zikomo-Malawi, Africa: The Celebrations 1 of 2

Money being thrown in the air

Psalm 98:4-Shout for joy to the Lord, break out in praise and sing for joy!

There were two celebrations this year. An
engagement party and our epic

Feast. The first thing I will say is that, I have never been to an engagement party in Malawi (the year prior we went to a wedding) but it was nothing like I would have expected from an engagement party. Every year we do a last day celebration in the village with the ABC students/translators and the whole village and people come from other villages gather for it too.

THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY

The 'Throne

The engagement was Fiki's. She got engaged last year in December. And will get married in October this year. From getting engaged to getting married, the time is usually really short for Malawian's heck dating is pretty short too. Originally they wanted to get married in July, but they did not have the money, so that is what the Malawian engagement parties are for. Usually the aunts and uncles pay for the wedding it is a traditional Malawian wedding, the aunts and uncles also get to choose the color of the wedding, but the engagement is their tribal colors. This years engagement colors were black/red and a little brown, red is in most tribes, the wedding is purple and silver. Family and friends come together to celebrate, meet each other for the first time and give as much money as their hearts desire. Everyone ended up giving over 1 million Malawian Kwatcha (note: there are also Zambia Kwatcha). There were 3 people who were constantly counting the whole time we were there. There was a guy who would go out and pick up the money off the ground and give it to the counters. They tried to make it a little more organized by having us throw the money into this wide basket of sorts, but we were terrible at it, and it was windy.

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Bill and Fiki dancing and money!!

Two left, which one is she?

ring

What do they do at an engagement? Here was my perspective: There is a DJ, who announces everything in Chichewa. She did an announcement for every group to come up and give money. This was before we saw the bride-to-be and groom-to-be. The DJ announced: the brides side the grooms side, their church, the Live Love group, the ABC group, and then their are smaller groups within each of the groups, while we were there I would guess over 30+ groups that danced up to the front and gave money, they announce when you should give smaller Kwatcha or 1000 Kwatcha. The next thing we saw was the groom coming out, he is surrounded by his family and friends, and they walked/danced up to the front and announced him, and he sat at his chair/throne (it reminded me of a throne, I'm sure that's not what it is). Then they continued to announce people to come up and throw money in the many groups that they have. (I was able to go up for being a friend or the bride-to-be, being in Live Love, being apart of ABC, just a few examples) Next, they ask the family and friends of the bride-to-be to get her and bring her to the front. So over 100 people brought her to the front (dancing was harder with so many people), or rather the 3 of the brides-to-be to the front. There were 3 potential brides-to-be and they were each completely covered from head to toe, and the groom to be has to choose the correct bride. He chose correctly on the 2nd try, and she was gorgeous. He then got down on one knee an place the ring on her finger.

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yes these are the brides maids, and Fiki

'Bridesmaids', gifts and moms and a DJ
DJ is in the orange dress
last 3 offerings on the end

The bride and groom then stand in front while more people are called to throw money at them. They then sit together, at their throne, while more money is thrown on them. (A lot of money is thrown at these). One of the last things that we saw before we left, as this is an all day event, was the bride-to-be's 'brides maids' for a lack of the correct word, along with the bride-to-be stand up front in a line and hold an offering from the bride-to-be to the mothers of the 'brides maids'. The mothers stand in front of their daughters and dance and throw money, and then the daughters give the offering to their mothers. The offerings were small packages put together by the bride-to-be and her sister, they had things from, fruit to hand brooms to thermoses. There were also 3 other offerings that the bride-to-be handed out to 3 people who are special to her, who have supported her through her life. These 3 people were to give 20,000 Kwatcha (that $30.00) to her, they did this by, you guessed it dancing and throwing it, or making it rain.

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