Wedding Part 1 - June 25

We decided to relax during the morning before an afternoon and evening of pre-wedding events. We did some laundry, worked on some trip-planning stuff and enjoyed just...sitting.

At 2pm, Claude's family came to the Phare and we began a Cameroonian cultural ceremony. This ceremony was considered a wedding, so at the moment I'm writing (June 27th) Kate and Claude have been married twice, with one to go (US wedding).

The cultural ceremony was very interesting and had 7 phases (I don't remember ALL of them...) Both fathers gave speeches, Kate's great-aunt symbolically "gave" Kate to Claude's grandmother and both family "matriarchs" said a few words. The fun parts of the ceremony were the airplane game and the culinary integration.

In the airplane game, 5 men walked in one at a time all wearing Claude's clothes with their faces covered. Kate had to say whether or not the man was Claude. She learned that she was "supposed" to get it wrong because it's funnier that way, so she put on a great show and the families laughed a lot. Everytime she was incorrect, the Therrien family had to pay a "tax". The "airplane" part came in at the end when all of the men came in under a sheet making airplane noises. They walked around the room and then "landed" in front of Kate. She had to say which man under the sheet was Claude. When she got it wrong, the family paid another tax and the airplane took off on another lap around the room.

In the culinary integration section, she had to eat foods of Cameroon without grimacing or making any sort of face...again, the family paid a tax for any mistake. We were expecting a Survivor-esque moment, but because of time constraints, Claude's mom wasn't able to prepare any dishes. I think she ate carrots (obviously no grimace), kola nut (which are not so delicious, but still, not so bad), and a lime. Of course biting into a lime is very hard to do without grimacing and so another tax was paid. Although we speak different languages, we were able to communicate through laughter during these parts of the ceremony!

Towards the end of the ceremony, each family presented gifts to the other family. We all received Cameroonian outfits. You'll see a pic in the album!

After the cultural ceremony, we were off to the church for a rehearsal. Mari and Matt danced well! :) We did a quick run through of the ceremony and then traveled to Claude's church to practice the dances with the choir, but there was no power at the church, so that plan was canceled and we all just hoped it would go well the next day! :)

We were very excited to go to a Brazilian restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. SO delicious! It was a fun time and I enjoyed chatting with a friend of Kate and Claude's named Esperance. She had been working SO hard all week to help Kate and Claude round us all up and shuttle us around the city, and because her English is so good, she was able to do a lot of translating for us, getting us taxis, etc. We are soooooooo thankful for her. Plus, she's very fun to be around :)

We fell into bed exhausted, as usual! Mari's writing about the wedding next!

I don't know if it's this computer, the connection, or what, but I'm still having trouble with the pics, SO, we've uploaded highlights to a picasa web album. Here's the link: DakarPics

Enjoy! (We love the comments too...keep writing!)
- Michelle