Ritchie's African Life: Maasai Wedding

Last Saturday, I attended a Maasai wedding in “Maasai Land,” which is along the border of Tanzania and Kenya. It only took about 3 to 4 hours to get there. We first went to a town almost on the border of Tanzania to pick up the bride, groom and the groom’s father and best man. The Maasai have arranged marriages, so they are quite interesting to see. They also have a lot of traditions as well. Once we got to the bride’s family’s home, the bride was walking very slowly around the parameter while crying. She is not to look back or return to her home once she marries, so it is a traumatizing experience. We then took them from the bride’s home to the groom’s home. We all crammed into Pastor Paul’s Land Cruiser. The middle row, where I was seated, had 6 men in it. We then drove about an hour east to get to the groom’s home. The tradition at the groom’s home is that his mom is to welcome the bride into her home and then the bride is to stay there the rest of the day. The bride had all her things as well as a gourd on her back that was carrying goat’s milk. It felt strange to be there with them in their culture, especially since we seemed to be taking away from the wedding; to the groom, it was an honor to have us. We went into the groom’s mother’s house and had that milk that the bride was carrying. Well, that milk … um, was fermented. It had the consistency of yogurt with some chunks in it and it definitely smelled sour. I ended up taking 2 drinks and could not handle the second one. It was an experience. The rest of the day was spent celebrating the marriage. There was no true ceremony to our standards, but the traditions in themselves were the marriage. We ate a freshly slaughtered goat and had lots of chai (Kenyan tea). My pastor’s daughter even tried the goat brain that was in her soup. It was a good experience and a stark contrast to the wedding that I attended the week before.