Give Away

A couple weekends ago, we were blessed to attend a "Give Away" with some friends of ours. This is the ceremony where a bride is symbolically given to the husband's family. This precedes the church wedding. It can be a very big affair.

This was our second to attend but we still left hours before it was complete - we don't like or recommend driving after dark so we left early (and did good making it half of the way home before darkness fell). This particular ceremony was beautifully done. The where 5 big tents filled with people, flowers everywhere, the cakes were pretty, and the food was good.

There were dancers who came out in shifts to entertain everyone while we waited for people to eat in shifts. The dancing wasn't as traditional as I expected but still interesting to watch.

These two little boys were dancing alongside the hired dancers and were adorable to watch. The one in the light blue shirt stole the day when, taking a short break from dancing, decided to urinate right there in the middle of the walkway where the other dancers had just finished. In a culture where boys (and men) can go almost wherever and whenever the need strikes them, this boy thought nothing of it. But it was so funny and all 400+ people got a good laugh from it. After we were all finished laughing, the MC asked his parents to remove him from center of the activites, and he cried.

This is a picture of several of our team mates who came along. This is my only African dress, but it's not traditional wedding attire for this tribe. Susan (the lady beside me) is wearing a traditional Runyankore dress. (Just in case you can tell, my hair is a bit red because my friend, Ankita, did 'henna' to my hair a few weeks back...it should wear off before we get home).

This is a picture of our view as we were leaving. Doesn't God do amazing work?

This last picture just made me laugh...it looks as if the termite mound has a cow head. It probably doesn't make anyone else chuckle, but I liked it.

On a different note (and a response to a comment made by much younger friends of mine), I did try to upload the video of the kids sledding onto YouTube. However, when 1% of the upload was complete and it told me I had 547 minutes remaining, I couldn't do it. I gave it a few minutes to see if the count would drop quickly once it started, but I never saw 2%. It just wasn't worth it for a 30 second video - sorry. You'll just have to trust me that it's fun to watch. :)