Wedding Bells

The wedding of the year in the village of Peredo!

Sunday the principal of the school in Peredo, Met-Sorel and Margareth, a 1st grade teacher. were married in the new clinic. It was beautifully decorated and there was a full house. It was similar to American weddings with the biggest difference being everyone danced down the aisle. Not fast-club style dancing but tastefully slow danced. I will admit at first it seemed quite weird to this white girl but as it went on-I realized how nice it was to sit and relax. Little bit of entertainment. It was much nicer than the bridesmaids and groomsmen practically running down the aisle to take their place up front. You really got to see the dresses and suits-which were top notch for this small Haitian village. It was supposed to start at 4pm but didn't actually start until 530pm. But it was a Haitian wedding so on Haitian time!

First a group of 6 or 7 teen girls danced down the aisle in unison with flowers. They were followed by about 8 couples in their 20's who also danced down the aisle. Then came the flower girls. When they were done dancing they would line up on the inside of the isle and wait for the next group to come down. Then they all stayed lined up when the bride and groom made their entrance. The bride and groom were followed by the matron of honor and best man.

The ceremony was a lot like ours with a fairly LONG sermon in the middle, a couple of solos and vows and rings.

The thing that struck me the strangest is that the entire ceremony was in French. I have mentioned before that the official language of Haiti is French but it is estimated that only 20% of the population speaks it. However, everyone speaks Creole. It seems that the further out in the villages you go, the less French speaking people there are. I asked why the ceremony was in French and they said b/c they wanted it to be nice and formal. Well it was but I would guess maybe 10 people out of the 150 that were there understood it. I was not in those 10 people as I don't speak French. David sat with me and translated it for me. Those sitting around us chatted about the nice building and dresses-they didn't have a clue either what was being said. Made me feel like more part of the group.

The cutest things was that kids from the school snuck in in their dirty play clothes and no shoes. They were sitting on the side of the church on the floor to get a glimpse of their principal and teacher. Their eyes were huge watching the big production and they giggled, thinking no one saw them. The adults did of course but let them be -I think b/c they were too busy watching it themselves.