10,000 Lakes for a Thousand Hills : Everyone Kuvumba Now!

So I crashed a wedding last weekend. I ended up being in the wedding. And I may or may not have almost gotten married...

Let me start from the beginning: Last week I spent a few days in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, to attend the Global Leadership Summit, a faith-based leadership conference. Because I was in town, I thought I would go visit my Kinyarwanda teacher, Peter. When I called, he told me he was going to a wedding. Seeing it as his responsibility to have me practice my Kinyarwanda skills and introduce me to more Rwandan culture, Peter invited me to tag along. Normally, my Midwest American upbringing would have caused me to hesitate, not wanting to intrude on someone’s special day. Luckily, I am in Rwanda where people are not only expected but invited to crash a wedding. They even have a word for that: kuvumba, which translates to “to take food or drink when not invited to a party.” And the people that do the kuvumba-ing are called abavumbyi. Rwandans don’t worry about the number of places to sit or the number of meals to prepare, rather they truly believe “the more, the merrier.”

Upon arriving at the wedding, a friend of the bride took me by the arm and helped me don the traditional dress. Now, I must confess I still don’t really understand the entire marriage ceremony here in Rwanda. It can take several days and there are many parts. The day I attended was the gusaba and gukwa, the negotiation and presentation of dowry. Traditionally, the dowry was always cows. In rural areas this is still true. In fact, during my first week in Rwanda, a man offered my father forty cows if I would marry his son. I did kindly decline, mostly on the grounds that my dad would have no idea what to do with that many cows. (I think the day a man does come seeking my hand in marriage, he is going to have better luck offering a dowry more suited to my father's tastes, such a water-skies or Snickers Blizzards.)

There was no exchanging of cows at this wedding. Instead they exchanged beer, wine, and other gifts. If you speak Kinyarwanda, the negotiating is fun to watch. The uncles or fathers of the families banter back and forth, exchanging jokes and friendly teasing as they decide the dowry price. The father of the bride will eventually concede to giving up his daughter. Often though, as a joke, he will bring out the wrong daughter. Then the banter will continue until the groom wins the bride he is after. At this wedding, however, someone thought it would be hilarious if instead of bringing out the bride, they bring out a tall American girl who clearly looks nothing like the bride-to-be.

So before the ceremony began, Peter pulled me into the back room where the wedding party was waiting. And at just the right moment, someone escorted me out to the negotiating families and the bride’s family presented me to the father of the groom. Everyone had a good laugh and I enjoyed playing along. Thankfully, the groom’s family kept negotiating for the bride they wanted.

What if they would have settled with me?

That would have made for an awkward phone call home to Mom and Dad.