Many of my favourite memories and best stories of living overseas were things that happened because I was lucky in my timing like being able to attend a kitchen party on my second day in Zambia or witnessing the 2011 election. And good timing has struck again! Just the other week my director announced that she is getting married. In addition to being so happy for her, I'm excited because we get to be part of all the celebrations that are part of getting married in Tanzania. To kick things off we went to Church for her engagement announcement.
Coincidently it was women's week at the church and for the first one hour or so of the service, the women's choir belted it out for the congregation. It was a bit like going to a rock concert at 10am. Everyone was up out of their chairs singing along and there were coordinated dance moves for the different songs. I never knew that going to church would count as a workout but there we were dancing it out with the women's choir.
Finally we got to the big announcement. I had been expecting our director and fiancee to just stand up together an announce their engagement. What was I thinking! The minister called them both up with their family representatives and he announced their engagement along with words of advice on marriage and specifically about our director since this was her church. I don't think the couple to be even spoke to each other at all during the ceremony.
After the minister spoke engagement rings were exchanged (through intermediaries because was again contact between the engaged is not allow) and then the entire congregation descended upon the couple to give them gifts and congratulate them.
We had been asked to take photos which we were happy to do. But we didn't expect to be fighting our way through hoards of people pulling out their camera phones also angling for a good shot. We were up there battling our way through with everyone else (all that experience battling our way on and off the buses here really came in handy). But it was really something to be in the thick of it all and to have a whole community so excited on your behalf, I think our director is really blessed.
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Many of my favourite memories and best stories of living overseas were things that happened because I was lucky in my timing like being able to attend a kitchen party on my second day in Zambia or witnessing the 2011 election. And good timing has struck again! Just the other week my director announced that she is getting married. In addition to being so happy for her, I'm excited because we get to be part of all the celebrations that are part of getting married in Tanzania. To kick things off we went to Church for her engagement announcement.
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