Picking up the bride?
We were scheduled to pick up Ahmed & Alia at about 12pm but they asked us if we’d come at 1pm so that we could pick up Ahmed’s sister after she had had her hair done. We drove to another place in town to wait for her but she was not ready because she also wanted to go to the photographer. Ahmed decided to leave her behind and make our way up the mountain so that we would not be waiting too long for our lunch.
4WD’s only past this point
After about 40 mins of the tarmac mountain road we turned off onto a rocky road which was very slow and narrow. If anything was to come the other way, you would have to reverse a long way. After about 15 mins on this road we arrived at Ahmed’s family home.
Weddings here are conducted almost entirely in a segregated fashion, so we must write separate accounts from this point forward…..
Paul with the men
Ahmed’s father greeted us very warmly and then took me off to the men’s room. It was a typically huge family and I was very confused about who was who when introduced to millions of brothers, cousins & nephews. Soon after arriving I ate lunch together with Ahmed’s father and all the brothers. The food was all on the floor and we sat in a big circle. They kept complaining that I wasn’t eating fast enough and put food aside for me so that I would have enough to eat after they had devoured it all at 100 mph! I guess you have to learn to eat fast when there are so many brothers sharing from the same food.
Afterwards, the men’s part of the wedding consisted mainly of sitting and talking (or attempting to talk in Arabic in my case) but I did enjoy being shown around the father’s land and the views were amazing. This time of year is the most popular for weddings and we could see and hear about 6 weddings going on in the valley.
The only part of the wedding ceremony that I saw was the part where the wedding party marched from the bride’s house to the groom’s house. This involves lots of playing drums and throwing dangerous firecrackers around and sometimes (though thankfully not this time) lots of gunfire. We watched them leaving but did not join them on account of the difficulty of navigating steep mountain paths while holding a baby.
Kate with the women
I was taken into the house and was greeted by lots of different female relations, which involved lots of cheek or hand kissing. Then lunch was served on the floor in the middle of the hallway and about 14 of us crammed round and tucked into rice, meat (not sure if it was goat or sheep!) and bread. Halfway through the meal, the bride arrived to lots of ululating from the women, and she dashed into the back room to put her wedding dress on. She emerged looking lovely in a sparkly white wedding dress with tiara and veil just like in UK, but she had lots of henna along her bare arms. She sat in the front room on a big chair covered in a rug and all the female relations and neighbours came to greet her - there were over 30 of us in a little room! Lots of photos were taken of the bride and family, whilst loud music played from a stereo. Kira was a bit overwhelmed with all the noise and people, especially when strange women tried to take her off me! It did not seem very long until the drummers could be heard signalling that they were ready to take the bride to the groom’s house. So the bride quickly got changed again into her normal clothes and face covering so that she could walk down the mountain. One of the women was assigned the task of bringing the white wedding dress in a big bag. Once most people had left, the house seemed very peaceful and those of us with young children and the old women sat around chatting. Then more food was brought along with small glasses of hot sweet tea.
Leaving at dusk
After they all went down the mountain towards the groom’s house, we stayed around for a while to stay goodbye and then managed to get going before dark so that we would be able to see where the edge of the road was on the rocky section. It was great to meet the family, who were so warm and hospitable and we would love to go up there and visit them again sometime.
