THE kola nuts were cracked and dispensed, big fat pink conkers tasting

bitter to me, but maybe I'll acquire the taste.

''Are you married now?'' whispered Liz.

''I suppose so,'' I said, bemused. ''Where's Ray?''

He was in the yard, dispensing dalassis to the villagers, smoking and

exchanging coarse comments with his friends. At a Gambian wedding it's

the woman who goes through the ceremony.

Forget morning coats and champagne and crimplene dresses with flowery

hats. Forget funny telegrams and frilly bridesmaids.

It's 6.15pm in Bijilo, a village of several hundred souls, all of whom

are related closely or distantly to the groom, Rilwan S. M. Faal . . .

my Ray.

We are having a Moslem blessing on our union. Ray has been given a

thorough going-over by the Imam, an unbearably handsome young man with

broad, high cheekbones and wide, humorous eyes.

Ray's brother is whispering a translation to Liz (my chum Liz

Kristiansen, who has sneaked a week from her duties as an STV announcer

to watch me plight my troth to Africa). Roughly speaking, the Imam is

telling the new husband that he must give up his bachelor ways, devote

himself to my welfare, say his prayers, give up the booze, and never go

off with the boys and leave me alone at home. Sounds fine by me.

Then the wedding, which is purely a matter for the village elders and

me. But we are watched by the whole village, the women in vivid cotton

skirts, babies hanging on to their teats, the young men strutting in

Levis and T-shirts extolling everything from Coca-Cola to Scottish

Television (Liz has been magnanimous with gifts), the children giggling

and tumbling, impervious to the elders' roars of wrath.

We are on the verandah outside the small tin-roofed mosque. I am

seated on a low armchair, surrounded by the old men, who sit comfortably

in lotus positions fingering their beads, wrinkled black faces under

knitted wool caps. We are all barefoot. I suspect the fact that I am

wearing an exclusive ivory silk frock made for me by Glasgow designer

Lex McFadyen, with matching french knickers and dolly-bag concocted by

Lex's magic-fingered mum, leaves them cold.

So long as my legs are covered. Thighs, in Africa, can, it seems, stir

base reactions in a man.

I have loaned Liz a pareo to wrap modestly round her suntanned lower

regions. She looks very elegant.

I sweat into the silk. I have uttered loudly my Gambian vows. My son,

in cut-off denim and bare chest, sits cross-legged with the elders,

looking solemn. I asked him earlier if he ever wished he had a normal,

conventional mother. He said no.

Ray's Uncle Assan (he who acted as middleman when I bought my land

from the Alkalo -- the village headman) acts as interpreter.

''You must promise you will encourage your husband to say his prayers

five times a day, and abstain from alcohol,'' he says, straight-faced

(he was, after all, with us in Banjul earlier, drinking pints).

I nod demurely. ''Waow,'' I say (''Yes'').

''Now you must choose an adopted father.'' I blink. Which of these old

men would I want to call daddy? I pick the Alkalo. His 90-year-old face

remains chiselled from ebony, then he says, with a glint in his yellow

eyes, that this must not be just for the ceremony, that I must visit him

in his home, as his daughter.

Another wrinkly has been nominated as Ray's sponsoring parent.

Dignified haggling breaks out between them. Will the Alkalo accept 100

dalassis for his daughter? Certainly not. I sit listening to it all, the

bartered bride. In the end, I fetch 350 dalassis, about #29.50. And to

think that, in Morocco once, my mother was offered 500 camels for my

hand in marriage!

The griot (folk-singer, town crier, and repository of village lore)

bellows speeches muttered to him by several of the old men, long,

pompous homilies, welcoming me to the village family, trusting I will be

a loving and obedient wife, and that Allah will heap prosperity on us

both.

A crumpled brown paper parcel is laid in front of the Alkalo and the

kola nuts, bought by Ray in Serekunda earlier, are exposed and

distributed, half to the men of the village, half to the women.

I am led to Ray's mother's house, where each of the women comes and

shakes hands. Little girls curtsey. Old grandmothers guffaw and say that

I have stolen their boy away from them, therefore I must give them

dalassis. Ray's mum, the Imam's brother, with the same fine cheekbones,

hug me. ''Mariama! Da ma kontan!''

I forgot to tell you. Halfway through the ceremony I was given my

Gambian name, Mariama . . . which, the Imam pointed out, was the name of

the mother of the Prophet, so I'd better watch my Ps and Qs.

''Where is Ray?'' I whimper, overwhelmed, Lex's expensive silk

soaking, clinging to my back like a wet rag. It has all been very

emotional. I start to cry. ''I'm only crying because I'm happy,'' I

croak. I'm also exhausted.

At 8 o'clock that morning we set off for the Kombo Beach Hotel to

change and pick up Liz and David, my son, who had grudgingly trudged

along the sand from his hotel, muttering about this being the middle of

the night.

Ray put on his Marks & Spencer trousers, shirt, and tie. My white

shoes pinched. People in the hotel looked curiously at us. Some of the

staff had heard what was happening. ''Congratulations. That is good.

Welcome, welcome to The Gambia. We are very happy.''

We set off, with Uncle Assan and brother Lamin, to the courthouse at

Serekunda. A criminal lawyer and his clients squabbled with an official

on the next bench. Half of the plasterboard roof had collapsed. Another

official snarled at Liz not to take pictures.

''You cannot have a civil marriage here,'' we are told. ''You must go

to Banjul, to the Ministry of Justice, give them all your details, swear

an affidavit, then your application will be sent to the President's

office for approval. It might take a week or more.

Consternation all round. Liz is going home on Wednesday, David on

Friday. Are they to be cheated out of a wedding?

We pile into our two rickety Renault taxis, sticking to the plastic

seats. Make the jolting, suspension-shattering drive to Banjul. ''We

want to be married,'' we tell a lofty African lady with straightened

hair and a shiny lilac dress. ''But you cannot be married today. There

are formalities. You must get approval from the President.''

Uncle Assan saves the day. ''We WILL have a wedding,'' he says. ''I

will arrange it.'' That's how we came to have Moslem nuptials in Bijilo

village, how I came to be called Mariama, and acquire a headman as a

surrogate dad.

This morning we went to the Serekunda courthouse again and picked up

our Gambian marriage certificate. It says things like ''amount of dower

which was paid at the time of marriage,'' ''whether bride is adult or

otherwise,'' ''name of guardian of bride.'' There are two copies, one

for Ray, one for me, with our photographs at the top, my face obscured

by a purple official stamp.

Then we went to Banjul and swore our affidavit on the Bible and the

Koran, so that our civil wedding certificate could be processed. We are

going to be pretty thoroughly married at the end of it all.

And at least the reception was able to go ahead. It was held in Uncle

Dembo's, an African bar near the Senegambia Hotel. The tables and chairs

are rickety metal jobs, and the beer comes without a glass. The donner

kebabs would blow your head off, and the toilets have no running or

flushing water and are alive with ants. But they strung flags up for us

and played Senegalese and Gambian music that set the blood racing.

Amadou, our lawyer, turned up, already well-oiled, with a girl on his

arm who most certainly didn't look like Mrs Samba.

The boys from the taxi-rank and the market were there, and some of the

village girls, and Liz and David. Our health was drunk in Julbrew, the

Gambian-made beer, or in Sprite or Fanta. Our cake, made by Christopher

Reece-Bowen (who makes miraculous cakes when he isn't doing publicity

for Mayfest, New Beginnings, or other Glasgow happenings), and brought

out by Liz (she left the box in the loo at Manchester Airport and caused

a bomb alert, but it reached us in the end), was cut and handed round.

A wee touch of home. Under a black African sky. Now all we have to do

is live happily ever after. Watch this space.