Aug 10

Today was the official wedding ceremony. We all dressed in our nice clothes and crammed in the sweaty van for the drive to a city called Ho. After the usual round about directions we arrived at the Royal Charismatic church. It’s a pretty basic hall, but its decorated in streamers and balloons and colored chair covers just like weddings back home. The service began with worship. A choir of about 10 and a back up band performed and the congregation danced. The music was gospel, but distinctly African, and I’m assuming it was in Ewe

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                When the bride came down the isle with her father, she was dressed exactly like a western bride. Her dress was a strapless corset with a flowing skirt and a long vail. She wore a string of pearls and white gloves. Amazin how yesterday’s engagement ceremony was so African and the actual wedding is so saturated with western culture. The service was much longer than the ones back home, in English but wuth an Ewe translator. Both the minister and the translator were animated and extremely dramatic. There was the exchanging of vows and rings and a signing of a registry just like back home.

Then came the part that we were unfamiliar with. A man in a white smock took the stage and began to prophesize. At first he started with the general word of the lord, and then his focus became more specific for 5 cedi you could line up on the stage an d he would tell you your personal fortune. All of the news was good. As you’d expect for the price of 5 cedi, all the women would marry and have successful children and then men would find success in business. Then he would put his hand on the person’s forehead and push them over. All of us were a little bothered by this part. Probably because we didn’t believe it was real. In our culture, ministers don’t shout and jump around, and no one claims to be able to conjor the word of God on demand. The fact that he charged money and his new was always good made us even more skeptical. We are so much more judgmental of bizarre cultural events when our own religion is involved. We believe we know the right way to do it because it is so close to our hearts.