Marcus de Wolf
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# Posted: 22 Feb 07 20:07
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Last month I was invited to the wedding of a Kenyan friend of mine. Of course I was honoured to be there. The hospitality of these families was overwhelming. Because we arrived some days early, we could also see some of the preparations of the wedding.
One of these preparations was the slaughtering of a cow; they expected 600 guests, and they had to feed all of them. Fortunately, there is a lot of meat on a bull... Early in the morning, the choose the one in the picture above to be slaughtered.
 
It took 4 strong men, and some strong ropes to capture the bull and to get it down. These animals are STRONG. I took a safe distance...
 
Fortunately, they had a very well sharpened knife. Nevertheless, it took quite some minutes before it was really dead. The blood was caught in a bowl. In the past the old men ate this ('it is very nutritious'), but when they were converted to christianity, they learned from the English not to eat it. Now they feed it to the dogs.
 
Everything was done quickly. The children of the family watched with great attention. Every part of the cow is used. They make clothes and blankets of the skin, soup of the tail and so on.. They also use the intestines (which are in the big bowl), but i did not get clear for which purpose they use those. Also the testikels are very healthy (they say... )
To my surprise, at the end, a female inspector of the city-counsel had to examine the meat. It seemed just a formal procedure. She only palpated some of the meat (with her bare hands), and that was it! I guess her main concern was not to make her clothes dirty..
Next day it was the weddingday. The preparation had been done in a very Kenyan way, the ceremonies on the weddingday were totally English. Or, as they put it, 'christian' way. It was a strange and almost surreal experience: all these English traditions in such a rural African area. I think the English brought quite some good things to Kenya (like better education) , but I was sorry to find out that they made Kenyans believe that 'christian' and 'English' are almost interchangeable. Anyhow, the bride and bridegroom enjoyed a lot!
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