A dowry and a drive from hell

From left to right: James (groom to be), Manu, Stella, Anne and yours truly

This weekend I had the pleasure and honour to attend the dowry ceremony of the wife-to-be of one of my Nairobi colleagues.  He's from a tribe here in Kenya called Kikuyu, who apparently have several layers to their dowry agreeing and payment.  For us, the whole thing was combined into a single gathering.

But what a trek to get there.  As with most optimistic invitations to a great shindig only a few minutes by car away, the devil is so often in the detail.  We were late setting off since one of our party had car troubles - then we sped to the first traffic jam just 100m down the road from our starting point.  After about 30 minutes we hit a second larger "car-park" of a jam on the new super-highway from Nairobi to Thika.  Built by the Chinese, and not quite finished, the slip roads are devoid of any guidance or jurisdiction - and as one side road full, teeming with passenger buses and trucks, wanted to cross the main highway, the whole procession came to a grinding halt.

The bride-to-be is in yellow

Another 30 minutes or so passed with only centimetres gained and then as is if by magic, the traffic cop arrived and sorted us all out.  We were free.

Zooming down the now fairly empty super-highway, we arrived in the "village hall" where negotiations for the dowry amount were coming to a close.  So we didn't even descend the car but reversed out of the mud-caked car park and back on the country road to Gatundu - where money was to be handed over before gaining permission to access the bride-to-be's homestead.

The proceedings were running about 2.5 hours late by this point.  And I had a pressing engagement with a rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan back in the city centre...how was I going to manage my time?!?!

So we followed the convoy up a narrow dirt track, passed burgeoning coffee groves and luscious banana trees to the tent and after managing to engage my 4-wheel drive, parked on a rather soggy grass verge.  We headed up the track to cries of singing women.  It was explained to me, that the female guests had to request permission to enter the party and only after much volleying to and fro of "may I come in" and " no we're not ready yet" in the vernacular Kikuyu, the ladies were granted entry and the men guests duly followed.

A managed to capture a few instances of the singing here:

Cooking in the al fresco kitchen

The mood was happy and everyone patiently sat down and waited for the prayers.  A lady came forward and addressed us all.  She then bowed her head and closed her eyes - most of the guests did likewise.  Then with alarming speed, she rattled off, for about 3 minutes solid, prayers for this, that and the other.  Astounding.

We then (at last) were invited to eat.  Even though senior citizens had been given preference in the queue, we barged to the front, piled our plates, scoffed the (not bad, actually) food and dashed to find the happy couple to bid farewell.  Perhaps a tad impolite, but The Pirates of Penzance - Nairobi-style - were awaiting and we couldn't delay.

My beans, stew and chipati

Getting back to the city was much easier and we were only snarled up once.  There was a scary moment when traffic cut through an opening in the central reservation and sped up the outside lane of the opposite carriage way - they'd spotted a jam up ahead and thought they'd head it off at the pass so to speak.  Needless to say, I joined them...!  What fun...!

A rather tiring outing - I was behind the wheel for about 5 hours - and only travelled about 100km round trip.  But fascinating and the Gatundu region was quite breathtakingly beautiful.

Will need to ask my colleague when I get in tomorrow, just how many goats were haggled for at the dowry meeting and if he has secured sufficient funds to purchase them.

Not too different from a western wedding...ahem ahem.