A Wedding, Complete with Elephants

    There were about 10 volunteers staying at Imire during the time I was there.  Since I was only there five days, I didn't get to know them as well as I would have liked, but they were decidedly a delightful bunch.  There were Australians, Swedes, and several Americans.  Oddly enough, I had never encountered American volunteers at Imire before!
    First thing in the morning, we all went to the elephant bomas (corrals), or at least where the bomas used to be.  Apparently the elephants tore them down, which means now they have to be tied up at night again, since it is still too dangerous for them to roam free at night.  They just can't be adequately protected from poachers when 
it's dark out.
   





 I'd had some romantic notion that my 
favorite elephant Mac might give some sign
of remembering me, though I can't imagine
what such a sign would look like.  I didn't see one, in any case.  He was his usual amiable self though.

    







    One of the young American women was from California, and she had done numerous volunteer gigs all over African.  She had become familiar with the African custom of LOBOLA, or "bride price."  It is still quite customary in many African countries, and certainly in Zimbabwe, that when a couple wants to marry, the bride's family and the groom's family negotiates how much lobola will be paid by the groom's family to the bride's.  Usually, the "currency" involved is cows, but I understand that cash is also sometimes exchanged. 
    In any event, this young woman had apparently been making a game of negotiating lobola for her "daughter" with the elephant handlers, whom we visited our first morning together.  They  were negotiating for not just cows, but also rhinos, elephants, giraffes, zebras, whatever.  Everyone one was having a lot of fun negotiating.  Finally, an agreement was reached, and the young American produced one of the other volunteers as her "daughter," and a wedding was hastily convened, presided over by Bishop Mr. Brown.

In this photo, the "groom" is taking a photo of his bride (second from the left), her "mother" 
(second from the right), the three "bridesmaids,"  and Bishop Mr. Brown in the center.  More about Mr. Brown later. 





We were all laughing so hard that something magical happened.  The three elephants interrupted their breakfast and walked over to where we were goofing around and just stood and stared at us, ears flared.  They were "right there," and we all were struck by the magic of their company.

Here's one of the wedding on-lookers keeping a curious and benign eye on the proceedings.