Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

I stood with my arms stretched out, suppressing a laugh as Léstonia tied a colorful lamba tightly around my waist. I was a guest at her wedding, yet here she was—the beautiful bride, dressed in a fitted light blue suit—helping me to get ready. I had only met Léstonia a handful of times since arriving in Madagascar, yet I was being treated like a guest of honor on her special day.

Once I was properly outfitted in my borrowed lamba—the bright, patterned squares of cloth that women wear all over the island—I ventured inside the tented area where the relatives and guests were beginning to gather, along with Laura, a fellow American in my program who was living with Léstonia’s family. Laura had been entrusted with the family’s bulky video camera, so as she attempted to film the dimly lit area inside the tent, I walked around to drink in the sights and sounds.

From a corner where a makeshift DJ booth had been set up, Malagasy music drifted out of the scratchy speakers. There were easily 300 guests crammed amongst the tables and poles, relatives and friends who had traveled from around Tôlanaro (Fort Dauphin) to witness Léstonia and Yves’ wedding. The women sat to one side, the men to the other. There was an eclectic range of outfits—little girls in layers of pink tulle and satin, old men in threadbare suits, women in flip-flops and wrap dresses. Laura’s host dad, the father of the bride, was wearing red jeans and a Wisconsin Badgers T-shirt that Laura had given him.

There seemed to be a hundred conversations happening at once, with everybody vying to be heard over their neighbors, cooing over the newest babies and catching up on gossip. One of the few words I recognized was vazaha, foreigner, which was being used quite frequently.

As the crowd settled down, the ceremony began with a series of speeches, delivered in Malagasy. Laura and I had been seated at the table of honor, front and center, with Léstonia and Yves. All around us, conversations in rapid fire Malagasy were being thrown around, and Soon, the DJ made an announcement that mentioned both our names and drew a lot of laughs. Someone nearby, seeing our confused looks, translated for us into French: “A guest would like to offer his hand in marriage to our two lovely foreign visitors, Laura and Elizabeth.”

Laura and I laughed and politely refused our suitor.

Outside the tent, a zebu (a horned, humped cattle) lay calmly on its side. As I walked by, carrying several bottles of beer to serve to thirsty guests, I noticed that its legs were tied together. Several men gathered around it, speaking rapidly. Then, before I had time to process what was going on, one of the men pulled out a hatchet and thrust it into the animal’s neck.

There was hacking, grunting, and flying blood. Laura and the video camera turned away. Clutching my bottles, I felt a simultaneous mix of intrigue and revulsion. The headless corpse now lay still under a cloud of flies, and the men descended on it to begin removing the hide. Once skinned, women came to carry off hunks of flesh, bloody and warm, to the cooking area, and less than an hour later, everyone around me was digging into mountains of rice and stewed meat.

As guests began to leave, we were transported across town with Léstonia’s family to Yves’ parents’ house. The music was blaring, the rum was flowing, and the crowd was lively. Almost as soon as we entered the house, we were swept up by partners and swung across the dance floor. Laura and I received plenty of invitations to dance from the men, friends nudging each other forward to offer a hand and giggling nervously.

But my most persistent partner turned out to be not one of the young men, but a woman in her late 40s. Wearing a patterned dress of brown and gold, she swirled me around, gripping my sweaty hand in hers. Just as my thigh muscles were about to give out, it was announced that the cake was being cut, and I gratefully exited the floor to witness Yves and Léstonia smearing icing on each other’s faces. From wherever this tradition originated, it has made its way into Malagasy weddings.

The sun began to set and I knew it was time to start making my way back to my own host family. The music still floating through my mind, I walked with Laura along the dusty road and up the crumbling stone steps to my house.