Spending The Weekend With My Female siblings At The Marriage Introduction Of My Cousin

I received a call from my cousin about her marriage introduction. I was happy to hear that, at the same time I was happy to be invited. Though I had not planned to travel to the village so soon due to the financial involvements and the fact that I travelled there not long ago when I went to get an attestation letter from our village Head. But she persisted in calling me to remind me of the need for me to be present.

Additionally, my Sister who happened to be the mother will be there and it's been a very long while I saw her last though we have been speaking on calls. Well, the date was fixed to be on 20th of July, this past Sunday. I decided to travel to my hometown instead of travelling to go meet my family. I informed them already. My Sister, who is my Late mom's first child and first daughter whose daughter is going to be given in marriage resides in Enugu State with her husband but she had to travel down to the village on Thursday and she equally called and personally invited me to the be present.

I finally travelled on Saturday after my Saturday morning workout. In fact, last Saturday was my first time of working out on a weekend with the Dr Ogbonnaya Onu gym. I was told to help out that Saturday to train clients because the head coach had an appointment that morning. So, it happened that I was going to be available, I took the offer and went to train them. I decided to go for aerobics with different programs that aligned with the music and later, Tabatha session. It was one of its kind.

_{pictures taken by one of the clients and shared directly with me via WhatsApp}

I travelled down to the village with my cousins here in the same city. We got there by 6 pm and we saw those who already travelled before us. We chatted and shouted and hugged each other and visited until it was late. We are and slept over. Since the introduction was to be by 2pm, we had to start preparing food by morning. In the morning, other family relatives started coming to assist with cooking and guess what? They were all very funny and comedians. The pictures below will explain better

Family of comedians! Lol 😂😂! But I started it all. I came out and started doing my thing which is demonstrating how to exercise and the eldest man in the compound who is 76 years old but still strong and full of energy came out and started to mimic me and this drew the attention of all and they all came out to cheer us and to clap for us. The man is my uncle who is the only surviving sibling of my mother. He lives in our own compound in the village.

	with my uncle
Still on comedy show
	my sister and I. Our eldest child
Myself and my 2 sisters. I am the last child but these are the only girls we have
	myself standing by the orange tree in the compound
Radiating with joy. Smiles that speaks volumes

After the fitness comedy, they sang songs and danced around because it is a thing of joy that we had gathered for. There was a lot joy and jubilation in the air that morning. It was after these that we continued the food preparation. Soup and swallow was prepared by one group and jollof rice was prepared by another group but in the same compound.

As soon as we were done cooking, everyone went to freshen up and wait for the in-laws to arrive. The bride to be was given attention now as her hair was made by one of those she came back with.

Soon, the in-laws arrived and we welcomed them and served them food first before going to the vanue which is the house of the father of the bride who lives in the heart of the village. There, traditional rites were demanded from the in-laws and after much negotiations, the in-laws did as much as they could. They cleared everything on the list of the first visit which we call the knocking at the door. Then they were given the main list where they also almost cleared but some things are yet to be done and they promised to be back to complete rest.

_{pictures taken while on our way to the vanue}

This event is not as simple as I have mentioned above. It took a lot of time due to the back and forth that is associated with it where the owners of the bride will tell the groom what they need to do according to the list both in monetary values and others and they will bargain. But at the end, they all arrived at a consensus and we are and drank and dismissed.

Going back home, my sister who is the oldest prepared African salad which she had came back with from Enugu and we enjoyed that night along with our own share of the price paid by the in-laws.

_{The pictures above were taken at the vanue}

_{pictures of the African salad in stages}

We had a lot of chats there before we retired for the day. It was a great moment for me. But because Monday was seat at home here in the State, I had to stay back and then came back today being Tuesday because I had 10 am lecture with HND 1 students.