Wedding

Yeah, yeah. We’ve been promising to blog about the wedding for weeks. Now, of course, the memories are less clear, but we’ll do our best. The wedding was down in the valley from where we live. There is no electricity in the valley (only three families have generators) and people have to haul water from taps, but it’s absolutely beautiful. The wedding was at the home of the induna (headman). He works as a groundskeeper at the hospital, so we know him, but we had not met the bride and groom.

The wedding was supposed to begin at 10, but everything here runs on African time. We showed up at 1:30, and it was actually perfect timing. Ten minutes after we arrived, some of the older women began a traditional song and dance. The first hour or so at the wedding was awkward, as per usual. Many of the people attending the wedding had seen us around, but the bride’s family was from a different village so we still received quite a few stares upon arrival. We had a few people ask to take pictures with us as well. Soon though, the bride and groom arrived and the wedding party moved into the tent.
There was not enough room for everyone in the tent, so we were content to watch outside with the majority of the other guests. This was not to be. We were ushered through the crowd right to the front of the tent. There were not enough chairs, so extra chairs were brought out from the house for us. Matt ended up sitting directly behind the bride and groom. In fact, he was so close that when the best man dropped the ring, Matt picked it up. It was definitely awkward to be given such special treatment, but it is fairly common. I don’t think we’ll ever get used to being treated like celebrities.
The ceremony inside the tent was a fairly traditional Christian ceremony. It was in isiZulu, so we didn’t understand much though. After the ceremony we were fed. At the head table. Celebrity treatment again. After the food, however, the fun started. All of the wedding guests went outside for a traditional Zulu wedding.

The Zulu wedding consisted largely of singing and dance-off’s between the two families. The signature Zulu dance move is a high leg kick. Some of the younger men and women repeatedly kick their legs up to their heads and then stomp their foot on the ground in time with the music. It’s pretty awesome. Most family members were dressed in traditional Zulu attire: the women wore skirts and beads (traditionally women didn’t wear shirts, but everyone over 18 wore a bra) and the men carried shields and sticks. The two families (extended families with about 30-40 people) would always face each other. One family would sit down and watch while the other family sang and danced, and then they would trade places. Meanwhile, about 100 of us non-family members stood around and watched. The Zulu wedding lasted about 3 hours. We are not nearly good enough writers to capture the energy of the Zulu wedding, but suffice it to say that we had an amazing time and we are looking forward to the next one.

Half Marathon

Well, we are running a half marathon on March 31, and we need your help. It's actually to support a really great cause (info below). We only need to raise $100 each, so even a $5 donation would help a ton. We're also probably going to send out an email about this, b/c we don't know who reads this. If you could send a small donation, we'd really appreciate it (and we promise we'll start training!).

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, we've now been in South Africa for over a year! With the holidays now over, we are looking forward to upcoming events.
One of these is the Longtom marathon. It's actually a half- and an ultra-marathon, and we plan to participate in the half, which is 21.1 Km. It's happening on March 31 in Sabie, Mpumalanga Province, not too far from Kruger Park. It starts at the top of the Longtom Pass and goes into Lydenburg. Many Peace Corps volunteers will be taking part, probably over 70 of us, so it's going to be a lot of fun to get together with them for the weekend and run in this beautiful part of the country, which we haven't yet seen.

In addition to having a good time though, the main reason for taking part is to support the KLM foundation. Their website is: www.klm-foundation.org; please check it out. We won't go into all the details of what they do since you can read that on the site, but we’ll just say that the organization was founded by two PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) who served here in South Africa a few years ago. They decided to use the Longtom marathon as a fundraiser; they fund a worthy, needy child to attend an excellent independent high school in Mpumalanga called Uplands College. That's why we are so excited about helping them to raise funds; what better way to help this country than to educate a future leader? And the child they choose is very carefully selected, going through a four-tier application process. The seven children who have been chosen so far are excelling in all respects. We hope after reading about KLM you will find yourself as supportive as we are of their work.
There may be other projects we encounter along our way here, but this is very worthy indeed, and one for which we are asking your support. Please give what you can; any amount is appreciated. Even if you can only give $10 or $20, it is much needed. And it is tax-deductible. So please go to the KLM website to make a donation, just click on the 'donate' photo. Make sure to put one of our names in the white box where it asks for the Longtom runner you want to sponsor.

The online donation is preferable, but if you need to mail in a check, please make it payable to "Kgwale Le Mollo (US)" and send it to:
KLM Foundation (US)
c/o Bowen Hsu
461 So. Bonita Avenue
Pasadena, CA 91107
Please make sure to include a note that your donation is on behalf of one of us.

Thanks so much for your support, and especially for supporting the child who is chosen next year to attend Uplands College. We let you know how the weekend goes, and how many funds we, Peace Corps volunteers, collected.