28 October 2005

Rebecca and I went to our first Rwandan wedding yesterday. Mark and Jordan, Heather and Kevin, I hope you’re taking notes, because nobody knows how to throw a party like the Rwandans.

The celebrants at these particular nuptials were Steve, the English newspaper columnist, and his new wife Alphonsine. Steve looks to be in his 50s and Alphonsine, who is Rwandan, is in her 20s. They also have no common language. She speaks Kinyarwanda and French. He speaks English. But they seem smitten with each other, and I’m sure Steve will treat her better than many Rwandan guys would. At least that’s how I think of it so it doesn’t keep me awake at night.

The ceremony was very quick, in a municipal hall. Alphonsine and Steve were among a group of four or five couples to be married yesterday, and the officials who were supposed to perform the weddings were an hour late. Since the ceremonies were in Kinyarwanda, it’s difficult to describe what happened. But they took place in a building that doubled as a police station, and nothing says love like a man in red coveralls carrying a Kalashnikov.

Anyway, from the service we went to the reception. As we walked in, Jesse, an American who has lived in Rwanda for two years, turned to Rebecca, our friend Laura and me and said, “Get ready to sit.”

I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant. But sure enough, as we walked in, we saw people lined up in rows of white plastic chairs on someone’s porch, just sitting there. No music, no conversation, no mingling. Just sitting.

The sitting presented many questions of etiquette that no one appeared able to answer. If umuzungu guests happen to see older folks who need the chair they are sitting in, is the white person supposed to get up? (The answer appeared to be no. In fact, able-bodied Rwandans didn’t appear to stand up for their elders.) The more important question we never fully answered was whether it was like musical chairs. If you didn’t get a seat, did you have to leave?

I decided to test that last theory out when I couldn’t bear sitting anymore. I took the bold move and I stood. This was controversial. I was offered chairs five or six times. Why would I want to stand? Why would I want to talk to someone other than the folks directly on my right or left? People were flummoxed.

After a brief toast by Steve, it was time to pass the banana beer, which was one of the foulest libations I have ever sipped. It tasted like a carbonated combination of rotten banana and something I couldn’t place. After someone explained to me how the beer is made, I realized what the taste was I couldn’t place. Feet. Smelly feet. The face I made when I drank it may well have been the funniest thing the people of Rwanda have ever seen, given the amount of laughing. Of course, they laugh at everything umuzungus do. Rebecca taking a dignified swig through the bamboo straw, without a look of disgust, was just as hysterical as the pained look on mine.

Anyway, after the beer the sitting continued. Few people moved, and if they did, it was to another chair. I continued to stand.

Then it was time for food. First came the cake, which wasn’t bad. A person could only take a small morsel and there were no forks. Bec doesn’t like it when her hands get sticky, but she seems to have handled the cake just fine. Dinner came next.

Steve promised a Kenyan feast, because Rwandan weddings don’t usually feature food. My French teacher, who is Congolese, says few, if any, Rwandan gatherings involve food. Steve tried valiantly. He had goat ribs, salad and other goodies. But we have a feeling the Rwandans didn’t make enough, and maybe on purpose. I’ve never left a wedding hungry.

Waiting on line at the buffet, I witnessed more instances of possible Asperger’s syndrome. As I waited for Bec and Laura to take food, the guy behind me took all of the paper plates. I hadn’t yet taken one, and he knew it. I looked at him. “Oh, I thought it was the last one,” he said. I took the stack of plates from him. I noticed that the stack was thick. So I took one for me, and then separated all 10 other plates and handed them individually to the guy who thought there was only one. “Oh,” he said. There was, however, only one fork left, and he grabbed that before I could get it.

We went outside to eat, and sit some more.

This shouldn’t have surprised me. Laura lives in a house she shares with Jesse and a number of Rwandans, so she has visitors, at all hours. But a Rwandan visit works like this. The host asks the visitor questions, the visitor answers yes or no. And then they sit in silence once all questions have been asked. Laura says after a few minutes she just gets up and leaves because it’s so boring.

I know that you’re looking for some great analysis of this. What does this all mean? Honestly, I don’t know.

In other news, I have become one of you and finished The Da Vinci Code. I had held off because I thought nothing so many people liked could be any good. I’m such a snob. I honestly believe there is something morally wrong with liking some things, like Yanni or Billy Ray Cyrus (Achy Breaky Heart). I once decided I couldn’t date someone because she liked Garth Brooks. I just knew it would work because there was obviously something terribly wrong with her.

That’s what I thought the book was, but I was wrong. And because of it, I am now the Kigali library. One of the guys who runs an Internet café I frequent saw my book and begged me to bring him some. Right now he’s reading the latest Nick Hornby, and he’s getting Da Vinci on Monday. My friend Igor has some of our books, and a guy in my French class asked for some as well. It’s a good development since this is not a country known for reading.

So, that’s it for now. Tomorrow we’re going to Oktoberfest here. I can only hope it’s as much fun as when my friends and I got thrown out of the Hoffbrauhaus in Munich for breaking things. Junior year abroad certainly was an education.