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| I am invited to pose with guests for a photograph |
Immediately after
this, Bukari's parents and relatives left, heading back to
their neighbouring home town of Bawku.
At another date, a similar ceremony will be held there and Sandra will become
part of her husband’s family.
Meantime, those staying took the nearest paths to the site for celebrations, marked
out with three large gazebo- type open
tents and rows of seating, arranged around a cleared space-which was to be a
dance floor. While guests were given
take-away cartons of food and canned drinks, the music began- a loud selection
of Ghana’s current favourites,- and the bride was joined by other women
in dance. Impressed guests and anybody from the local community, who wanted to
join in, could run into the dancing throng and “pin money”- either coins or
notes- onto the bride, or other dancers. One relative had been given the task
of collecting all the money as each song finished.
The scene was one of jollity, shared celebration and a
chance for socializing generally. In this part of Ghana, baby naming, weddings
and funerals are key events for meeting, for new introductions, even
“courting”.
Vendors of drinks and snacks, mainly children, with plastic
boxes and small wooden, glass fronted cupboards on their heads wandered and
watched.
Men occasionally joined the dance, preferring to observe and
take photographs with their mobile phones.
While I was there, Sandra appeared, changed, then reappeared arranged in different outfits.
After a couple of hours in the baking heat
of the middle of the day, and as others were arriving, it was time for me to
leave.
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