| | After spending time in a lot of governement offices and visiting family and friends, Theo and I were presented in his church as an engaged couple. It was so breathtaking, and so absolutely hillarious.
            
So there was this plan to have us presented in the church. As you can see, me and several other girls were to be dressed in the traditional dress, imishanana, and each of us girls was to have a guy to pair up with. Someone in the church was suposed to say that the YWAMers and the young men's cell group (Theo's cell) had an announcement to make and all of us girls and our guys were suposed to come up to the stage in a mixed order with me in the middle and Theo somewhere off in the congregation. Then the announcer would say that all of the girls needed to find fiances and everyone would pair up and then I would be left alone. Then she would tell the congregation that I needed help finding a fiance and I needed to search the congregation. I would then wonder through the congregation looking for Theo stopping off at a few old men or young boys just to make a good show. When I found Theo, we would approach the stage and then the preacher would take over. We practiced this and everything beforehand just to make sure that it went smoothly.
Well, guess what......................We were in Africa..................and things did not go smoothly.
When she called the people up, a bunch of other random girls came up to the stage smiling and acting like they new what was going on. I tried to get to the center anyway, but they kept pushing me out of the way so I just gave up and stood somewhere off on the side. Then when the cue was given for them to pair up, not all of the guys grabbed girls, but just stood there. Then the announcer asked the congregation if they could see if there was a girl without a guy and well,.............there were like 10 of us.
I was prodded to go searching anyway so I took to the crowd. First I stopped off at the pastor and he laughed and I spotted my next target. Next to the pastor was an old white man. I thought it would be funny to approach the only white man in the church so I approached him and tried to shake his hand but he stared at me blankly. After an awkwardly long time trying to get the confused Muzungu to shake my hand I went on. However, I didn't spot Theo were I thought he would be. We had it worked out beforehand so that I would know where he was, but apparently, Theo and I need to work on our communication skills. I searched for a really long time and tried to solicite help from the photographer who was following me around, but he was only concerned with capturing my distress on video.
Finally I found Theo and we took the stage. Then before I knew what was happening, the stage was rushed by hundreds of people congratulation and embracing us. It was so overpoweringly wonderful. Old women and young men rushed towards us, all with smiles plastered acrossed their faces and some with tears in their eyes. The love and compassion of these people will remain with me forever as will the delightful chaos of living in Africa.
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| | Posted 7/12/2007 11:22 AM - 46 Views - 8 eProps - 4 comments
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