Saturday night
Shortly after I wrote the morning note, the rain stopped and Bob left for the mayor’s office to take care of the official legal formalities of marrying Marselan and Lisa. He returned later for us and we left for the wedding. We were surprised to find that the mercy care center where we have been working had been set up for the outdoor wedding ceremony.
The road to the center has been bad all week but today we came close to getting stuck. But we made to the center. There were lots of people there already and we were shown to our seat by one of the ladies that make up the wedding party. Bob asked me to take some digital pictures with his camera as well as some video with a super8 camera that they have. As we waited, many arrived in the ICDI vehicles. Clearly, Jim sponsored this wedding in a big way.
A choir arrived, with sound equipment on the back of one of the trucks and quickly set up. They were the music during the ceremony and were really great. Everyone was dressed to the hilt. The ladies that were part of the wedding party were dressed mostly in the same pattern dress. Most of the men were in suits. And in the middle of all this mud.
There was a master of ceremony that presented the program and then started the proceedings. First, Marselan’s mother stood and spoke some words. Now everything spoken was on Sango so at least Ray and I didn’t have a clue what was being said. Jim tried to translate as often as possible for us. Then Jim spoke a few words. He got a few laughs. He explained to us later that he explained how Marselan is like a son to him because he grew up next to one Jim’s sons in Yalouke. (This is a long time station the Grace Brethren International Mission has had northwest of Bangui.)
After Jim spoke, several others got up and spoke before Bob got up and read the wedding vows. Then Dr. Hebile, a well know teacher know by everyone, came up and approached the couple who had been sitting on a couch with a table in front of them. He asked each one something and each answered. Clapping followed each so it must have been important. Then he asked them for their symbols, the rings. They put the rings on each others hands and then they kissed. She was wearing a typical white wedding gown and he was wearing a very nice suit. I understand both were provided by missionary groups for them.
After that part, the master of ceremony asked anyone who has been married for 20 years or more to come forward to offer the couple counsel. Several women came up, including Dr. Hebile’s wife. She teaches aids awareness classes for ICDI and is a very good speaker. I have no clue what she said but she had the crowd going.
Then Marselan stepped up and spoke some words to Lisa’s family. He even got choked up as he spoke but everybody clapped in appreciation.
Lots of music by the choir followed while the wedding party prepared the tables with food. We had the typical salad with bread appetizer. When that was done, they brought out lots of different meat dishes with rice and gozo. My stomach has not felt good in several days so I settled with something recognizable, chicken with some rice. I just couldn’t force myself to try gozo. Vernie influenced me on this. They even served us Coke’s. Although they were not cold, at least we didn’t have to drink something that we know would not be safe for us.
I felt like it was a great honor to be able to witness a typical wedding with a Christian theme. There were lots of prayers during the wedding. Of course they were all in Sango but I thought that was great. One observation, probably 60 percent of the adults there had cell phones. All during the ceremony, cell phones were ringing. Cell phones are so popular here because of the pay as you go cards that are available.
As we were leaving, this man that was one of Lisa’s brothers came up to us and told us how much he appreciated what we were doing with the orphan center. I could tell he was speaking from his heart and understood what we had to do to come here. That has encouraged me greatly. I know that these people understand that it’s not easy to come over here to work on these projects but most of the time they don’t show the appreciation.
Jim and Bob next took us downtown Bangui to the river. In fact, we went down to the Oubangui Hotel. I understand that this is probably the best hotel in town. It used to be the Sofotel Hotel. In fact the name is still on the side of the building. We sat on the patio overlooking the river and the pool and enjoyed an ice cold Coke. There is an island out from the hotel, nicknamed the rocks where there is a small military-looking riverboat. As beautiful as the view was, we could not take a picture of the area because of the boat. Jim joked that that was CAR’s navy. Well you got to think about national security .
There were some fishermen dropping their nets and pulling them in so we walked down to where they were right on the banks of the river. We watched them pull in their net to see what they would get but they only had a few small fish. Jim said that if they pull in a large fish they can sell it to the restaurants in town and make enough for all of them. There were about 8 men involved in this enterprise. We waited for them to put the nets out one more time before it got dark to see if they would catch anything. Suddenly Jim point to the sky and there were thousands of bats flying over the river. From our vantage point they appeared to be pretty large. I guess they come out of the fruit trees to go after the insects over the river. I watched and they come down very low over the river. Well, our fishermen didn’t get anything this time but they said they would be doing this all night. Apparently, the do this every night. They were walking out into the river where any number of parasites are just looking for a host and they do this every night. You can’t watch this without being amazed at what people do just to survive.
We walked back to Jim’s car and drive back to the guest house. We got stopped by a traffic stop on the way. Jim showed them the registration and they let us go. We drove right down the main street and there a lots of restaurants and shops. It looks like you can probably find just about anything you need down there.
Jim leaves for the US tomorrow morning. We will be depending on Bob for everything during the next week. Possibly tomorrow, we will go back to the souvenir shops.
The road to the center has been bad all week but today we came close to getting stuck. But we made to the center. There were lots of people there already and we were shown to our seat by one of the ladies that make up the wedding party. Bob asked me to take some digital pictures with his camera as well as some video with a super8 camera that they have. As we waited, many arrived in the ICDI vehicles. Clearly, Jim sponsored this wedding in a big way.
A choir arrived, with sound equipment on the back of one of the trucks and quickly set up. They were the music during the ceremony and were really great. Everyone was dressed to the hilt. The ladies that were part of the wedding party were dressed mostly in the same pattern dress. Most of the men were in suits. And in the middle of all this mud.
There was a master of ceremony that presented the program and then started the proceedings. First, Marselan’s mother stood and spoke some words. Now everything spoken was on Sango so at least Ray and I didn’t have a clue what was being said. Jim tried to translate as often as possible for us. Then Jim spoke a few words. He got a few laughs. He explained to us later that he explained how Marselan is like a son to him because he grew up next to one Jim’s sons in Yalouke. (This is a long time station the Grace Brethren International Mission has had northwest of Bangui.)
After Jim spoke, several others got up and spoke before Bob got up and read the wedding vows. Then Dr. Hebile, a well know teacher know by everyone, came up and approached the couple who had been sitting on a couch with a table in front of them. He asked each one something and each answered. Clapping followed each so it must have been important. Then he asked them for their symbols, the rings. They put the rings on each others hands and then they kissed. She was wearing a typical white wedding gown and he was wearing a very nice suit. I understand both were provided by missionary groups for them.
After that part, the master of ceremony asked anyone who has been married for 20 years or more to come forward to offer the couple counsel. Several women came up, including Dr. Hebile’s wife. She teaches aids awareness classes for ICDI and is a very good speaker. I have no clue what she said but she had the crowd going.
Then Marselan stepped up and spoke some words to Lisa’s family. He even got choked up as he spoke but everybody clapped in appreciation.
Lots of music by the choir followed while the wedding party prepared the tables with food. We had the typical salad with bread appetizer. When that was done, they brought out lots of different meat dishes with rice and gozo. My stomach has not felt good in several days so I settled with something recognizable, chicken with some rice. I just couldn’t force myself to try gozo. Vernie influenced me on this. They even served us Coke’s. Although they were not cold, at least we didn’t have to drink something that we know would not be safe for us.
I felt like it was a great honor to be able to witness a typical wedding with a Christian theme. There were lots of prayers during the wedding. Of course they were all in Sango but I thought that was great. One observation, probably 60 percent of the adults there had cell phones. All during the ceremony, cell phones were ringing. Cell phones are so popular here because of the pay as you go cards that are available.
As we were leaving, this man that was one of Lisa’s brothers came up to us and told us how much he appreciated what we were doing with the orphan center. I could tell he was speaking from his heart and understood what we had to do to come here. That has encouraged me greatly. I know that these people understand that it’s not easy to come over here to work on these projects but most of the time they don’t show the appreciation.
Jim and Bob next took us downtown Bangui to the river. In fact, we went down to the Oubangui Hotel. I understand that this is probably the best hotel in town. It used to be the Sofotel Hotel. In fact the name is still on the side of the building. We sat on the patio overlooking the river and the pool and enjoyed an ice cold Coke. There is an island out from the hotel, nicknamed the rocks where there is a small military-looking riverboat. As beautiful as the view was, we could not take a picture of the area because of the boat. Jim joked that that was CAR’s navy. Well you got to think about national security .
There were some fishermen dropping their nets and pulling them in so we walked down to where they were right on the banks of the river. We watched them pull in their net to see what they would get but they only had a few small fish. Jim said that if they pull in a large fish they can sell it to the restaurants in town and make enough for all of them. There were about 8 men involved in this enterprise. We waited for them to put the nets out one more time before it got dark to see if they would catch anything. Suddenly Jim point to the sky and there were thousands of bats flying over the river. From our vantage point they appeared to be pretty large. I guess they come out of the fruit trees to go after the insects over the river. I watched and they come down very low over the river. Well, our fishermen didn’t get anything this time but they said they would be doing this all night. Apparently, the do this every night. They were walking out into the river where any number of parasites are just looking for a host and they do this every night. You can’t watch this without being amazed at what people do just to survive.
We walked back to Jim’s car and drive back to the guest house. We got stopped by a traffic stop on the way. Jim showed them the registration and they let us go. We drove right down the main street and there a lots of restaurants and shops. It looks like you can probably find just about anything you need down there.
Jim leaves for the US tomorrow morning. We will be depending on Bob for everything during the next week. Possibly tomorrow, we will go back to the souvenir shops.
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