Moroccan Wedding

            There was a terrible communication breakdown last week.  Some members of my family told me my host sister was having an engagement party on Sunday.  Others said it was her wedding.  I eventually had my host mother and LCF talk on the phone so I’d know what was going on.  He said she told him it was an engagement party.  Which, of course, meant it was a wedding.  Talking with my LCF and other volunteers who’ve been to weddings it seems like this was what we would call the reception in the States (though it had some ceremonial elements), but the religious/legal portion will happen some other time.  The family was very clear at the event though, she is no longer engaged; she is married.  After a weeklong engagement.  It seems really quick by American standards, but in Morocco this is actually fairly common.  I actually had met the groom once before.  He was at the party the first week I was here.  This might be another communication failure.  When I asked my sister how she met him either I asked the question incorrectly or, since they’re so used to me asking things almost (but not exactly) correctly, I asked it correctly and she assumed I meant to ask if I’d met him.  They were not engaged when I met him, but they do at least know each other better than I thought last week.  Now that I’ve cleared up my misconceptions from the last post I’ll get on to describing what it was like.

            When I got back from class on Saturday afternoon the apartment was full of women.  They were having a bridal party where my host sister was getting dramatically hennaed.  I sought out my host mother and asked if I should leave since it was a women’s event and I didn’t want to appear culturally insensitive.  Her response was to laugh, to order me to sit, and to offer me tea.  Since I’m the American guest I think they exempt me from some of the rules of decorum, even when I ask about them.  I’m also coming to realize that in most ways my family, which still seems so different to me, is fairly westernized by Moroccan standards.  They legitimately don’t care about some of the older rules.  Until I try to help in the kitchen.  I’m glad they let me sit in.  It was a lot of fun, and a fascinating activity I don’t think many male volunteers get to see.  As I said above, the henna work can only be described as dramatic.  My sister was wearing a beautiful deep green kaftan (robe/dress) with gold trim.  Incredibly detailed scrollwork went from the tips of her fingers to the tops and bottoms her palms, and up her arms half way to the elbow.  She was similarly covered on her feet and lower legs too.  She was hennaed everywhere exposed by the kaftan except her face and the bottoms of her feet.  The henna was high quality and she let it sit undisturbed for hours so when she peeled it off it left perfect orange-brown lines across her skin.  My other host sisters got similar, though much less detailed, treatments to their hands.

            While one woman took care of the henna work the rest sat and chatted.  At first I sat and listened, but soon I felt ready to try some Darija and started talking to the older lady sitting next to me.  It turned out she was my host grandmother!  She’s from a town in the Atlas Mountains about halfway between Fes and Marrakech and had come up for her granddaughter’s wedding.  I wish I’d had more time and language to talk with her, because I bet she has some amazing stories to tell.  The start of the real festivities ended our conversation.  My host mother started drumming a rhythm on a platter with two teacups while another woman slapped together two spoons and the rest kept time by clapping.  My mother chanted a call and the others responded.  They went through several different rhythms, laughing and ululating all the way through.  Soon after that a couple of host uncles arrived and I was sent to the man room.  The men were less talkative then the women had been; we just sat and watched the soccer game, a little of the news (an Arabic discussion of possible Republican Vice Presidential nominees…), and a soap opera.  Eventually a sizeable dinner appeared, couscous with chickpeas, sautéed onions, and raisons all topped with a roasted chicken.  Up until then I’d only had one couscous variety, a chicken couscous with seven vegetables that is typically the couscous people associate with Morocco.  This was a delicious variation.  By the way, that thing you see in Moroccan restaurants in the States where they put a tagine on top of couscous or rice doesn’t happen here, it least not in Fes, Azrou, and Rabat.  You eat tagine with bread.

            The next day was the big day.  We spent most of the morning and early afternoon setting up my host family’s apartment.  The actual wedding would take place in the larger apartment across the hall (I think the family that lives there is the building’s landlords), but my host apartment was going to be used as a staging ground for the caterers.  Since there was a lot of work to be done my host mother even let me help!  I know I sound like one of Tom Sawyer’s schmucks, but when someone says you can’t help whitewash the fence you get very excited when they finally let you. 

Around four o’clock the event started.  The bride’s party all stood out in the street, dressed in our finest and watched as the groom’s group approached.  Actually, for the men, finest is a stretch.  While the women were mostly in beautiful djallbas and kaftans, a lot of the men just wore khakis and a dress shirt.  Some even wore jeans and a polo.  Since the Peace Corps told us to bring nicer clothes for when we were invited to weddings I was wearing a jacket and tie, which my family seemed to really approve of.  The only other person wearing a tie was the groom (in a suit), but they told me not to take it off.  Not that it really mattered; there were very few men in total and besides no one focuses on what the men were when all the women are so beautifully attired.  Their robes came in all different vibrant colors.  Most complimented them with a matching headscarf, though a lot went bareheaded.  Since my family is somewhat westernized a few wore western dresses (one or two of which would be considered pretty slinky at an American wedding), but the traditionally garbed women well outshone them.

As the groom’s party drew closer the two groups started to shout a call and response to each other.  After a bit of singing everyone processed inside.  Once we were all (more or less) seated the bride and groom met up and sat together in a place of honor.  My host sister was wearing the first of two kaftans she would wear in the course of the evening (a green and a red).  In Moroccan weddings brides can change clothes often.  Having a lot of changes is a mark of wealth.  I’ve heard that some families take this to an extreme and the poor girl will have to change six or seven times.  The big problem is, most of the time the family can’t afford that, so all of the kaftans are actually very cheap looking.  My family avoided that.  Instead of going through a ridiculous amount of changes my host sister limited herself to just two kaftans, both of which were stunning.  It also meant she could enjoy more of her wedding, since she wasn’t constantly changing.  The ceremony was very simple.  About an hour into the party, someone brought the couple a bowl of dates stuffed with almonds, two cups of sweetened milk, and a pair of rings.  They fed each other a date each, served the other from their cup of milk, and exchanged rings.  Soon after that my sister retired to make her costume change and they danced together when she came back.

Before and after the ceremony and while my sister was changing the party was wild.  The apartment was bigger than my families, but not by much, and there were probably well over a hundred people stuffed into it.  Couches (called ponjs, they’re used to sleep on too) encircle Moroccan rooms, so there was tons of seating.  In the middle of the room, surrounded by ponjs, people danced.  While I’ve heard in more conservative families men and women can’t dance together (I’ve heard that at really conservative weddings the men and the women have separate parties) there wasn’t any proscription on that here.  I did notice that while women of all ages danced only two of the men above thirty did.  The younger men danced with extreme vehemence to make up for it.  Not that the women were any less energetic.  Even my old host grandmother was phenomenally limber.  Everyone danced together in a big group, though occasionally people of either gender would pair up and spin in circles together or hold hands.

While I don’t know enough about traditional Moroccan music (yet) to tell what type exactly the music was, I noticed that it sounded like the music that accompanies the traditional Amizigh dance that my host family constantly watches on video.  Most of the lyrics were in Darija, but some were in another language I couldn’t recognize, presumably one of the Amizigh dialects.  The wedding guests danced the same wild dances that people dance in the videos.  While a lot of the dancing involves kicking out your feet and gesturing with your hands the most exciting part is when the women with unbound hair start throw it around.  In a move that’s basically head banging’s more awesome older sister they whip their head around quickly in all directions, creating a wild vortex of swirling hair.  After a lot of encouragement (read: everyone pointing at my head and saying, “Hey, you have enough hair to do that too.”) they even got me to give it a whirl.  It’s actually a lot of fun, though you feel very dizzy afterward. 

Through the maelstrom of dancing the poor caterers tried to serve tea, coffee, dates, and hlwa (small cookies and candies).  I don’t know how they got through people with their gigantic platters, some combination of determination and luck.  Around ten thirty or eleven o’clock the party broke up (it does no good for the landlord to get a noise complaint, especially on a school night), but that didn’t mean it was over.  It just moved across the hall to my host family’s apartment where we sat and talked and ate more hlwa.  We also gave gifts at this point.  I gave a traditional gift, a big cone of sugar.  I mean giant.  The cone almost reaches my knee, and it weighs a ton.  Since Moroccans eat and drink so much sugar it apparently doesn’t last very long.  It makes me want to go jogging just thinking about it.  The party continued into the early morning, thankfully breaking up just early enough for me to get a decent night’s sleep before class.

So that was my first Moroccan wedding, it was quite the adventure!  It was a great ending to my fantastic training.  I’m now in my last week; next Saturday I leave Fes and find out my posting!  The week after that I swear in and set out on the real adventure.

P.S. The photos below are of the house I’ve been living in the last two months.  If I can get my host family’s permission, I’ll put up some photos of them too.  I’m not going to put up photos of the wedding if they have anyone other than my host family or me since I can’t get everyone’s permission.  If people are interested I can send some photos so you get a sense of how a room stuffed full of brightly colored djellabas looks.  I also have videos of the dancing (not with me in them, of course), including one with the head-banging move, if people are interested in that.