The Mother of all Weddings

In the week that followed our travel to the West somewhere near the Hills of Kibuye for the most shocking and astonishing funeral ever witnessed by many of us, the dust began settling down and we had to head to yet another location in the opposite direction. This was for a totally different cause, someone was ‘going to jail’ without a chance of ever getting out; in other words, he was going in for a ‘life imprisonment’! As the saying goes, ‘the marriage institution is a crazy one, while the ones inside are helplessly looking for a way out, the ones outside are stupidly looking for a way in.This is a pure irony, the ones that struggle to get in today, will be struggling to get outtomorrow but with little or no chances of exiting at all! This time along, we were heading for a place somewhere in the former prefecture of Umutara or can I call it Nyagatare District! Much as the wedding ceremony was to take place somewhere near Matimba, the ‘Dot’ or Gusaba a.k.a Introduction was slated for Nyagatare, just a few kilometres after crossing the famous Muvumba River. We set off from Kigali very early and by the clock of the ninth hour of the day, I was ‘taxing’ my car in the compound of the groom. As is the tradition, webegan by exchanging greeting and pleasantries and of course milk began flowing faster than the EWSA water! Here, milk is served freely and withought any reservations. It would be an insult comparing EWSA to our village folks. EWSA sells water yet these people serve the milk free of charge! Just imagine, the water falls free from the sky and yet, milkhas to be got from cows that are fed and carefully looked after and yet it is served for free! Sometimes, one could run mad if we analyse some of these facts!As I was saying, we got in the village just as the gusaba team was about to set off for Nyagatare. Not wanting to be left out, we quickly jumpedunto the bandwagon and off we sped towards Nyagatare. After less than half an hour, we had reached the City of Nyagatare and were crossing Muvumba River for the home of our wife to be. Everything was moving as planned. The Gusaba went fine as both sides did not waste time on non-issues. This reminds me of a gusaba ceremony we attended. In thatfunction, the so called father of the Groom (man) told the so called father of the bride (girl), that, ‘the girl you are looking for is not here, she got married last year’. As is the tradition of gusaba, the two parties play a sort of theatre! Maybe, out of too much love or the fright that she may lose the man, the girl was in the house and hearingall this go on. She opened the window and shouted out, ‘Cherie, motema nangai, basikudanganye, niko hapa jumbani’ (sweet heart, let them not deceive you, I am here in the house). She was afraid that, the guys would turn and go back! The way I see it, this is going be the mother of all weddings!What really amuses me of all, are the guys who do the “cattle recitals” they rap, jump and hop, kneel, yell and sing for the cattle. These guys are really great. They are not mere comedians but real successfulones. I’m told, one charges a minimum of Rwandan francs fifty thousand and can even go up to a hundred thousand for a function that could last as short as half an hour. On the average, he could perform at up to four functions on a typical Saturday. All in all, one could perform atsay six functions a week; this translated to say twenty four functions a month or Rwandan francs a million! Who says thatcomedy does not pay? (to be continued)