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[Odler]

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This weekend, I lived a page torn right out of ?Coming to America? (Eddy Murphy, 1989). The kingdom of Zamunda became an enclave of Atlanta, Georgia. My friend and colleague, Bola, was getting married. (I refrained here from using an exclamation sign after the previous sentence.)

As you may, or may not know, Bola was not supposed to ever get married. But after, soiling his royal oats in dating half of the datable population of New York City and of Atlanta, he was hit in the heart by an arrow from Venus? ark; Venus, in this case, being a beautiful, beautiful bride called Rachel Folasade Adefalujo. Talk about a major sniper attack!

Bola?s wedding is the kind one must attend at least once in a lifetime. It is more about the glamour, the lavishness, the grandiose of a two-day party involving at least 300 hundred guests.

It was more than the convention of the crème de la crème of the Nigerian American population, and of the very far Lagos and Abuja. Bola?s great walk away from celibacy was the celebration of traditions, of the richness of African culture, and of love? Yes, of love, and I mean it.

From Friday night till Sunday morning, I was in the midst of a whirlwind of ceremonies, celebrations, and partying. First, we went to the bride?s home to request her hand. There, the two sets of families and friends met, introduced themselves, prayed, ate, sang in an abundance of traditions that pale our Western customs into shameful simplicity.

Then, that was the trip down Memorial Drive, where the good ole American-made bachelor party was to take place. Food, DJ beat, and the gyrations of four strip teasers made it to the menu. The party lasted until the last man surrendered. Meaning, late.

The wedding itself was spectacular. From 3:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. What an affair! And what a magnificent bride!

Guess what? My tux was one of the few lost in sea of African outfits. If the sermon was in English, almost everything else was said, done and sung in the language of the Yoruba tribe, one of the three main Nigerian clans. Men, not in Givenchy, wore Agbada, Dasliki and their filas. The women were superb in their Iros and Buba, with their hair covered by splendid matching gades.

Then the cortege was back to the Capitol Plaza, with the speeches, the Fuji dances, and all the traditional endeavors I grabbed the beauty, but not the meaning thereof. However, there was no need of an interpreter to notice that the ladies were gorgeous, the gentlemen dignified, the food plenty, the band performant, and the chairs dressed in gold and blue, like the bridesmaids (!).

I walked out of that unique event, regretting that such magnificent customs and traditions get diluted in a dominant Christian Anglo-Saxon culture. It is a loss, a consequence of acculturation.

I left Atlanta, convinced that Prince Adebola Adekunle Adeogun (?Is he really a prince??) took the right step by entering holy matrimony. He is already a changed man. He sure has changed because when the strip teasers rubbed their rear-ends on his crotch, at the bachelor party, he only grimaced. And, when one of them attempted to slap him with a pendulous breast, he did not catch the mammary gland; he avoided its trajectory. That says a lot.

I told Atlanta a goodbye (Odab?o). I wished the newlyweds Good Luck (Ku ori re) and a Happy Marriage (E ku lyawo)?, then I flew back to work, dreaming of the Kingdom of Zamunda, for real.

http://www.jeanlouie.com/

(OdlerRobert Jeanlouie, Monday, October 28, 2002)