Pre-wedding henna

Thursday and Sunday are the traditional days of marriage in Mali. We chose Sunday. The plan was (and still is) to get legally married in Bintou’s village, have a small celebration with friends and her family, and then have a staged wedding in Bamako (basically an excuse to throw a big party) at a later date, which would provide enough time for stateside friends and family to organize a trip.

The legal marriage and small celebration in Fana did not go as planned (more on that in a minute). But, we are legally married now, and we did have a nice party in the end.

Bintou arrived in Fana the Thursday before the wedding. I arrived on Saturday. I was traveling with friends Jaimie, Drissa and Lalla. These three would form the core of “Team Phil” for the weekend.

Their job was to look out for me, to offer protection when the time came, and to provide a buffer between me and certain elements of Bintou’s family. Drissa (Jaimie’s husband) in particular wore multiple hats, acting as a chauffeur, a photographer and a bartender, sometimes simultaneously.

Another key member of “Team Phil” was Matt aka Madouba, a Peace Corps volunteer that has spent at least 4 years in Mali. In addition to being a good friend, he knows the ropes of Malian culture like few other toubabs (Jaimie being one of them). Between Madouba, Drissa, Jaimie and Lalla, I had a crack team with serious talent. I would need it.

Shortly after arriving on Saturday, I was baptized. I am not speaking in code. I really was baptized. Full immersion, born-again-Christian type shit. How I got to this point is a somewhat confusing tale, but it mostly involves meddling on the part of Bintou’s step-dad’s second wife.

The baptism, which occurred in a small garden on the outskirts of Fana, was preceded by several hours of bible study. I am not a religious person, but I was willing to put on a show in order for Bintou and her mom to avoid heat from the neighborhood pastor, who was in turn putting pressure on Bintou’s step-dad’s second wife.

Long story short: neither Bintou or her mom are a member of the church that baptized me, but neighborhood and household politics complicated things.

I did have a moment of reflection before I was submerged in a concrete irrigation basin by a Malian evangelical pastor. Something along the lines of “what am I doing with my life?” – which is typically considered a poor question to ask 18 hours before your marriage. But then down I went, and up I came, laughing and shivering.

Lalla and Jaimie held my hand through the baptism affair, but they would not be allowed in the closed-door interrogation that Bintou and I labored through later that evening. Bintou was already irritated by the pastor for a number of other reasons, but the Pastor’s exhaustive line of questioning that we endured as her friends and family blew up her phone trying to find out when they could hang out with her, was too much. In a bit of role reversal, I was now the one telling Bintou to go along with the show.

After the interrogation, I went to the hotel and drank beer with my team. Bintou returned to the pre-marriage madness that had now taken over her entire neighborhood.

le jour du mariage

When I woke up, none of my clothes were ironed, the hotel staff – which was really just one guy – were nowhere to be found and our transportation had not yet arrived in Fana. Within 20 minutes or so, all of that was taken care of.

This scenario – things going pear-shaped before righting themselves unexpectedly – would occur throughout the day. This is Mali, and there is always an improvised solution around the corner, but I have to give a lot of credit to “Team Phil” for taking serious initiative in this regard.

Trying to track down Bintou while Matt was mocking me

Matt, Jaimie and Lalla. Drissa is behind the lens

Malian weddings begin in the mayor’s office, but we first had to pick up my bride. She was at a friend’s house, which had been converted into a beauty parlor.

Some guys will say that seeing your wife for the first time on your wedding day is a revelation. “I didn’t know she could be that beautiful” kind of thing. I was actually quite worried. Malian women don’t wear much make-up, but all of that changes on wedding day. Bintou knew I was nervous, and she promised to resist the efforts of the older women that would be styling her in order to avoid looking like a clown.

She did well.

Then it was a race to the mayor’s office. We had missed the first window of time in which we could get married. Thanks to Drissa’s driving, we were there in time for the second.

The first couple was still in the mayor’s office when we arrived, so an intense photo session began outside his door.

After several dozen photos and no end in sight, Drissa, sensing my distress and my inability to continue smiling due to strained face muscles, intervened with a gobelet of mango juice and champagne. Fair warning: some details of my wedding day may indicate that I am an alcoholic. Believe me, if Bintou drank alcohol, she would have been downing cocktails at the same rate.

We were then herded into the mayor’s office, which was cramped with two wedding parties and at least one griot (I was not happy about this, but there is nothing you can do about the griots). We would be married simultaneously with another couple.

The Griot.

Jaimie was my witness, but she was soon demoted by the mayor’s assistant on account of her gender. We were not in a position to fight this, and Madouba stepped up to the plate to be the new témoin.

The civil marriage is straightforward. Both the bride and the groom need a witness, and you need to answer two questions. One being whether or not you take the other person to be your spouse and the second being whether you want a monogamous or polygamous marriage (In Mali, you can legally have up to four wives). A few signatures and a brief lecture from the mayor, and then you exchange rings and kiss. And then the griot makes a lot of noise.

Our first attempt to exit the mayor’s office was foiled by a brawl taking place on the steps. A group of guys was apparently trying to kidnap the bride from the other couple. This seemed odd at first, and it still does now, but it made somewhat more sense when my taximan friend Omar explained the situation.

The groom from the other couple was a transporter. Apprentices who work with drivers as assistants – more or less – make an effort to haze the drivers’ brides by kidnapping them and taking them to a garage where the brides are forced to perform basic maintenance on a car (changing the tires etc.), so that they have some familiarity with their husband’s profession. That’s the idea, anyway.

The wife in this case would not be kidnapped. The drivers were able to fend off the apprentices, and they sped off with a crowd trailing them.

We were not far behind. We needed to get to the church for the religious ceremony. Many people were already there waiting, but Bintou’s step-dad’s best friend, who also happened to be a griot (!!!), insisted that we first greet certain families that lived on the outskirts of the village. There is not anything unusual about this, but I didn’t understand why we needed to visit some of the families (one of them was just a friend of Bintou’s step-dad).

Drissa was slipping me cocktails of Jameson and mango juice at this point (better than it sounds). He was also taking pictures while driving:

Drissa taking a picture of the moto procession while driving. Every wedding procession features dangerous moto antics. Thankfully, we did not have any accidents in ours.

Greeting families. I had a part of a balafon up my ass I think.

Wedding crashers

The Church. I had a bad feeling about the church. Loquacious pastor Paul Traore was about to have a captive audience. On Saturday alone, I probably heard this guy talk for 4-5 hours over the course of the day.

He didn’t let us down on Sunday. The service must have been 3 hours long. Drissa was ferrying cocktails, and I shamelessly drank them in order to cope with the pastor and the photographer’s heat lamp that was on me and Bintou for the duration of the ceremony. After Pastor Traore’s rambling sermon, we repeated the ring exchange, kissed and then kneeled with our heads together as the pastor and his first mate gave us benedictions. Then we were free.

I had a decent buzz at this point, and I was relieved to be out of the church. Bintou was, too. Both of us were starving, and we had massive quantities of tchep with sheap meat to look forward to. Or did we?

While we were at the church, the 150 kilos of rice and the meat from the 3 sheep I had bought disappeared. The details are still unclear, but it appears that Bintou’s step-dad’s second wife was once again involved. As I learned, the bride, the groom and his party are supposed to be the VIPs, feasting until our stomachs burst. When we showed up at the house, the food had been re-routed all over town, much of it ending up with folks at the church!!

Bintou’s mom was in tears (I should mention here that Bintou’s mom is one of the sweetest women you will ever meet), which meant Bintou herself was soon in tears. I was flying high at this point and just trying to cheer everyone up. I was pissed about the food, too, but I wasn’t going to let the other wife derail the day. Jaimie wisely suggested we ditch the nonsense at the house and hit up Fana’s only restaurant. This was an excellent plan.

Right before we found out all the food had been eaten.

Raki, Bintou and Zara at the restaurant.

Joe Penney is known for taking world class photos for Reuters. But I think some of his best work is this photo-series featuring Bintou and I crushing a pintade.

I am blessed with great friends here. When we moved the party to the restaurant, no one complained. Everyone rolled with it, and we had an excellent time. Of course, the whiskey and champagne didn’t hurt.

Feeling good.

I did not enjoy the morning to early afternoon gauntlet of wedding formalities in Fana. It makes me feel better that Bintou didn’t either. But we made it.

These are some of my favorite photos from the day. Everyone was relaxed at this point. That’s Bintou’s mom on the left. With Joe, Me, Maiga, Bintou, Omar and Mahamane. I love that Mahamane, the largest person among us, chose to crouch down in the front. Along with Omar, he is a taxi driver in Bamako.

I think the griot said something along the lines of “You have Bintou, but you can’t also have her mom!!!!” That guy..

After the final photo shoot, we jetted to Segou for a one night honeymoon.

Wardrobe change. At this point we were both in bazin, I had my tie on my head, and we were about to dig in to a delicious meal at Djoliba Hotel in Segou. Later, we slept in a basic room in a mud house next to the river. The rhythm of the wind outside the window made it sound like ocean waves. It was a great night.

Today is our one month anniversary. So far, so good 🙂