Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the lobola ceremony for my host “sister”, Mpho (I use quotations because she doesn’t live here and is actually one of the many grandchildren of mma and pa mokhukhedi), and it really turned out to be quite the ceremony!!!! The lobola, or the bride price the husband has to pay to the bride’s family to get married, is one tradition very much still followed here in South Africa. Traditionally this is paid to the family in the form of cattle, and the wife’s family would decide on a lobola price during negotiations that occur right before the wedding. Nowadays it seems that this is mostly paid in rand, although there are still people who follow the traditional practice and pay in the form of livestock.
Commonly the lobola isn’t paid for a while after the actual wedding, giving the husband time to accrue the funds. This was the case with Mpho and Dick, as they were married about a year ago. So the actual ceremony where this is paid is quite the event, and lasted for well over 24 hours! It all started last Friday afternoon, when Mpho shows up and mentions this will be taking place that night. In my experience with other South African ceremonies, I was expecting a long and involved meal, probably including both families and members of the community. What I didn’t anticipate was this meal occurring at 5am, following a giant all-night party!
The party was at my host family’s house, so I was pretty much there for the whole thing. At about 10pm people started showing up, and the women got to the kitchen to prepare for meal #1, which was pap and mince meat. The women were all pretty excited that I stayed with them and cooked, and this was definitely a much better option than hanging out with the men who were getting drunker by the second! After this meal people just kind of hung out, danced, pretty normal party stuff. I began helping Mpho with the big meal that was to occur in the morning, and the preparation for this meal was pretty big! We cooked pap and rice over the fire in extremely large cauldrons in the old mud/thatched roof house. This was fun but after a while I just about died of coughing from inhaling smoke (little ventilation) and had a giant bloody cut on my foot from trying to break up wood with my feet in the dark (not smart).
At about 1am I had to retire to my bed for a nap. I was so, so, so exhausted. Not only was it just way past my bedtime, but dealing with drunk men and trying to understand Setswana in the wee hours of the morning is not an easy feat! After an hour or so of napping I re-entered the party and continued to help prepare for the meal, this time cutting up more squash than I could fathom in my tired state. So up until now the party has been strictly with the wife and her family… in fact the husband doesn’t attend this ceremony at all. At about 4 the husband’s family starts arriving (from a neighboring village), and welcomed by our party with singing, dancing and cheering. Mpho was pretty stressed at this point because the meal was not yet finished. So the women and I all gathered in the kitchen and tried to get everything finished! Meanwhile the husband’s family gathered in the living room and were presented with drinks of all sorts, including the traditional bottle of brandy that just sits in the middle of the table all night as an offering from the bride’s family. During this time there were also many speeches, prayers, songs, etc. Finally around 5am we brought the meal out, which included the meat (a sheep slaughtered that day in our backyard!), squash, rice, pap, tomato/onion gravy, green beans, and a mayonnaisey carrot salad.
It was really quite the night! I noted many interesting cultural tidbits throughout the night (I was a question-asking machine… I found it all very fascinating), like how Mpho and her daughter Nolly had to wear part of the sheep’s intestines as necklaces for the night and the next day! Not sure where this practice comes from or what it signifies, they just told me it was “tradition”. Also tradition was that Mpho and Nolly weren’t allowed to partake in the big meal prepared, and instead had to eat all the random sheep parts that were cooked together and served with rice! Mpho said it was pretty disgusting, but again just another tradition! Oddly enough I never even saw when the actual lobola was paid to the Mokhukhedi family… at some point I do believe they were presented with R8,000 (about $1500). I went to bed around 6 when the husband’s family left, because frankly I could barely stand at that point. I expected others would start going home and do the same… but alas I was wrong again. I woke up and bathed around 9 and everyone was still at the party and never slept! And they stayed til like 4pm on Saturday! This is including my 80 year old gogo, who was drinking beer and dancing well into the afternoon. Yup, I was outpartied by my 80 year old African granny.
It’s times like these where I realize how truly exhausting it can be to attempt immersion into another culture. The whole night I felt like I didn’t know what was going on, what was being said, not knowing what people were yelling about (and they yell A LOT), constantly being approached by strangers wanting to know me (and me having absolutely no idea who most people were), etc. Of course this is what I wanted in this whole experience… to learn about a new culture and be pushed out of my comfort zone and past what I thought were my limits. But truthfully the actual process can be one of the most draining things ever!!! It really is a constant learning experience though, and at least now I’ll be able to get through weddings and funerals just fine because in comparison to the lobola those are nothing!
This leads me to think about what it would be like to have a price negotiated by my father in order for someone to marry me.. doesn’t seem like an idea I’d like to entertain. What I wonder is how weird this must be for the girl… is it like they are determining the worth of the girl or is it just decided based on the wealth of the family? Perhaps after two years I will know the answers to such questions. I will say that it seems to be less about the actual money that’s paid and more of a process of uniting the two families. Either way it was all very interesting for this western girl!!!
P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures... in an unfortunate series of events my camera battery died and the adapter i need for the charger was broken. One day I'll have pics for you guys!
