also, as children without a TV, it was always kind of entertaining to watch other people’s TVs. But one never knew how long these visits were going to last or how many visits my out-going mother and her slightly more introverted husband would try to cram into one day, and I never liked being forced to wear a dress.

I think my parents realized the futility of trying to photograph
us all dressed up for the visits, so here is a recreation from memory.
Though I got bored drawing ruffles so imagine that Joanna and Marian's
dresses are appropriately bedazzled. Our hair is not naturally curly--
it was a result of maternal abuse.

A nice sample of some good Indonesian Idul Fitri treats.
I miss it a lot.

Since those days, I’ve lived in many other Muslim countries and forced myself to dress up and visit and eat cookies. It’s amazing how long the influence of your parents stays with you. (It’s also interesting to note things that didn’t stick, despite their best efforts, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I tried on Fatime's hair. How do I look? (FYI: I'm the one
in the grey shirt, in case you couldn't tell.)
Also, Fatime told me yesterday that she is going to get me
a "hat" like hers. I'm afraid she means a wig like this one,
in which case I might have to wear it in public for her sake.
Please understand that I'll only be culturally appropriating
African-style hair to make an African happy.

This year I only had one Eid visit, as opposed to the billions of visits I used to have in days of yore (thanks, Mom).  I wore a skirt, but as I buy my own shoes now, I do not currently own any pinchy ones. (If I have to wear shoes that cover my toes for an extended period of time, I will make you suffer with me as I whine incessantly about it.)

I actually had several Chadian visits over the holiday weekend, which is not normal for me, as my all-day job makes it hard for me to carve out time to build relationships outside of work, and also Introvert Amanda often resists most efforts to engage in social activities during time off. But these visits were nice because they were with people I like and they didn’t last long.

The last visit was to a colleague’s house. It was his birthday and I’ve started making cakes for everyone in the office to celebrate. People like it, and then I get to eat cake. Since his birthday was on a holiday, I just went over to his house. I also wanted an excuse to see his family because he has very cute kids, though the last time I went there, his oldest daughter looked at me and burst into tears. She didn’t stop crying until after I left (I mean, I hope she stopped then—as long as I was in the vicinity, she was greatly disturbed in spirit). This time we had fun hanging out and the littlest one came and sat in my lap and squeezed my pasty cheeks and poked my large nose, and I kissed her all over her little face. I also discussed borrowing one of Hervé’s puppies once it is born in a few months. One of his dogs is pregnant, and I want a puppy soooo much. I think if I borrow it and return it when I’m traveling, it should be ok, right? This is a good idea, right? Yes, it is. Shut up. I’m doing it. Anyway…

With Hervé and his two youngest girls who don't hate me.

Hervé's beautiful wife who was in a motorcycle accident after this
and broke her leg. Prayers for her quick recovery, please!

My Eid visit was fairly typical. I went to my friend’s house, greeted all her neighbors and friends, then went into her little room to chat and be stuffed with Chadian holiday sweets. My friend’s holiday sweets included lightly sweetened cookies with the appearance and texture of small roof tiles, some sweeter ones rolled in powdered sugar, and various fried crunchy pancake things. I ate some while I was there and then she stuffed a bucket full of more cookies and filled a plastic bag with the crunchy pancakes and handfuls of candies and two strawberry sodas. I had given her a small bag with some Hershey’s chocolate and some re-gifted jewelry. Not an even trade. In true Amanda-fashion, I ate significant amounts of these sweets, but I didn’t even make a dent. I gave the rest to another friend who has children and isn’t a Muslim, so probably hasn’t made her own stuff at her house.

Bucket of cookies after I'd eaten a few.
I returned it full of peanut butter cookies I made.
(I learned about returning containers with more food
from my mother. When I tried this with my neighbors in India,
I lost so hard. I could not keep up with all the great food they made me.)

But this is true hospitality that I’ve experienced in many countries around the world—being out-given by people who have less than I do. This level of generosity is humbling and inspiring. One of my other friends who visited me over the holiday weekend with two of her children came just to say ‘hi.’ I was sure she was coming to ask for money to fix the giant crack in her house that I’d seen the last time I was hanging out there. In fact, I wanted her to ask me for the money because I wanted to give it to her. Every rainy season there are people here who die when their mud houses collapse on them. My beautiful friend’s landlord is refusing to pay to fix this crack because he is planning to destroy the house and rebuild after the rainy season. In the meantime, he is leaving a family of women and children (her husband is in the military and is currently deployed to some middle of nowhere post) at risk. I ended up just giving her money even though she didn’t ask and she didn’t come for that. In fact, she just came to visit because I’d visited her and brought little presents from America, as I do because I grew up in Indonesia (oleh-olehku di mana, ya?) and also this is another one of those things my parents did that stuck. I brought little bubble toys for her kids, and I told them I’d make more bubbles for them if they ran out of the soap. (When I was a kid, I used to climb up on our roof and blow bubbles down on the heads of people walking by until they laughed or yelled at the weird little white girl to cut it out. So I have lots of bubble experience.) So the kids came over ready for more bubbles (which I provided) and Antani brought me a bucket full of peanut butter (homemade) and a bucket of freshly roasted peanuts (white and black ones from her hometown) and two mangos (ripe but not squishy, exactly the perfect way that mangos should be). And then SHE said to ME, “I can never out-give you.” And I laughed. And I ate half of the peanuts 5 minutes after she left (but she wouldn’t leave without washing the dishes while I was making bubbles).

The black peanuts are really good.
I think she added sugar to this peanut butter, so it is basically candy,
and I eat it with a spoon.

There isn't much of a point to this post. I just have some really nice friends. And I think that it's important to note that there are kind, generous people all over the world.

Someone gave me a bunch of these processed meats.
I gave a bunch away to this family already and they told me how much
they liked them. (Hey-to each his own, right? They could have some Hawaiian blood in them.)
I had one more and when I gave it to Abram, he was soooo excited. How cute is his face?
If you were concerned, he is not from a Muslim family, so the pork issue isn't a problem for him.
I did tell his mother so that she wouldn't let their Muslim neighbor kids accidentally eat it.

When you have a lovely friend who works at the Hilton,
she and the head chef let you try several ice cream flavors,
and promise to make coconut ice cream for you next.
This isn't related. I just wanted to brag a little.

Regrets and Facebook Memes

The other day I saw a motivational Facebook quote superimposed over a tranquil landscape scene. It said something to the effect of “At the end of your life, you’re going to regret the things you didn’t do and not the things you did do.” It was much more elegant than that, of course, but even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure there was a waterfall somewhere in that tranquil landscape scene, which automatically classes up everything. I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s kind of true. I still regret not petting that lion at the museum zoo in Niger while I was there.” At the last moment I decided not to because there were lots of children around, and I thought it might not be a good example for them, as they had all run up to pet the hippo after I did.  But who cares about that? I should have pet that dang lion through the bars of his cage. When else am I going to get a chance to do that? Other countries don’t just let you walk up to the cages with carnivorous animals in them and stick your hand in to pet them. I will regret not doing that for the rest of my life.

Re-creation of Motivational Facebook Quote

Pause for the moment that it took me to realize that quote wasn’t intended for people like me. That moment lasted for about 5 minutes of staring at my computer screen realizing that I am bored writing this dumb concept note that I should have finished an hour ago and that I’m no longer thinking about wells in the Guera, but about not petting lions and not shooting that camel with the Yemeni soldier’s rusty old AK-47 and not going to that one party at that one place—no wait, I DID do that and I definitely regretted it. Forget waterfalls. That quote is dumb. Whenever I manage to stop myself from doing something at the last second, it is usually because common sense finally kicks in. Better late than never, I guess.

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Anyway, here are some things that I did before I had a chance to regret them (still waiting to see if the regrets kick in later). And some memes that really spoke to me that I wanted to share with you.

Such a tranquil scene-unlike the first time I rode a motorcycle
when I nearly drove off a cliff. I still have a burn scar on my right
calf from the knalpot (I think that is 'muffler' in English)
No regrets. Except I kind of wish I had a motorcycle here...

Rock climbing with the Captain (and Matt)

Ditching the tour to try out the bamboo swing

Climbing into this alligator pit.
My parents were with me. They must not love me as much as they say they do.

Eating a scorpion in China. Tastes like chicken.

Rolling down a sand dune in the Emirates.
Then combing sand out of my hair for days.

Convincing Melia to climb up the scaffolding with me in Jordan.

All zoos can be petting zoos if you really try.

This could have been me with the lions in Niger...SO MANY REGRETS!!!

Swimming in shark and pirate-infested waters,
off the coast of Somalia.

Kissing camels

I don't know...cannon balls are cool.

He's clearly disappointed in the state of civilization these days.