With just being in Ghana for not only 2 weeks, I already had a big event coming up. I was invited for a wedding. Not just a random wedding but the wedding of Ameyaw, the person I was working with. So the first practical issue, what is normal on a wedding in Ghana. Will you bring a gift, do you need to wear anything special and how do you prepare yourself?
Luckily I had some helps from some locals care givers. They told me what was the best amount to give and when to give it to the bride and groom. We all came together in front of Ameyaw’s workshop and from there we went with a full bus of around 20 people to the village of Ameyaw’s future wife. They told me how proud they were that I would be present. Disabled people don’t have a very good place in society so showing my support to such a marriage is apparently a huge thing over here.
After 2 hours driving on a shaking dirt road we arrived in a very remote village. The whole town came to our bus to say welcome to us. We didn’t really have time for this, and the town chief guided us quickly into the house of the parents of Ameyaw’s wife. Here some discussions between the families started about money and taking care of each other. In the mean time I went out to get some food from a women selling fuffu not far away from us.
The wedding itself was in a small courtyard. I had the feeling the whole town was present to watch this wedding. Ameyaw was sitting with his family, friends and me on one side of the courtyard and his future wife’s family on the other side. What happened was a theatrical performance that I had some problems with to follow. Ameyaw’s family had to buy his wife from their family. At the moment the family of his future wife accepted the offer the bride was allowed to enter the courtyard and the marriage was allowed to happen.
But with the marriage it got even stranger for me personally. I had to be the best man for Ameyaw. Standing in the middle of courtyard, the whole town looking at us while they were talking in a language that I didn’t understand, is quite a ‘unique’ experience. Amazing, fascinating but also strange to have such an important place in something so personal of someone’s life.
After the wedding also Dunya, Ameyaw’s son, was baptised. When this was finished with a lot of shouting it was time to go back home. But not before we had some food of course. And you need to share food. So before we went back into the dark on the bumpy dirt road, we sat down on the ground around a pot filled with fuffu. Such an amazing experience, and if you want to have a feeling how the day felt for me personally, you can watch my video here.
Ameyaw’s son got baptized
