my friends Simo and Mohammed invited Lucie and Stephanie and I down to Agadir for their sister Fatima's wedding. Unfortunately Steph couldn't make it due to unforseen medical problems (i.e. morocco belly) but Lucie was able to come thank god.
Basically it was three solid days of eating, playing with children (who are fascinated by digital cameras), and having absolutely no clue as to what was going on.
My Arabic is limited to "hello, peace", "how are you", "eat", "delicious", "beautiful", "two", "okay", "bon appetit", "a little", "a lot", "thank you", "no", "yes", "what is your name", "bread", "water", "congratulations", "here, take this", and "thank you for the joint". i can also say "donkey" and "cow" in one of the Berber languages, which always gets a laugh.
It's amazing how well one can manage with this limited vocabulary, we spent the weekend in a house filled, no stuffed, with people who didn't speak french or english but who were extremely entertained by our proclamations of "yes! very delicious!" or "much beautiful!" etc etc. Actually the sisters did speak some french which made things much easier.
Friday: i am there with the family (lucie is coming up the next day) for a little party for the female family and friends. We all gather in the living room, someone taps out a rhythm with spoons on a tea tray, someone else plays a hand drum, several others sing and make a sound with their mouth and tongue whose name escapes me (I want to say ululate but maybe that is more of a grieving thing?). Anyway. You know. wah-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la! it's amazing.
The younger girls get up to dance, tying a scarf around their hips to emphasize the movements through their baggy clothes; as they dance some of the older women tuck 100 and 200 dirham bills into their collars or under the scarf. As they finish dancing and move to sit down they give the money back. Eventually the inevitable happens and I am pulled up to dance. Moroccan dancing involves a lot of complicated shoulder, foot, and booty moves in my eyes and I just know I wasn't pulling it off! However I found that as long as I moved my butt around fast enough everyone in the room would be hugely entertained and tell me I was a natural! The shoulder shimmy was a little tougher.
As it gets late and people start to leave I am shown to my sleeping space on the long end of the cushioned benches. It is incredibly hot and the room soon fills up with women and children sleeping on the floor or the cushions. People have a remarkable ability to fall asleep really almost anywhere.
Saturday: Lucie arrives and I am no longer the only person in the room without a clue. It's a great moment. In the afternoon, while Fatima is still at the beauty parlour having her hair and makeup done, the house starts to fill up.
The terrace has been covered for the occasion and will be the main room for all of the marriage festivities. Everyone sits on cushions on the floor and there seems to be a natural separation of men and women, men in the back hanging out and the women up front closer to the action.
Fatima arrives to great fanfare, looking beautiful in her crown and dress covered in gold. She sits in the front of the room, her bare feet are elevated and the henna artist starts to work.
As this goes on (it takes a while) more people arrive. More excitingly, the groom and his family and their gifts arrive. This includes a bunch of musicians and a live sheep that is destined to become tomorrow's feast (the sheep not the musicians). Everyone runs downstairs to greet the cart, to sing and dance and clap as the gifts are passed into the house.
We go back upstairs to drink tea and entertain small children with the digital camera until finally the henna is done.
While we wait for it to dry Lucie and I have our hands hennaed as well...it was several weeks ago but I still have very faint traces of colour on my palms.
Finally, the henna is washed off.
For a while now Lucie and I have been speculating as to the identity and location of the groom. There is a man seated beside Fatima but surely this guy, with his baseball cap and moustaches and dour expression cannot possibly be the groom. We decide he must be the groom's father. It's not until we see Fatima exchanging rings with the 'father' that we realize our mistake. Gaaa! But he looks so old and unhappy! Turns out he is really only a few years older than she is - younger than I am in fact - and seems to be a very nice guy.
After the rings are exchanged that's pretty much it for the day, the bride and groom have a little time together in private to talk, and then everyone goes home. Later that evening all the men come back and they have a big party upstairs for the guys.
Lucie and I hang out with the sheep.
Sunday: I wake up early in the morning to the brief bleat of a doomed sheep. Then I fall asleep again.
When we wake up for good we see the sheep's carcass lying on the stairs, waiting to be cooked.
In most homes here you wear your shoes only as far as the entrance to the first room, and then take them off and enter the room barefoot. There also seems to be a rather communal approach to shoes which meant that whenever I wanted to go anywhere I had to figure out who had taken my flip flops first (the problem with big feet is that everyone can wear your shoes but you can't wear anyone elses).
Once they are recovered, it's Kaftan Time! Adil from the hotel has lent me one of his sister's outfits but it turns out to be too heavy for the heat and the occasion. Loubna, one of the sisters, takes us to her aunt's place to find me a kaftan. This turns out to be quite possibly the loudest article of clothing I have ever worn, or will ever wear, in my life.
After several pots of tea and a hammam we rush back to the house in order to change and take our seats upstairs. The room is stifling and as we wait for things to start everyone is entertained by watching Lucie and I sit in the bride and groom's thrones with various family members.
It was funny because as the only non-Moroccans there we really stood out and were treated a little bit like special guests; sitting on the thrones, hanging out with Fatima while she waited for everyone to show up...earlier in the afternoon we sat in the darkened bedroom with all three sisters and some little cousins, watching as the guys set things up and as the band arrived. We sat in the dark so that we could watch and giggle over the arriving guys without being seen ourselves.
The evening went on as follows:
- the band starts playing, the younger girls start to dance in the middle of the room
- the bride and groom make their first entrance of the night
- we are brought downstairs to feast on roasted chicken and then on mutton tagine. I drop a prune on the kaftan (catastrophe!)
- we go back upstairs and Lucie and I find ourselves pulled up to dance, happily this is in a large group of people so our failings are hopefully disguised. I also find it difficult to dance while wearing a tent.
- the bride and groom make their second appearance, after a costume change
- more dancing. it becomes clear that several male guests have been nipping out for secret drinks. Mohammed is almost busted with a bottle of pastis but manages to hide it, and he and Lucie and I head out for the nearest dark alley to do some shots.
- the bride and groom make their third appearance...this time first one, and then the other, is hoisted into the air on a small decorated platform and moved around the room to cheering and applause. Fatima tosses out party favours and is nearly mobbed when the platform is set down.
- we get in a bunch of cars (and about 15 people pile into the back of a truck) to drive into Agadir and do a tour. As we attempt to leave the neighbourhood the bride and groom's decorated car is accosted by the local drunk and/or madman who blocks the road and shouts "i want to get married too!"
- as we drive around Agadire, Loubna (who is sitting beside me) throws up in her headscarf. another car overheats. The car bearing Mohammed seems to be lost.
- we head for a large parking lot where Fatima and Mohamed (her husband, not her brother) pose for more photos. We wait for Brother Mohammed to show up but he never does.
- we drive back to the groom's house where Fatima and her new husband sit on their bed in their bedroom (which has blue fun-fur wallpaper! I'm not kidding) while everyone comes in to say hello.
It's around this time that Simo explains to us the thing about the bedsheets. It's all in french but my understanding is that in a few hours the couple's bloodstained bedsheets will be displayed to us. I'm not sure how I feel about this...regardless Lucie and I spend the next day or so waiting to see this happen. It never does, and we're not sure whether we're relieved or disappointed.
- finally we drive back to the family home. On the way we pass the missing Mohammed heading off somewhere on a motorcycle. As he sees us pass he turns around and comes back to the house. Lucie and I are inside with about half of the family when all of a sudden all the people outside are screaming and yelling. My first thought is "oh god the very old grandmother has just died". I try to get out of the way as people stream outside to see what's going on. A woman thumps me on the chest with her hand and give me a look - I can't tell if it's saying "get the hell out of my way" or "what is going on?".
Lucie and I are still standing around as people start to come back in, girls and children are crying and looking frightened...then the father of the bride is carried in, unconscious but gasping for breath at the same time. He is laid down on a cushion while people attend to him...Lucie is a nurse so stands by to make sure everything is okay but I am useless and go outside to get out of the way while they bring him around.
We have no idea what is happening, everyone is crying or angry or yelling in Arabic. This is surely one of the more uncomfortable hours of my entire life. Lucie and I move into the empty living room (where one woman and one child have been sleeping on the floor throughout all of the excitement) and wait for what seems like forever for everything to die down so we can retrieve our bags and change into our sleeping clothes. Around 4 a.m. finally people start to go to sleep. Lucie ends up curled up on a piece of sheepskin on the floor. I am wedged into a corner with two pairs of feet in my face. It appears to me that we have worn out our welcome.
Monday: The instant we wake up Lucie and I plan to leave right away. We find out that the problem the night before had been a huge fight between the brothers.
Our escape is hampered by the disappearance, yet again, of my goddamn shoes.
Simo tells us to wait an hour or so for him and he will come with us.
One hour turns into seven as Lucie and I help clean up, then go to a cafe with Simo and one of the guys from the band - where the television is tuned to Al Jazeera's coverage of the Israeli bombings of Lebanon. The volume is high and everyone is watching. I feel very conspicuous and uncomfortable.
I am told, among other things, that September 11th was orchestrated by "The Jews" and the US Government - that there is documentary footage of all the Jews escaping from the World Trade Center shortly before the planes struck (although when pressed for specifics of this footage the topic quickly changes), that infact there were NO PLANES at all, blah blah blah. I try to refute this in french but cannot find the words.
We go back to the house where it is now time to deliver all of the gifts and Fatima's personal belongings over to her new home. Everyone gets dressed up again (except Lucie and I, who think we're going to be leaving town any minute), and the procession starts. Things are getting fun again and I'm glad to still be here.
All of the gifts and things have been arranged on the back of a couple of mule-drawn carts, everyone gets behind the carts with a couple of hand drums and some other percussion and we're off.
After a few minutes however we stop and a group of men build a small fire in the middle of the road. What? Turns out that their drum is not tight enough so they're just quickly using the heat from the fire to tighten it up.
Once the drum is deemed adequate we set off again and walk for about an hour and a half through the town to the house. Once again clapping and singing and chanting we we go. Lucie and I are getting good at clapping...it's a complicated beat that didn't seem natural to me at first.
When we arrive (and the bloodied bedsheets are NOT displayed to my simulateous delight and disappointment) everything is taken inside and we feast once more on chicken and mutton. Everyone is amused by my attempts to eat with my hands (cutlery is not used, everyone sits around a round table with a communal dish and dips into the food with bread held in the right hand). The dessert involves vermicelli noodles and I am having a lot of trouble actually getting it into my mouth.
Finally, FINALLY! Simo is really ready to leave for Essaouira. By the time we get back it's after 1 a.m. and I'm desperate for a bed. I'm so exhausted that for the next three days I barely speak to anyone.
It was a great experience but unbelievably intense. I would do it all over agin. How great for us, practically strangers, to be invited into the home during this crazy time for the family.
1 comment:
good story! tell me another one!
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