Happy Saturday

First, apologies that I downloaded some pics more than once-lost track and couldn't be bothered to edit now.
Just got home from a day at a true traditional Nigerian wedding and can report that I ate goat (heavily spiced to disguise the strong flavour) and drank palm wine and am still alive as I am writing this.
The wedding took place in my compound as it was the bosses youngest who was given away today. The boss, MD as everyone calls him, is the big guy in the white outfit below.
My colleagues Tola and Ayo ( the 2 beauties in the green head gear) helped me get into my traditional garb, in which I was stewing away for the afternoon, Decorum was maintained, albeit barely with the help of many glasses of palm wine, a lethal concoction made from the sap of palmtree, which with the help of some human spit, ferments into something resembling vinegar with a taste of astringent. Yum!
If my stomach still hold up after today, I am made for Nigeria!
It was all very interesting though with some really funny elements...
The grooms family came all the way from Benin and was sitting at one long table and the bride's at another. As proceedings began, the praise women had their say and the MC took over to introduce everyone to the crowd. We, the expats, as you can see below were all dressed in the same fabric to denote our 'belonging' to the brides clan. Then 42 yams, 42 litres of palmwine, a big vat of honey and various other unrecognisable things were placed before the brides table-not sure about the significance of the 42.
Each guest was given a palm nut-about the size of a walnut, to consume right there and then but only to be picked up with the right hand...how do I discribe the taste? Bitter, dry, trying...
Then the praise women proceeded to 'get' the bride from her room. Anticipation!
A girl gets led into the centre court covered by a large piece of fabric and presented to the groom. Groom says 'no, no, no' this is not the one!
And praise women proceed in explaining that this girl was flown in at great expense first class and the groom has to pay now for her to be sent away. Many wads of money change hands (this is what we know as 'Lobola' in SA) this happens a few times with a variety of girl being brought in-but not the right one!
Finally the right one appears-again covered (she's the one under the purle cover in one of the pics below)-groom is now happy and father asks bride if she is willing and happy to now become part of another family, she nods okay and gets given to the father of the groom first. He's the one who will make sure she is going to be well kept-then she is handed over to the groom by his father.
I like this!
Puts enormous pressure on the family members to make sure that she will be okay.
She gets asked if she is happy NEVER to return to her own family and nods yes.
Lots of singing, dancing, clapping and cheering.
The party can begin. A band starts playing what sounds very much like Calypso and all there is left to be done is to shower the happy couple with hundreds of Naira notes before they cut their wedding cake,
Strange mix of Western and Nigerian traditional-but nice!
Can't really work out whether these people are Muslim, Christian or strictly traditional-all a mix of stuff. A bit of each.
All in all a very good experience and happy days...