November

Day 40  - Monday 5th November
The rain has started! The northern and eastern regions of Tanzania have two rainy seasons. The ‘long rains’ last from March to May, and the ‘short rains’ from October to December. There hasn’t been too much rainfall so far but this week has definitely made up for it. Although the showers don’t go on for longer than an hour or so at a time, the amount of water that does fall in this time is incredible. Most of the time you can hear the rain coming before you can actually see it. When it doesn’t rain the sun seems to want to make up for the lost time and burns hotter than ever. In order to stay as cool as possible you see people huddled together underneath trees or in the shadow of huts or even road signs.

Day 32 - Sunday, 28th October

 

With another week there comes another wedding! I thought I would take this space and tell you a little more about how weddings in general are planned and organised here:

• It all starts with the man and woman getting engaged without the man asking the woman's dad for his blessing.
• Only after the engagement has occurred does the man send a relative to meet with the women's family to inform them about the couple's intention to marry.
• A wedding committee is then formed, consisting out of relatives and other influential people from their tribes, to start planning the wedding. 
• The couple have a say in things but it's not just them as they don't really pay for the wedding. Instead all wedding guest contribute to the costs of the wedding, be it in giving money or in offering to organise a certain aspect of the wedding such as the venue, food, entertainment etc.
• With so many people helping out weddings get organised in only a few weeks or month. Engagements are rarely longer than that.
• A couple of days before the wedding day, the lady will have a 'send off' party which is usually in the same venue as the wedding and hosts just as many people as the wedding but only her friends and relatives attend. The husband-to-be, his best man and a handful of other friends may also be there but that's it. During the 'send off' party the man gets officially introduced before he takes a seat in the crowd again. The rest of the night is all about her! There is wedding cake, presents, speeches and dancing.
• The night before the wedding the lady has another gathering, this time much smaller which is for females only. It's called a 'kitchen party' where the group of ladies assemble at her family's house and have one last dinner together.
• Then there is the actual wedding! 
• Finally the honeymoon is usually spent somewhere local. Only rarely do couples go abroad to places like South Africa.