What's her name?

We’ve known a lot of single young men during our years on the islands. When we first met Sahara we were living on Volcano Island and he was just a another poor university student.  But several years have passed now, he traveled, studied abroad, and returned to Clove Island.

Sahara is now in his 30s and this is the time when men in Clove Island traditionally look for a wife.  Young men can’t marry because they haven’t established themselves. But a man in his 30’s has had time to get a job and become someone.  Sahara found a nice girl, from the town where he grew up.  She’s all of 19 years old, probably 15 years younger than him. 

The groom from the wedding Tom attended this week

This is pretty common on Clove Island: Older man marries teenage girl.  An island friend whose own 17 year old daughter will be married off this summer was telling me how he spoke to the groom:
“You will be like a father to her.  You must take good care of her.  She will be your responsibility.”  As he spoke these things, he had no idea how strange it sounded to our ears.

This week Megan and our daughter went to Sahara’s initial engagement ceremony. It was a gathering of women praying a blessing over the coming marriage and over the initial giving of gold jewelry from the man to his bride to seal the engagement. The actual couple are not at the ceremony. All the women gather in one room while the bride waits in a back room and the groom-to-be is not even around. After waiting hot and sweaty in a room packed with chanting women, a familiar face stood up and addressed us all. She is a well-known wedding singer, hired by people to lead group singing and to give speeches on behalf of the families. She was giving the official speech and presenting the gold to the bride-to-be’s family. She repeated Sahara’s name a lot, proclaiming his love, virtues and good intentions and showing off his gift of gold. But multiple times when she got to the girl’s name, she paused and the crowd would have to tell her the name so she could say it and continue. When she was finished, she turned around and revealed that she was actually related to the bride-to-be and so she proceeded to give another speech thanking Sahara’s family for the gold and expressing the girl’s family’s happiness in the coming marriage.

Tom went to another wedding ceremony this past week where more than one speaker couldn’t remember the bride’s name. The uncle of the groom stood up and made a speech: “We are so happy for Djamal and his beautiful bride, ummm, what’s her name again?”

Our American upbringing might want to get immediately upset over the fact that these young women aren’t given enough thought for their names to even be remembered, but in the island context, we at least understand why this happens. These girls haven’t had a chance to establish themselves. Unmarried girls don’t go to society events and if they are only teenagers then they haven’t had a chance to get a job or do anything notable. Men have to establish themselves somewhat before they get married, but for the women, the act of getting married is most girl’s first real foray into the greater society. It is traditionally after marriage that most island women make a name for themselves in the community.

Participation in ceremonies is for married women like these

We want to acknowledge that the islands is not like a lot of other similar countries. The islands are a place where women can be powerful. They can be leaders in their communities and their opinions will be listened to. They can do great things and make a name for themselves that can be all their own and not necessarily dependent on their father or husband… but it does seem that first they have to get married.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The complicated situation with a former employee of the language project has finally been resolved. Everyone is thankful that it is finally settled and that God provided a clear way to resolution. Ma Imani’s family is on speaking terms again— we pray for continued healing of relationships. We have an office! We signed a contract and exchanged money and keys.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that Sahara will be a good husband and for marriages in general on the islands. Continue to pray for our colleague having visa issues on the small island. He is coming to visit us this coming weekend for a brief visit but it is possible that he won’t be able to stay on the small island in which case he would join us on Clove Island. We’d be happy to have him, but he has already established and put much work into his life on the small island.  It would also mean that there could be problems for new colleagues on the small island in the future. We are hoping a resolution will be found.  Pray as we work to outfit and use our new office space that we’d be able to shine brightly from that location and into that neighborhood. Pray for our middle son (7 years old)— the transition of the past few months( back to the islands and into local school) has been hardest on him and we see signs of the stress in his behavior. There has been a teacher’s strike on the island in its second month (not our kids’ school). They are close to calling the entire school year a wash which would mean that the end of the year exams wouldn’t happen and all the kids would have to repeat the year—pray for resolution.