I just dont get these people
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 05 June 2009 at 6/05/2009 10:44:00 am.
Today's story comes from my real-life employee and his real-life fianceé... or should I call her Mma Finance.
Look, I could easily be elected "Miss PC 2009" or at least be called flexible and understanding in most cases when it comes to cultural differences, but in this situation I just get so annoyed. I suppose because I know Jr. personally and care about the guy, and hate to see anyone I care about get taken for a ride, but anyway...
Right, so Jr. wants to get married. About 10 months or so he asks Mma Finance to be his bride and she says yes. Various theories re: "WHY?!" abound in the orifice, but it comes down to either
a) church/beliefs or
b) HER/wedding fever.
I'm on the "b" team. The other guys are on the "a" team, but whatever. I'm a girl. I have perspective on these things.
Background: Mma Finance comes from money. She's also still a college student. She likes shiny american magazines, hollywood weddings, and glamour. She is the only child of a single mother - who has a good job and a big house and a degree/career/etc. Mma Finance is very "religious", and has convinced Jr. that she is a prophet (that's not a sarcastic metaphor, it's a fact). By the by, she also cheats on her university homework, and neglects her pets (has had 3 dogs die painful suffering deaths in the last year from neglect & treatable disease) but then she & her dear mother promptly replace them with new cuddly puppies of posh breeds. Loves expensive handbags and shoes, and gets her hair did about once a day. She has recently failed a bunch of her college classes so will be re-taking them this coming term, after the wedding. Has never held a job.
Jr. is the only educated child of an uneducated, disjointed family with a history of poor health, poor choices, poverty, hard knocks, and just about every misfortune you could imagine. But above all he's a good kid who works hard and is very genuinely religious. He is a GRADUATE EMPLOYEE who makes about 5,000 bucks a month, and has JUST finished college.
Back to the story.
Lobola. The Setswana tradition of dowry in which the girl's family makes demands on the boy and his family, before they will agree to the wedding of the 2. Traditionally, this amounted to a number of cattle. What's truly F'ed up these days is that society has modernized, and these people are happy to go along with modernization and get jobs in the city and NOT live as herders and gatherers, drive fancy cars and eat at the local Portuguese Chicken Fast Food joints, but yet they still HAVE to have their traditiony traditions. So yes, you have all the doctors and lawyers of the big city running around trying to organize lobola for their future-in-laws whims, even when the future-in-laws probably make more money than the kids do and live in a 3rd floor apartment and drive a 2-door sedan. Whatever.
So anyway, Mma Finance's extended family up in S-town (3 hrs away) have recently submitted their list of demands for lobola (everything happens with the extended family in these traditional things). Mind you this is all taking place one month before the "traditional" wedding, which will be in the next few weeks, followed by a "western" type ceremony or as I like to call it a "big-fat-expensive-extra-showoff-party" which will be held in September, here in the city.
Their list of demands:
There's other stuff but I can't remember exactly (because I get so annoyed I stop listening), but basically everything that is required for the whole future-in-laws family and their friends, AND his family, and basically whomever in the village who wants to stop by the wedding and get a free meal (yes, weddings are invitationless here - if you see it, you can join in the party), to have a big ol' feast day on behalf of him.
Did I mention he just finished college... like... last month?
What's that you say? "why doesn't his family help him out with the cost of this?"
Did I mention his mother lives in poverty and is jobless, moneyless, etc., he has no father, and his "uncles" who are basically supposed to represent his needs and negotiate the lobola on his behalf with her family, are so worthless they couldn't even talk straight when they went to negotiate, and ended up coming away from the table without even getting any quantities or demands lowered!!!
New set of clothes for the MIL my ASS! That woman dresses better than Michelle Obama!
But yet she won't take the family dogs to the vet to get vaccinations because 200 bucks is "too expensive". And dogs don't need vaccinations anyway. And they don't feel pain. Did you know that?
_sigh_
It's all so ridiculous. Probably what makes me angrier than anything is the behaviour of Mma Finance in all of this. Everybody knows how much Jr. makes. But girl's got wedding fever and every 5 minutes she and her mother turn around telling him about their new latest and greatest idea for the "extra" celebration in September.... music, food, decorations, circus tents, wedding favours, etc etc. Oh, and what was the ONE THING that is built into all this Setswana traditional crap that would actually require any input from HER, financially? The wedding ring for him. Tradition has it that the boy buys the girl's ring, and the girl buys the boy's ring. Well guess what, Mma Finance can't afford Jr.'s ring. Aw, poor thing, she must have spent her allowance on her latest hairdo and handbag. So Jr.'s paying for his own ring too. She's having him take her down to SA this weekend so that she can pick them out.
AGH!
And she wants a car. You know if you get married you HAVE to have a car. (Even though they're both coping just fine right now without). It's a must. You know she must be able to be driven up to S-town to see her family on occasion, after they get married. It's tradition! (How the hell does she get up there now? Public transport, duh!)
She tells Jr. he needs to take out a loan to pay for all this wedding garbage. Because you know loans are just "magical money" which magically appears and then gets magically erased someday by the magical money fairy. Luckily, Jr., (who rarely has a backbone when it comes to his beloved prophet wife-to-be) has put his foot down on that one. No loans. He knows that there is life after the wedding and they will have to at least be able to sit in the dark in their cold un-furnished house with no television and EAT SOMETHING. As soon as he would take a loan out, it would be spendy-spendy time from her point of view, and all those repayments would be getting bigger and bigger and bigger, right before his eyes, meaning they probably end up broke and starving because the bank ain't gonna take "I spent it all on cows, hairdoos and handbags" as an excuse for defaulting!!
Never fear, in the meantime Mma Finance is coming up with all sorts of creative ideas for Jr. to save money. For example, she will come over and cook his dinner for him. That's a good idea. Because normally, Jr. lives rent-free in his cousin's house, provided he cooks dinner every night for Cousin & Cousin's other renter. It's a nice arrangement on behalf of Cousin: Jr. just takes care of the food, just so long as Cousin & Roommate get some of it. Now see, when Mma Finance comes over, she cooks *JUST* enough food for herself and Jr., thereby forcing a welch on the gentleman's agreement between Jr. and Cousin and putting Jr. in an awkward sticky situation. But she's saved him the equivalent of 1 portion of food!! $$$ That's crazy big savings there!!! $$$
Or how about this one - she's arranged a nice programme of fasting for him. She's a prophet, you know. She likes to fast. Once she went without food and water for 3 weeks. (again I am NOT making this kak up. Before you say "but that'll kill you", let me say "I KNOW". So let's do an enquiry into how it worked, cuz the girl is still alive. She did lose 20lbs though...) She's got Jr. fasting for weeks at a time now, in "spiritual preparation" for the wedding, etc. It's great, he doesn't spend any money on food! He also doesn't eat any food! Monday through Friday last week, he went food-less from wakeup time in the a.m. til 8:30 pm. Every day. One small meal at 8:30 pm. You gotta be spiritually ready, yo.
OK now I realize I've totally digressed from the outrageous Setswana lobola tradition to just telling "Crazy Mma Finance Stories"... my point is... Here is MY own PERSONAL opinion on the topic: If tradition is what you're after, fine. Go out into the Kalahari and live off cacti and goats. Bravo. But if you want to be city folk and live in a 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and satellite television, DONT force a graduate environmental consultant who makes 5000 bucks a month and already has to give 1/5th of that to his own family in F-town to keep his poor mother alive, to bring you 13,500 bucks' worth of cattle so that he can marry your Princess Paris Hilton Gucci Girl niece/daughter/granddaughter/whatever.
And go buy your own damn suit!!!
Look, I could easily be elected "Miss PC 2009" or at least be called flexible and understanding in most cases when it comes to cultural differences, but in this situation I just get so annoyed. I suppose because I know Jr. personally and care about the guy, and hate to see anyone I care about get taken for a ride, but anyway...
Right, so Jr. wants to get married. About 10 months or so he asks Mma Finance to be his bride and she says yes. Various theories re: "WHY?!" abound in the orifice, but it comes down to either
a) church/beliefs or
b) HER/wedding fever.
I'm on the "b" team. The other guys are on the "a" team, but whatever. I'm a girl. I have perspective on these things.
Background: Mma Finance comes from money. She's also still a college student. She likes shiny american magazines, hollywood weddings, and glamour. She is the only child of a single mother - who has a good job and a big house and a degree/career/etc. Mma Finance is very "religious", and has convinced Jr. that she is a prophet (that's not a sarcastic metaphor, it's a fact). By the by, she also cheats on her university homework, and neglects her pets (has had 3 dogs die painful suffering deaths in the last year from neglect & treatable disease) but then she & her dear mother promptly replace them with new cuddly puppies of posh breeds. Loves expensive handbags and shoes, and gets her hair did about once a day. She has recently failed a bunch of her college classes so will be re-taking them this coming term, after the wedding. Has never held a job.
Jr. is the only educated child of an uneducated, disjointed family with a history of poor health, poor choices, poverty, hard knocks, and just about every misfortune you could imagine. But above all he's a good kid who works hard and is very genuinely religious. He is a GRADUATE EMPLOYEE who makes about 5,000 bucks a month, and has JUST finished college.
Back to the story.
Lobola. The Setswana tradition of dowry in which the girl's family makes demands on the boy and his family, before they will agree to the wedding of the 2. Traditionally, this amounted to a number of cattle. What's truly F'ed up these days is that society has modernized, and these people are happy to go along with modernization and get jobs in the city and NOT live as herders and gatherers, drive fancy cars and eat at the local Portuguese Chicken Fast Food joints, but yet they still HAVE to have their traditiony traditions. So yes, you have all the doctors and lawyers of the big city running around trying to organize lobola for their future-in-laws whims, even when the future-in-laws probably make more money than the kids do and live in a 3rd floor apartment and drive a 2-door sedan. Whatever.
So anyway, Mma Finance's extended family up in S-town (3 hrs away) have recently submitted their list of demands for lobola (everything happens with the extended family in these traditional things). Mind you this is all taking place one month before the "traditional" wedding, which will be in the next few weeks, followed by a "western" type ceremony or as I like to call it a "big-fat-expensive-extra-showoff-party" which will be held in September, here in the city.
Their list of demands:
- 8 cows (at +/-1500 bucks each)
- A 5-tonne truckload of firewood
- New suit for Gramps
- Full set of new clothing for Mma Finance (including underwear)
- Set of new clothing for Mma Finance's mother
- One live cow for the wedding feast
- A set of furniture for their new house
- Transportation for the G-city family to S-town for the traditional thing
- Transportation for all the S-town family down to G-city for the September thing.
There's other stuff but I can't remember exactly (because I get so annoyed I stop listening), but basically everything that is required for the whole future-in-laws family and their friends, AND his family, and basically whomever in the village who wants to stop by the wedding and get a free meal (yes, weddings are invitationless here - if you see it, you can join in the party), to have a big ol' feast day on behalf of him.
Did I mention he just finished college... like... last month?
What's that you say? "why doesn't his family help him out with the cost of this?"
Did I mention his mother lives in poverty and is jobless, moneyless, etc., he has no father, and his "uncles" who are basically supposed to represent his needs and negotiate the lobola on his behalf with her family, are so worthless they couldn't even talk straight when they went to negotiate, and ended up coming away from the table without even getting any quantities or demands lowered!!!
New set of clothes for the MIL my ASS! That woman dresses better than Michelle Obama!
But yet she won't take the family dogs to the vet to get vaccinations because 200 bucks is "too expensive". And dogs don't need vaccinations anyway. And they don't feel pain. Did you know that?
_sigh_
It's all so ridiculous. Probably what makes me angrier than anything is the behaviour of Mma Finance in all of this. Everybody knows how much Jr. makes. But girl's got wedding fever and every 5 minutes she and her mother turn around telling him about their new latest and greatest idea for the "extra" celebration in September.... music, food, decorations, circus tents, wedding favours, etc etc. Oh, and what was the ONE THING that is built into all this Setswana traditional crap that would actually require any input from HER, financially? The wedding ring for him. Tradition has it that the boy buys the girl's ring, and the girl buys the boy's ring. Well guess what, Mma Finance can't afford Jr.'s ring. Aw, poor thing, she must have spent her allowance on her latest hairdo and handbag. So Jr.'s paying for his own ring too. She's having him take her down to SA this weekend so that she can pick them out.
AGH!
And she wants a car. You know if you get married you HAVE to have a car. (Even though they're both coping just fine right now without). It's a must. You know she must be able to be driven up to S-town to see her family on occasion, after they get married. It's tradition! (How the hell does she get up there now? Public transport, duh!)
She tells Jr. he needs to take out a loan to pay for all this wedding garbage. Because you know loans are just "magical money" which magically appears and then gets magically erased someday by the magical money fairy. Luckily, Jr., (who rarely has a backbone when it comes to his beloved prophet wife-to-be) has put his foot down on that one. No loans. He knows that there is life after the wedding and they will have to at least be able to sit in the dark in their cold un-furnished house with no television and EAT SOMETHING. As soon as he would take a loan out, it would be spendy-spendy time from her point of view, and all those repayments would be getting bigger and bigger and bigger, right before his eyes, meaning they probably end up broke and starving because the bank ain't gonna take "I spent it all on cows, hairdoos and handbags" as an excuse for defaulting!!
Never fear, in the meantime Mma Finance is coming up with all sorts of creative ideas for Jr. to save money. For example, she will come over and cook his dinner for him. That's a good idea. Because normally, Jr. lives rent-free in his cousin's house, provided he cooks dinner every night for Cousin & Cousin's other renter. It's a nice arrangement on behalf of Cousin: Jr. just takes care of the food, just so long as Cousin & Roommate get some of it. Now see, when Mma Finance comes over, she cooks *JUST* enough food for herself and Jr., thereby forcing a welch on the gentleman's agreement between Jr. and Cousin and putting Jr. in an awkward sticky situation. But she's saved him the equivalent of 1 portion of food!! $$$ That's crazy big savings there!!! $$$
Or how about this one - she's arranged a nice programme of fasting for him. She's a prophet, you know. She likes to fast. Once she went without food and water for 3 weeks. (again I am NOT making this kak up. Before you say "but that'll kill you", let me say "I KNOW". So let's do an enquiry into how it worked, cuz the girl is still alive. She did lose 20lbs though...) She's got Jr. fasting for weeks at a time now, in "spiritual preparation" for the wedding, etc. It's great, he doesn't spend any money on food! He also doesn't eat any food! Monday through Friday last week, he went food-less from wakeup time in the a.m. til 8:30 pm. Every day. One small meal at 8:30 pm. You gotta be spiritually ready, yo.
OK now I realize I've totally digressed from the outrageous Setswana lobola tradition to just telling "Crazy Mma Finance Stories"... my point is... Here is MY own PERSONAL opinion on the topic: If tradition is what you're after, fine. Go out into the Kalahari and live off cacti and goats. Bravo. But if you want to be city folk and live in a 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and satellite television, DONT force a graduate environmental consultant who makes 5000 bucks a month and already has to give 1/5th of that to his own family in F-town to keep his poor mother alive, to bring you 13,500 bucks' worth of cattle so that he can marry your Princess Paris Hilton Gucci Girl niece/daughter/granddaughter/whatever.
And go buy your own damn suit!!!
Labels: BW-general
0 Responses to “I just dont get these people”
Post a Comment