Parental Roles at White Weddings

I have made it my business to understand the complexities of weddings, not marriages, weddings, from arrangements to the big day. So I had discussions with married family members and friends just to understand how much control parents usually have when wedding preparations are underway. The stories were fascinating.

Felicity* shared with me that she and the husband never planned for a white wedding as they did not want it, however her parents made it clear that she will be married through a white wedding ceremony, no negotiations. I innocently asked if they covered the cost of the white wedding since they were the ones who wanted it and I got a “no”. Shocking. The parents wanted a white wedding but from her own pocket, all this emanating from social pressure. Since Felicity and the husband didn’t budget for the wedding they went ahead with the traditional wedding and saved money for a few years to have a white wedding, that’s when she was allowed to live with her husband and new family. Arabang* on the other hand did plan for a white wedding but the parents also had their own plans of dressing her up, having a traditional opening, a retreat to welcome her to marriage-hood and teach her how to behave and take care of her family (go laa), in a traditional setting. All this at a white wedding. Becca* shared that her parents were in full control of the preparations and that they financed the wedding, so it was only logical that they have control of the white wedding celebration.

A lot of questions went through my head as all the three ladies narrated their stories like how the whole concept of a white wedding became traditional. Has a white wedding always been part of our tradition and if no when did it start? Is this celebration supposed to be used by parents as a show off, and at whose expense. Does refusing to have a white wedding result in disrespect towards the parents? Doesn’t the parents’ role end at the traditional wedding part where Bogadi (Bride Price) is paid, and the bride and groom are married off by District Commissioner? And since every one wants their parents to have roles at their white wedding where do you draw the line? Who is the white wedding day really about? Who should be the happiest on this day?

Preparations for white wedding celebrations are now synonymous with family fights simply because there are no clear roles and boundaries of participation for relatives. It must be noted that all these people mean well, they have no intentions of making the celebration any difficult. Sometimes it appears as if they want their presence to be felt, but even that line of thought is arguable. Then in other areas there’s the idea of repeating the process of welcoming the bride in to marriage-hood (go laa) at the white wedding, right after lunch and dessert, this too is a traditional concept forced into a foreign concept, and one that disrupt the whole process as other people usually disperse during this session.

Now the wedding celebration has moved from being two traditional events on both the husband and bride’s side to being four events or five including the day the vows are changed at the District Commissioner’s office as that is also a significant celebration. I am still going to continue learning more about this celebration.

*Means the characters names have been changed.

Strippers at Stag Parties

 The past week has been buzzing following an anonymous news source in one of the local news papers, divulging her services as a stripper and offering other packages at an extra fee. She did not give out details of the packages she referred to. So I had a lot questions after I read the story.

1. Is Botswana  at a level where we have strippers at parties-this sounded like a clip from a movie?
2. If the source will not lose business by having details of her services published nationally, an act which I thought might scare her clientele as this appears to be a strictly confidential event?
3. If it was necessary for the source to reveal that the services are offered by the girls who were stuck in Durban in 2015, a scandal that also appeared on local media. This was enough to identify the service providers, especially that it appeared as if parents had to rescue them with finances to return home. The source stated that she was one of them.
4. While speaking of their Durban Scandal, why these strippers didn’t assess risks to their business and try to minimise them by either being paid upfront or ensuring that they have some contingency or as PRINCE2 would have it, a Risk Budget-yes I said it. I am assuming that this is a business and going to offer stripping services in Durban was a project.
5. If this article was meant to legally advertise this service such that contacts will be sourced through word up mouth from existing clients following the story.
6. And all in all the life of a stripper…no judgement please.

Well my questions went on and on. So I engaged a few friends, male of course to discuss this whole issue of strippers at stag parties, I must say I got out with nothing but denial. I tried to bring the same topic to a different group of men, this time a bit elderly, still nothing. Then I brought it up at a wedding, up solute nothing. All denied knowing anything about the strippers at stag parties. The a local comedian, very talented man I might add by the name of Juju Sekolokwane, released one of his comic video but this time around laying it out to the source of the story, telling her that stag parties a very serous events. One of the comments of this video was  “Bogale jwa gago kgang ya di stripper tshwanetse ele nnete. NO MORE STAG PARTIES”. This was of course from a lady while the men were angry. Everyone claiming that it’s from an attention seeking girl who has nothing to do but plan on discrediting them. Hhhmmm…

Well the source was saying what she does, am not sure why people were getting all emotional, as if anyone would confirm it if it was true. My main question is where is all this leading if at all it’s true? My concern is about the security of these girls, offering such services at mid night in secluded places as she detailed their events. Should the Police now start raiding stag parties, I believe men wont have a problem here since the girl was lying so I assume there’s nothing to worry about or hide. The part about the extra package to the groom had my mind all over the place, but that’s a story for another day.

Setswana Wedding

Often times we talk about how culture evolves as a way of life. Some emphasise the importance of preserving culture or at least the way it was before modernisation. I wonder how all this modernisation has affected weddings…not marriages…weddings. Right from the agreement by the lady and the gentleman to get married, to notifying the parents, negotiations and eventually the big day.

I find the whole concept fascinating, and the interesting part is that you can never know it all no matter the experience in the negotiations. You see, different cultures have different ways of planning a wedding, let alone negotiating the bride price. I must say it is true that one never stops learning. This is my journey to do so.