I asked all the right questions at least (of my host – who wasn’t the groom, but that didn’t seem to matter to him, or anyone else as it turned out. For information only, and there will be questions at some point, the groom was soon to be my hosts Brother-in-Law – he was marrying my hosts wife’s sister……..I think…….). What should I wear, should I take a gift, was there a bar, did I need money, could I take a camera etc. etc. etc. So from that point of view I didn’t feel particularly out of place – that fact that I was the only suit in the place was a bit disconcerting, never mind that I was the only white face !
I’ll try and set the scene for you – the marriage takes place at the official “Wedding Hall” (there are two in MZ, on run by the Municipality, who are the sort of local council, and the other run by the Co-op I think. I know that the Co-op one is hired out for other things such as graduation ceremonies, but I also know that the Municipality one isn’t – are you keeping up ?).Actually, there are two halls on each site, one for the men and one for the women and huge (symbolically) locked gates and an 8 foot wall between them. I say symbolically because rather a lot a small children (boys at least), seemed to be running backwards and forwards between the two !
So, as far as the women’s side of things goes, I have absolutely no idea what happens in there……. I’m guessing something similar to the men’s side, just less noisy. I say that because, for most of the evening (I got there just after 7 as instructed, and it wasn’t really off the ground by then) we sat outside in the car park – or that’s how it seemed. The a very large part of the outside area had been carpeted and had armchairs lining it…….
And set up in the middle were the band (well, not so much a band as a male voice choir……but not as we know it………)
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/video/video.php?v=10150562304174721That “singing” was kept up, pretty much like that, for 2 hours, with a break for prayers in the middle where those that do, and it’s by no means all of them, did.
There was the usual mad uncle, who in this case would seem to have been sober, and therefore really mad…………I have videos of the mad uncle dancing but for some reason I shot them in portait and now they are laying on their side and I can't seem to eb able to turn them up the right way.........)
We got constant supplies of tea and biscuits,
as well as copious amounts of fruit…..
The only problem was the constant up and down to shake hands with everyone. It is custom (apparently) as you arrive you go and greet the groom, in my case shake hands and in everyone else’s case, the good old fashioned nose kiss. That last statement will take way too much explanation, and I’m not sure that I’ve fully understood the detail, but briefly, shaking hands isn’t the only way of greeting people in the Middle East (and it varies in different parts, just to add further confusion !) but in the UAE greetings start with a handshake for people you don’t know, move up through cheek kissing (the more sides the better you know them, or maybe it’s the other way around……) and then when you get to best mates and relatives, the nose comes into play. There are degrees of this as well, from just touching noses to full blown beak fencing for your favourite brother !
I’m never sure whether I’m upset or not that all I ever get is a handshake (I did get a hug from some of my staff before I went home at Christmas, but I’m not sure where that comes into the equation !). It’s worth noting that anything like this with Emirate women is strictly taboo – you don’t even offer them a hand to shake unless they offer you one first (which they never have in all my time here). Generally I get to talk to a full face veil, which I always find a little disconcerting !
So the getting up and down thing comes about because after you have gone and offered your commiserations to the groom you turn left and work your way along the line, and round the corner, and along the line (etc.) until you find somewhere to sit, all the time shaking hands (in my case) or nose kissing to various degrees (in my hosts case). Trouble is, as soon as you sit down, you’re back up again shaking hands with the people coming along behind you…….. there were only about 300 blokes there I’m guessing, and I reckon that I shook hands with most of them ! And all the time, in the background, si that bloody music !Even my host got bored after a while (and there’s only so much tea and fruit juice you can drink) and suggested that we went and took some pictures with the groom……….
(he’s the one in the swanky cloak in case you were wondering……), and the wall and the gate behind us is the dividing line between male and female !
Eventually, everyone gets tired of the noise, the tea and the dancing, and the groom decides it’s time to eat – I didn’t take my camera into the meal, but I did take a picture before everyone got there……
Lamb and camel were on the menu (and it tastes a bit like lamb before you ask). I was given a spoon nut decided to try and eat with my fingers like everyone else – I have to say that civilised goes out of the window at this point, and I personally can’t see the point of making such a mess, but hey, who am I to question thousands of years of civilization (I think I probably ate less than I would have done is I’d used a spoon, so there’s something I guess !)
I left at this point (as did my host – his youngest was tired, he was only 4 and it was 10 o’clock by then. As a matter of interest, my host has 4 children, and I’m guessing that he’s not much older than 30, if that and only one wife. He does, however, have 29 brothers and sisters, and 17 mothers or step-mothers – his father had 17 wives……..I had one down as being rather a lot of trouble…….)…..
Apparently the groom then goes to “claim his bride from the other hall, where he has to sit with her for half an hour or so (Lord only knows what they do or talk about) and then he is free to take her off on honeymoon.
All very interesting, but frankly not a patch on drinking too much and chasing the bridesmaids around the dance floor !
Today I decided that I couldn’t put off trying to get some swimming training in somehow, so I drove to the beach (about an hour away) with the intention of getting a good 1000m sea swimming in (I have to do 1500m in 2 weeks’ time !). Trouble was, I hadn’t given one jot of thought to tides. In Dubai, where I usually swim, there really isn’t much of a tide to speak of and besides, there’s a big shelf just off shore so you are always in deepish water. Where I went today was 250km further South than Dubai and clearly has a large tide difference as I had to walk and wade half way to Qatar to get into water that was barely swim friendly. I think the tide was going out further as well as I kept swimming further out looking for deeper water, all to no avail. I’m not sure what I actually did in the end, in terms of distance, but anything was better than nothing and it was probably at least 800m, although half the time I couldn’t do front crawl because the water wasn’t deep enough !Next week I have to go to Dubai as I’m running in a 10k there and picking up my new bike (fingers crossed), so I think I’ll have to make an effort to go for a sea swim on the Thursday night (if I get back before dark) or on the Friday after the race.
Apart from all that, I don’t think I have a great deal of news. I have most of my furniture in my new apartment (I only have one of three wardrobe doors, and the sofa is a slightly different colour to everything else, and I still don’t have any internet yet – but I guess you can’t have everything !) but we can see what the next week brings on those fronts.Psycho has gone but I’ve managed to go for 2 runs and a swim without her – we’ll see how that one goes in the future…….. I need to find someone else I think, or at least have a proper training programme, or something that will get me off my arse ! The new bike should solve a third of the problems, and the running shouldn’t be too much of an issue – it’s just the swimming. Not having an instantly accessible pool is a pain, and I’m not sure, other than pay through the nose at the local hotel, what the answer is. I guess we should get the next couple of weeks successfully out of the way first and then concentrate the rest of February on the arrival of the family for a holiday and the run up to the Abu Dhabi International Triathlon (which in a very strange way, I’m looking forward to more than anything else). I’ve agreed to do the AD tri for sponsorship – so watch out for the JustGiving.com address that will appear in the next few days !
Right, I’m off to bed now and I’ll post this up in the morning (when I know that the office will be open so I can use their internet !).
No comments:
Post a Comment