Isatou's sister's Wedding

The kids and I The bride and Isatou

Isatou's cousins Isatou and myself

The children

Last week I was really lucky to be invited to a Gambian wedding. Isatou a young girl in Grade 6 invited me. She is a lovely girl who decided to visit me after I walked past a few times and said hi and has continued to visit since. She is very smart with great english and a strong interest to learn about 'white' culture.

Isatou invited Lucy and I to her older sister's wedding (though it may not be her sister in our terms but she shares the compound with Isatou and possibly a biological parent or both).

The wedding was amazing and one of the best times I have had in the Gambia. We were invited inside and then invited to dance and invited to eat and the children lapped up having two Taubab's to themselves that they could get lots of attention from.

We arrived at the wedding dressed in our Gambian finest and was met by Isatou who took us inside and brought her mother to meet us and then we waded through the crowd - participating in some Gambian dancing - to meet her sister and give the wedding gift (which is usually money). We then met Isatou's dad who gave us a large plate of food and told Isatou to take us inside so we could eat in quiet. We invite the many interested children hanging around to join us in eating and then the children bombarded us (in the nicest possible way) with telling us their family histories and singing their favourite songs to us.

Gambian's eat out of the one bowl as I have mentioned before so with the bowl of food Lucy and I were given spoons and the children ate with their hands. Each person has a certain section of the bowl. The food was cous cous and noodles with large chunks of vegetables and meat sitting in the middle on top. The children broke up the vegetables and meat and threw it to our section of the bowl (until I said that I wouldn't eat the meat and that they could). They were so sweet

The most amazing thing about the wedding, of course, were the amazing women. I am often jealous of the Gambians for the pride they take in their appearance. There is none of this follow the fashion nonsense. The Gambians are far more fashion proud than we are but they take pride in going all out and being totally individual. The dresses are very bright, sparkly and they always look amazing. It has to be said though that it looks far better on black skin than it would on white!

The Saturday after the wedding (the wedding was Monday), I was walking past Isatou's compound and two children came belting towards me and gave me a big hug. I then recognised Isatou with them and they invited me in to meet Isatou's sister and look at the wedding pictures. They were gorgeous - similar I guess to our wedding albums except that the wedding format is totally different. It goes over several days with customs shared, according to the tribe the wife and the tribe the husband belong to, and then finishes with a big 'programme' (the Gambian word for party). I was invited to the party at the end. I was also invited back to a follow up ceremony but was unable to attend. I did make it into the photo album with Lucy and the bride - she thinks our white skin makes her look more beautiful in the photo (priceless!!!). The family is a really nice family - they would like me to bring Isatou back to Australia for a good education - which does make you realise again, how much the Gambian's do struggle to get ahead.