August 26th, 2012
The other day at work I had a son of my patient invite me to
a wedding. He pulled me back inside his
father’s room to explain to me that he didn’t want to invite everyone, as if I
was very special to get such an invitation. I have spent some time taking care
of this man’s father before and was engaged in conversation about Saudi and my
experiences thus far. He offered to
introduce me to his wife and said that I should become friends with Saudis to
really experience and gain a liking to the place.
I thought it would be very interesting to attend a wedding,
and text Spencer immediately afterward to see if he might be interested in
coming because the invitation was extended to him as well. I was told by this friend that my husband was
welcome although the men’s portion isn’t quite as entertaining, lengthy or
lavish as the women’s party. As
everything else in Saudi culture, women and men do not mix. They are separate
parties, the men never actually seeing bride nor the groom, and technically come
to find out; it isn’t a wedding at all but a reception. The marriage is just bridge and groom
together each having a witness or the bride, her father to consent, they sign a
paper in front of some legal dude, and there you go a Muslim wedding. Awesome!
Then at some point they adopted the Western wedding of white dresses and
veils.
Anyway, I am jumping ahead of myself. Ali, my new friend, told me that he had to
see if his wife could get an invitation card for me. That is the only way women are allowed, an
exclusive party, and you must bring your card.
So Ali invited me even before he knew he could get me a card. He said
usually the cards go out a couple months in advance. He knew for sure he could
get one for my husband, somehow that is easier to obtain. Even after I told Spencer to reply ASAP to
the invite, it wasn’t certain, and basically wasn’t until the day of. I had a day off between shifts and got a call
from Ali telling me he had the cards. I met him at the hospital, to obtain them
and get directions where to meet him that evening.
It is a bit of an ordeal for me because I have to go down to Spencer’s,
to then come back into the city with him, since he cannot go anywhere off the compound solo.
We met Ali’s son, Faisal, at a nearby grocery store at 9 PM.
We followed him to his high secure walled enormous house, where we were led
into the sitting room. The ‘maid’
proceeded to bring us water. There were two other workers around, bet you never
guess their nationality? Filipino.
Congratulations if you got that right.
You are beginning to understand Saudi culture. Is America that bad? Do we not like to get our hands dirty or do
manual labor? I scorn the Saudi’s but
reflecting upon some American’s it seems that we have more Latin American labor
workers than white. Back to my story, we
sat in this lovely sitting room, which the couches had piles of pillows on them
waiting patiently for someone to come talk with us. When Ali came he apologized to us saying that
everyone was busy getting ready. He sat
down and chatted with us. Not long after Jessie, a Lebanese American living in
Saudi came into the room. She was great
and provided some relief to me the rest of the evening.
Ali pulled me into the hallway to meet his lovely wife;
Spencer wasn’t welcome because she wasn’t wearing her abaya. Looking at her, she was a beautiful woman and
seemed much younger than him but she had daughters my age and older. Ali took Spencer and they left for the men’s
party. I sat with Ali’s wife, Jessie,
and Nouf, Ali’s daughter (she entered shortly after Spencer left). Ali’s daughters were beautiful. He has two daughters, 31 & 24, both of
whom were married and had at least one kid. The younger daughter was
pregnant. We sat in that room for
another 1 ½ before leaving for the party.
I found them easy engage, converse, and they did like my humor.
These ‘weddings’ are celebrated in a conference or reception
hall, the venue is chosen by the family depending their wealth and prestige. Women spend hours in preparation, their hair,
make-up and gowning up in beautiful dresses of all kinds, sleeveless, strapless
not like you would assume in such a repressive society of women.
Upon entering the hall there is a big entrance hall and a
cloak room off to the right. Once you
hand the Asian ladies your Abaya in exchange for a number card I proceeded to
the right down a huge hallway that lead to a room with music blaring from the
door. The women’s restroom was off to one side. (I later went to the restroom with
Nouf because we both had a hot drink spilled on us. The bathroom had mints, hair spray, bobby
pins, and static spray, seriously everything you could think a woman might need
when going to the bathroom).
Once we entered the banquet room there was a long row of
women standing. I smiled shook hands,
and kissed cheeks with dozens of women I’ve never met, nor could converse
with. I repeated something like ‘congratulations’
in Arabic which Jessie had rehearsed with me.
The banquet room that we met in was quite large; I can’t
exactly give a size comparable to something you might recognize. But there was enough to fit 350-400 women in organized
couches and rows of chairs. There were
speakers surrounding the room, blasting music from a woman singing at the far
side. In the middle of the room was a
‘cat-walk’ that spanned the length of the room at one end had a couch and the
other a door. As the music played and
songs were recognized it brought women of
all ages from their chairs onto the cat walk where they danced to the blaring slow
beat in a two-step fashion and rolling their wrists as they strolled back and
forth along the cat walk. Food was
served by Asian women, assortments of hors d'oeuvres, wrapped and unwrapped
chocolates, Arabic coffee, more and more until you had enough to burst. My new friends would give me chocolate and
tell me to give it to my husband.
Spencer sent me a text about an hour after I arrived saying
he had been deserted by Ali. They had their dinner and sat briefly before
leaving. When they got back to the house
Ali told Spencer he was going to the hospital to stay with his father, and that
I would call Spencer when I was done and needed to be picked up. Ali didn’t invite Spencer to wait inside, and
I am not sure he would have if he had known that Spencer couldn’t leave without
for two reasons: 1.) his place was about
45 minutes from here 2.) He would be breaking the rules leaving alone. So we talked briefly, when there was a break in
the music, Spencer would wait in the car.
He drove away from the house and had to an inconspicuous place neither
in front of someone’s guarded house, nor too dark and unsafe.
Several hours later, around 1 am the bride finally emerged
and slowly as if marching to the traditional wedding beat walked through the
door, down the stairs, and across the cat walk where she sat waiting for her
counterpart, this whole process was on caught on film. I wonder who would or could actually watch
the film? Would they have to black out
the bride’s face? Okay, maybe I am being
sarcastic here but seriously, I guess as an unhappy wife could pull out the
video while eating her bonbons and remember the days of excitement and happiness
about her recent marriage. Anyway,
waiting what felt like an eternity the groom then followed the bride across the
cat walk and sat next to her on the coach.
Prior to this the women in the room went frantic, scarves, cushions, and
make-shift covers were pulled out to shield the women from the men who emerged,
uncles came behind the groom. I just
couldn’t believe how ridiculous the women behaved.
Yet, after the uncles left some women danced in front of the
groom unveiled/uncovered. Were they his
sisters? The bride and groom didn’t look
at each other once during this whole procession nor did they whisper to each
other. What kind of relationship did they have? Was this the norm to ignore
your spouse sitting next to you?
The bride and groom eventually walked back across the
catwalk to the banquet room where I was told they cut the cake and get more
pictures taken. More trays of
smoothies, chocolate, and smoking coals were brought through the room. The
smoke was waived by each person in front of their face and they inhaled the
smoke. I don’t understand why they
performed such a practice but the whole room was smoky. It wasn’t until 2:20
that we were allowed into the banquet room to feast. And what a feast it was, this really showed
the lack of etiquette of the women, cutting in line, and pilling food on their
plates.
Apparently you can stay into the daylight hours, and at 7am
you would be served a light breakfast at which time you line up for your driver
to take you home where you sleep all day.
We ate; I sampled so many of the dishes and all the
desserts. It was so late already, and the
pain of the morning was starting to hit me, yes, I had to get up at 6AM for
work. I thought, okay, I’ll do it once
but never again and truthfully I am sticking with it.
Jessie and I left together, Nouf walking us to the cloak
room and bidding me farewell, and saying we should get together again. I would love to, but am I using them to try
to get an inside view of the culture, do we have much in common or would it be awkward?
We’ll, see anyway what happens. I spend
my days off at Spencer’s at least for now when I only see him when I don’t
work. That may change when I get out
here every day.
Nouf called me that evening to ask me how everything went. She wanted to know if I was coming to the
wedding tomorrow night. I told her I
needed a break, and it was my birthday but that we should keep in touch and do
something. I think another thing holding
me back is the taxis. It isn’t too cheap to be riding around in a taxi all the
time. It adds up.
I might add that I apologize for the lack of pictures. It isn't allowed to take pictures at the weddings, nor of women without their abaya and potentially the scarf covering their heads/faces. I did get a picture with Nouf but I am respecting her wishes and withholding the picture.
