Colorful Nigerian Weddings

For months now, my sister has been endlessly talking about her friend’s wedding, complaining about the design of the dresses that they have to wear as bridesmaids. Well, after seeing the contraption, I could not agree more.

It got me thinking about those wonderful and colorful African weddings I see in the Discovery channel. Browsing through the internet, I landed on a page with an interview with Mohammed Babangida about his matrimonial with Rahama Indimi in Nigeria. Wow! These Nigerians surely have very colorful weddings, which I find very exciting and not so boring.

A photo of the newlyweds (courtesy of ibrahimbabangida.com)

The Bride and her sisters (courtesy of ibrahimbabangida.com)

The prelude to Nigerian weddings is called the Introduction, which is quite similar to the Filipino’s “Pamamanhikan” where both families meet with a visit to the bride’s family. They bring along with a formal letter asking for the daughter’s hand in marriage. The only difference is the dowry that the groom’s family would provide for the other family. This is followed by an engagement ceremony where family members are formally introduced to one another. These ceremonies are celebrated with traditional food and drinks.

Then comes the wedding day, which is quite similar to weddings around the world. The only difference is that the bride is taken back to her parent’s house so they could pray over her, before they finally return her to the husband. What a touching thought that would be. The day ends with, of course, a party in honor of the bride and groom. The night party can go on until morning with non-stop dancing with music coming from a live band.

Mohammed Babangida is a special advisor to the Santa Isabel Petroleum Company, where he serves as liaison to government agencies in behalf of the oil company. Incidentally, Mohammed is the son of Ibrahim Babangida, more popularly known as IBB, who was a former military ruler of Nigeria.

Cheers to Mohammed and Rahama!


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Peter Allan C. Mariano

Talakayan at Kalusugan - DWBL1242 4-5pm Mon-Fri

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The Tribe of the Marathon Runners

In my first installment of Culture Finder, I will discuss a unique tribe from Kenya, where some of the best marathon runners in the world came from. The Kalenjin tribe, also known as Kenya’s running tribe, is the fourth largest tribe in Kenya and is known worldwide for their enormous physical endurance as shown in their love for long distance running.

These runners first wowed the world during the 1968 Olympics when runner Kipchoge Keino continued running despite a gall bladder infection and emerged victorious in the 5,000-meter run, earning him a silver medal. He did not stop there and continued running to break the record in the 1,500-meter run and winning the gold, defeating the best the world had to offer.

Most people know that Kenyan’s dominate distance running, but only a few of us know that all of them came from a single tribe that numbers less than 3 million. Wow! What a great cultural achievement! Now, one would ask what made this tribe so dominating in this sport. Food maybe? Geographical structure and training grounds? Genes? These questions baffle people worldwide. I came across a blog by Linus Gitahi describing and trying to answer these questions about Kelenjian running.

(Photo courtesy of www.kenya-information-guide.com)

Digging more about Mr. Linus Gitahi, I found out that he is from Kenya and is in fact the CEO of Nation Media Group, which is the largest media firm in East and Central Africa. Aside from that, he was previously the General Manager of SmithKline Beecham Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean. He is involved in community-based activities and is active in sports playing golf and squash. What an achievement for a Kenyan! If you want to know more about Linus Gitahi, just click the links here.

Reading great achievements of people such as what these people achieve would push the rest of us to keep on reaching our goals and keep on running.


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Peter Allan C. Mariano

Talakayan at Kalusugan - DWBL1242 4-5pm Mon-Fri

The Big NM - Network Management for Filipinos

Links2Prosperity - Web Marketing : Web Content : Web Design

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