final part I married you

Wedding day

My house was not very far from the cathedral catholic church, so when the first bell rang in readiness for our wedding ceremony… my heart started beating faster… It was a Saturday of the 23^rd August… I was in room and the house was filled with people, friends and family members… Marco and Hellen, my Italian friends had their wedding a month ago and they came to attend our wedding… I got tensed… women were singing outside, others were in the kitchen busy cooking and my uncles and other elder family members from Alice’s side were in the living room telling stories… I looked at my watch it was 08:10hrs and the wedding ceremony was at 09:00hrs …I thought of calling Alice but I realized she had her phone off… I felt weak in my knees… as I was walking around the room as to control tension, I saw a small paper on bed and I picked it; it was the paper we were using for reassesses; what to say and how to respond in wedding mass… I started reassessing once more ‹‹I James Sinkala, I take you Alice Nakonja as my……›› as I was memorizing my lines… There was a knock; it was my grandmother passing me a phone… “It’s your wife Alice, she is too overwhelmed”; said grandmother... I got the phone; Hello darling!!! “…hi James, are you ready” she asked and her voice seemed like she was crying… Yes dear I’m very ready, courage; I said. But my grandmother got the phone before we finished talking… “Campwa mayo nomba ka…?” I heard my grandmother talking with her while she was walking away from me… I went back in room. The second bells rang from the church, this time I was a bit calm… later I hear a noise from outside, I looked through the window it was a convoy of cars entering in the yard… shortly uncle called and we joined the convoy and we left for church… I wanted to look in Alice’s face but she was in a long veil that covered her face… She looked very beautiful in her wedding dress; I would not wait to unveil her face…

By the time our convoy arrived at the church, the car park was already filled, only our car was allowed to enter up to the front of the church’s door. As tradition Alice remained behind with her parents, I walked in and sat in between my parents as well. The wedding mass was celebrated by Fr. Tiza a Zimbabwean priest, by then he was the parish priest at cathedral catholic church. After the introduction, Alice was brought in by her parents to where we were… We stood up and I was in between Mummy and Daddy… When they reached us both my in-law parents handed me Alice and we both preceded in front were we sat and mass started…

During mass as Fr. Tiza was giving a homily I was taken in thoughts… I was thinking about how I shall kiss her when that part comes, I thought about the reception and about the stress I went through in preparation for the all ceremony… etc. I really got lost in these thoughts. When church patricians laughed after Fr. Tiza said; «naked but not ashamed», he justified his saying as he continued saying; “now that James and Alice have consecrated their marriage, they have own the grace upon  grace from God and this grace is only given to those who are in a wedlock… if you are outside marriage, you cannot enjoy this grace with a free conscience, for it is not given to you from God… now James and Alice, shall enjoy it” people laughed and he ended his homily like that.

After mass as we were walking out, old men and women walked before wearing tradition attire, they were singing and dancing, and then I saw Marco and Helen taking pictures … When journalist of the RAI NEWS PAPER first asked Alice about our future plans and where we shall go for honeymoon… Alice first looked at me and smiled; “about our future plans that remains between us and about honeymoon we shall be in one of the villages in muchinga provinces” said Alice … another female journalist, asked again “why have you chosen to have your honeymoons from the village? Alice answered; “We need our marriage to have that back-ground, since I and James, grew up from small town we would like to remind ourselves of that back-ground for a month and then we shall processed our life in this city of Ndola” … I looked at Alice and gave her a side smile, I never thought she was serious that day we talked over that… I had no options before cameras and everyone but to agree with Alice I then added by saying; Yes, we shall be in Nabwalya village where we shall remain for a month… “Do you have a family in Nabwalya” asked the Journalist. No, we shall just find a small house for rent…  

Our honeymoon in Nabwalya Village

Nabwalya chiumbo, is a small village found in Muchinga province to the far east of Mpika district. Most of the people here are domestic farms, hurters and fishers in Lwangwa River… By then there wasn’t any phone network and the language people were using was Besa and none of us was speaking it at that time but we understood because it is not very different from our language Bemba… We found a small house for rent… In the mornings I used to go to a small stream to draw water, while Alice could go to collect some fire-hoods.

In Nabwalya by then only 30% of the population was Christian’s believers and 70% were traditional believers… On Sundays after mass, the villager’s believers and nonbelievers used to come to sell fish, and bush meats in private, fearing the “wildlife conservation”… We got acclimatized in no time and we came to learn that people were very kind with us… we had a lot of experiences in this one month with this people… A month later we went back to copper belt province.

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