After Heritage Day in September I wrote a post that included information on ucu/ibheqe, the "Zulu love letter." Since I already wrote a bit about it here, I will forgo explaining this one.But what I will say, is after learning about the symbolically beaded love letter, I decided I was going to make one of my own for Andrew. Yes, I could just go to a touristy store a buy one, but I got it into my head that it would mean more for me make one myself. This in itself was a huge challenge. First I researched what all the colors meant and the symbols. This involved going to the library and using the internet as a resource, and then designing my own ucu. Then I bought the string and beads and sat down for hours and hours trying to figure out how to do it. All I could make was a line of beads. There were no books in the library describing how to do it, but I then started to stare at pictures and try to see exactly how they did it. Then my string of beads just turned into a mess. At one point, I successfully made a square. Nothing inside the square, just four sides of beads. I struggled with this for about a week until I started asking people if they could find me some nice old woman that knew how to do Zulu beadwork. Unfortunately, this is a dying art and is now just used to make pendants with AIDS ribbons on it for tourists, so the only people left to ask about it are the older ones. That Sunday morning, I walked over to a woman's house and sat on her floor as she taught me how to do beadwork. I showed her my attempts and she just took pity on me.
I worked on it every night that week. At my first attempt to Andrew's ucu, I was doing really well. About halfway through I messed up to the point of no return. And had to start all over. Fortunately I was a little faster the second time and it went a lot faster. Everyone was so impressed with my work-- not only was it pretty good, but it was made by a mlungu! Zulu people don't even know how to do it. I wouldn't say that I am a master, but I was pretty happy with myself. I learned beadwork just for the sake of making that for Andrew, and I haven't made anything since. I sent it to him for Valentine's Day. [Unfortunately, when all the pictures were deleted off my memory card, the picture that I had taken of my finished product was also deleted. Maybe Andrew will be nice and share it.Then I will post the picture up here.]
So, back the courting process [or at least what I have learned about it]. My giving Andrew ucu is basically asking him to date me. Boys used to get these "love letters" from more than one girl and wear them around their necks. I think the chances of Andrew wearing beadwork around his neck is about -6 in 1billion, so I didn't even make the necklace part big enough to go around his head. The boys would often go to their sisters or mothers and ask for a translation in the symbols and colors. I just wrote it out for Andrew, on a hunch that his mom or sister might not know.
Once the guy has chosen a girl to date, he hangs a white flag outside his home. This means he is not accepting dating proposals anymore... and I think the fact that the flag is white is kind of funny people it is like he is surrendering. I told Andrew that I expect him to at least hang a white t-shirt out his window and take a picture of it. I don't know why he thinks I am joking. I am serious. If he waits to long I am going to go bead some ucu for some other men. They like me here you know, and I get marriage proposals all the time, so Andrew needs to get on it.
So then the ucu is given, the white flag is hung, and dating happens. Then they start talking about marriage. That is when the families start negotiating on labola, or the dowry. The practice is supposed to show the grooms commitment to his future bride, while also being compensation to her father for the loss of his girl. This is something I learned about early on, as it was mentioned the very first time I stepped into a rural community. So a woman is generally worth 10 cows, 11 if she is a virgin. After talking to some people here, we have decided that my labola is at least 13 cows. I got two extra for getting a university degree. Every time I tell people that my labola is 13 cows, the guys tell me I am too expensive. Although much of the Zulu courting tradition up to this point is an extinct practice, the practice of exchanging labola is still very much alive. People who live in the city don't have cows, so the brides family decides how much the price of a single cow would be. I, on behalf of my family, have done incredibly scientific research and realized that cows are over $1000! Because I am nice, and I am going to need a lot of cows, I am discounting it $800 per cow. This is just a warning to any future in-laws out there.
After the grooms family pays labola for the bride, then the bride's family does umbondo, which is what I participated in last week [and still need to put a blog post up about]. This is when the bride's family gives gifts the the grooms family, which from what I saw can include anything from lots and lots and lots of food [that we, the women, had to carry on our heads down a dirt road] to furniture to a house. Blankets are given to the whole family, even the deceased. It is very expensive... but in the end I wonder if it about evens out between the families. The umbondo is the last step before the wedding. Mommy, when the time comes we are going to need to arrange a time to meet with all my female friends and practice balancing gifts on our heads... while walking... and singing... and dancing. This will be a job for the bridal party, I suppose.
And then there is a wedding. Depending on who you are, you might just have the traditional wedding or just the modern white dress wedding. It seems like many people here have both. One day you are dressed in a suit and a wedding dress, the next day wearing loin cloths and beads. I haven't been to a wedding, so I do not know much about it... yet. All I know is that Zulu weddings are characterised by joyous singing and ululating, dancing and mock fighting by warriors in traditional dress. The women wear traditional headdresses, beautiful beaded necklaces and soft leather aprons.
No invitations are sent and the whole community can join in the celebrations [imagine the catering costs on that!]. Unlike western style weddings no vows are exchanged. In Zulu wedding tradition the marriage is only finalised when the bride is taken to be bathed and examined by her sisters the morning after the wedding... although I don't know what it is that they are examining. The time frame on this whole process, from labola to the icece [wedding], depends solely on how much money you have. If you come from two wealthy families, this could all get done in less than a month. Many people find that it takes years for this to happen because the families have to save up money/cows/food/whatever in order to go through with the process. No matter where in the world you go, from the American $40,000 wedding to the Indian 10-day wedding ceremony, weddings are expensive. Yikes.
So, Andrew if you want me you are going to have to put that white flag up. That's right, surrender! We are doing this Zulu style.
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