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The
Wedding of An American Medical Doctor in Nigeria, Pt- 1
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Oliver Mbamara
I attended a wedding in Lagos sometime ago. The wedding mass was actually scheduled to begin at 9:00
am. Yes, with all the emphasis that the invitation placed on promptness, I made effort to be at the church on time only to wait for another two hours before the congregation gathered. And then we had to wait for another hour for the bride to arrive. The procession had been caught up in Lagos traffic.
It was your typical high society wedding with evidence of wealth and affluence flaunted here and there. Flashy cars filled the car park and extended into the streets around the neighborhood. People donned their most expensive garbs and jewelry, which they did not hesitate to show off. There were security men and mobile-police officers scattered all over the vicinity. In fact a passerby would think that something like a big state official function was taking place.
Well by the time the procession made it to the pulpit, it was almost 1:00 pm. Suffice to say that by then, my body had exhaustively used up my breakfast while I was waiting. At the moment, I was ravishingly hungry and needed to replenish my system so badly. Still I waited to make sure my friend noticed my presence before I sneaked out of the overcrowded hot church to go and attend to my stomach. Lagosians would say - “body no be firewood.”
I had hoped to be back in time to meet the photo shoot, but forget it. I was held up in traffic for the next 2 hours, and was able to make it back by 3:00 pm. By then, the photo shoot was almost over, although there were still members of the extended family of both the bride and groom from around the country grinning from ear to ear and posing for more and more shots. You know, our wedding photo shoots would always go on for hours until someone remembers to consider the cost of printing the pictures and eventually bring the session to an end. Yet, someone is always left out. The intricacies of extended family system.
After another long wait in the tightly filled reception hall, the wedding reception finally commenced, but we had to go through the tortures of the MC who had to sell himself off as a funny MC available to be booked by others for similar occasions. As the MC called up the members of the high table, one could hear more titles, accolades, and qualifications than names. That took about an hour.
The event did move on, and I was yet to get my surprise of the day. Stay with me. Yes, we got to the stage when relatives get to introduce bride and bridegroom. A relative of the bride took the stand and gave the crowd a lengthy lecture about the bride and why she was a big catch for the groom. Doctorate degree in Engineering, employed by one of the biggest oil companies in the country, and a chauffeur driven car among other incentives that made her position enviable.
Then it was the turn of the groom to be introduced. His relative stood up and went into a praise song probably aimed at surpassing the praise that was showered on the bride. At a point I was wondering if the exaggerated praises have not ended up exposing the couple to more temptation of infidelity. How? O, you needed to see the look on the faces of all the bachelors and spinsters around. One could read – “I wish I could be able to get this man (or woman, as the case maybe) for myself. Maybe, I was just being a little too concerned. Yes, maybe. Well, after dwelling extensively on the groom’s ability to make and spend dollars, the relative moved on to inform the audience of what the groom could still do as a medical doctor in the United States. “Wait a minute.” I found myself saying to myself.
I would have thought it was a mistake, but no, the relative referred to the groom as a medical doctor over and over again without any correction from anyone including the groom. I was to find out from the groom later when I politely confronted him that he had always given people the impression that he was a medical doctor in the United States. “After all, I back it up with dollars, that is what matters to them,” he said. “But…but…does your…your wife know?” I managed to ask him. “No! Does it matter? Well, I will deal with her later. Listen, I got to go,” He confidently concluded as he left me dumbfounded and hurried back into the arms of his smiling bride, I mean wife, who was yet to find out the truth about her husband’s profession. The groom was fondly called “Doctor” by acquaintances and friends in the United States, but he never finished college, at least not yet.
O boy! It would seem obvious that our pal, the groom, had lied about his true profession to his wife. Did it matter? Did she ever find out? And if she did, what happened?
CLICK HERE FOR CONCLUSION.
©Oliver
O. Mbamara, 2003
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Oliver Mbamara is an Administrative Law Judge
with the State of New York. He is also a filmmaker and a Published Poet
and playwright. For more on Oliver, please visit www.olivermbamara.com
For
background/research reference on this piece, click on this link
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