Cultural Experience of the Month!

The Nuban women arrive at the bride's house singing and drumming

One of our good friends is from the Nuba tribe. He is a gifted evangelist and teacher and has been part of our team that goes out to the Ingassana camps each week to teach the Bible to the new believers out there. He is engaged to be married to one of the young Ingassana ladies in the church. With the wedding only days away, today was the special occasion where the women on the groom's side of the family deliver all the bride's special gifts to her home. The gifts are not only for the bride but for her family as well - wedding clothes for her parents and grandparents, food, drink, many new clothes, shoes and accessories for the bride, etc.

The procession - friends of the grooms

When we arrived at the bride's house everyone unloaded the food and gifts and paraded into her compound. An interesting fact is that we did not see the bride this entire day. She had to hide at the neighbor's house and was not supposed to show her face.

Her sisters served the guests drinks and her cousin and auntie are the ones who looked through the gifts and decided whether it was all enough.

Kilos of wheat flour

Once inside the compound the ladies danced in a circle with the bride's gifts for a certain number of times.

My teammate Ruth and a good friend, Joy

The gifts were placed on a mat in the center

Felt like there were women everywhere!

My teammate Cathy, enjoying some shade on a very hot afternoon

Getting my baby fix

Cathy with the bride's older sister

The bride's cousin and auntie then unpacked the gifts one by one, inspecting each thing and sometimes holding it up to show everyone else.

Sealed deal!

Finally after a few tense moments of waiting to hear if the gifts were enough, the bride's family agreed that it was and the groom's friends and relatives broke into singing and dancing. This was definitely not the type of bridal shower I'm used to but it was so much fun!