My cousins from Gikuyu were in the bridesmaid line up too, so it was no longer intimidating for me. I actually started enjoying myself. Some of them did not have hair, so I stopped feeling bad about my look, as you know, misery loves company. The entire wedding party was taken to Jirada’s Bata shop and we all got matching leather shoes with a small heel. I had never worn shoes like those in my life and I hoped I would survive the day in them without falling flat on my face. I survived, although I galloped like a horse before I got comfortable walking in them. The wedding ended without any incidents, but it got me thinking.
Here was my sister, highly educated, having a good job and now getting married. She had friends and colleagues who matched her current status and they all looked wonderful together as they congratulated her on her beautiful wedding.
Then there was us. OlKalou and Gikuyu children with no exposure outside of our rural homes. We looked and felt awkward in the clothes and shoes they picked out for us to wear for that day. That got me thinking. Would it be so bad if somebody left out children like us from such an important event of their lives?
Today, I look at my sisters’ wedding pictures and I feel bad for her, even embarrassed for her. I would not want me or my cousins in the wedding lineup had it been my wedding back then. We looked awkward and out of place. We did not look good in the fancy dresses, and even the cute hair bands they put on our almost clean shaven heads did not camouflage our gichagi look. We did not even understand the significance of being a bridesmaid and personally I would not have noticed had my sister left me out of the wedding lineup. Truth be told, I would have been much happier in the company of my brothers on a day like that when our parents and older siblings were too busy to keep watch over our every move like they usually did, giving us a chance to eat everything in our path with no one to stop us. I still envy my brothers for the freedom they enjoyed on that day while I was confined to a choreographed lineup I did not fully understand its significance.
Anyhow, today, I would not fault any of my siblings if they excluded my children from their wedding lineups. That is just my thinking. That is me trying to free everybody to do what is comfortable for them. I want everybody to look at their wedding pictures decades from now and enjoy who and what they see in them. What’s wrong with that?
