Wedding Crashers

Last night a friend of mine had some American friends passing through town. We all went to his host family’s house for dinner. It was fun to talk to people with an outside perspective and it was equally as fun to show off my darija skills and cultural integration. Sam asked if he could help set the table and put food out but of course they said no. Then I asked and Sam’s host mom was more than happy to have me help. Despite the fact that I was doing the woman’s job because, well, I’m a woman and Sam didn’t because he is a man, it was an honor. Allowing me to help meant they considered me more as family than as a guest, which one would hope to be the case after two months.

After that at about 11:30 I headed back to my house with my LCF and friend Taoufiq. On the way we heard loud music that sounded like drums and a violin of some sort. Taoufiq informed me that it was a wedding and I said let’s go! We walked over to a big colorful tent at the other end of a field.  We peeked over the wall of the tent and watched for a minute before seeing that we could actually get in from the other side. We walked around and watched and low and behold one of our friends from the Dar Chebab was there. He came, grabbed us and took us to sit down in the tent by all of the men. When the men and women sang, their voices sounded like instruments and not voices. They reminded me of the squeaky flutes that one might associate with Middle Eastern music. There were also six women dressed in a tacky green with silvery, bell like ornaments. They did a choreographed dance for everyone.

There were men with video cameras videotaping the different aspects of the wedding. The wedding video, most likely three hours long, will be passed from family member to family member until each person has seen the video at least 3 times. All I could think about the entire time was that when these people watch their wedding video later there would be this random, white girl, with a Bright Red jacket sitting in the corner clapping along. They will probably think, who the hell is that white chick, in that bright red jacket, with her head peeking through in all of these pictures and in the back of our wedding video?! But don’t worry, I remembered to smile J