So Art gets invited at the last minute to a wedding of a nephew of someone from Corporate. It is for Men only. Art, Dr. Tej the CEO, Eric, and Joseph, the husband of the COO get dressed up and head off..I will let Art tell the story.
OK, sorry, no pictures...none of know the groom, and I could not figure out who he was during the 2 hour wedding..There was no actual ceremony. We entered the greeting line, shook about 30 mens hands, at the end of the line there was a large incense burner that we waved the smoke into our faces...then inside there were chairs for all in a U shape at the top were all the 'throne-like' chairs, again we shook hands and congratulated everyone, then we sat in the front row. They had servers bring us the following CONTINOUSLY..'Coffee, Sweet Tea, chocolates, juices of all varieties, dates..I noticed that they used the same cups for everyone, each server had about 4 cups w/no handles and when u gave it back, he then gave it to the next person..
Then the music started..about 20 men in a circle singing for 1/2 hour..it went like this 'ya ya ya eh ! ya ya ya eh !, eh eh he ya !. sometimes they chanted to a song leader, other times they just chanted...they had canes and rifles and some wore symbolic fake pistols on bandelors..(hey they stole this idea from Mexicans)...at the same time in the middle about 3-4 men or boys dances and did circles..it kinda reminded me of a few Grateful Dead concerts where u see people circling to the music they hear in their heads....or San Francisco Haight district where u see people dancing on the corners...anyway I digress.
Several people came up and shook hands with the guys I was with..I only knew these 3, I met several others....
Time to eat...after about an hour of this swell dancing..all of a sudden, no announcement, everyone gets up and we head through large doors to the other side of the building (all 200 to 300 hundred of us) and there are large tables and a head table and it is time to eat...
An Arab friend of the group sat with us, we shoved our plates under the middle massive mound of Rice that is topped with Goat and Camel meat. He said, don't use ur utensils and do NOT use your left hand...OK, I am a lefty..anyway we shoved the plates under the bottom and came up with Rice, then he used his hands and tore apart the Camel Meat for each of us. Um mm Umm...it was good, I had that and chicken, and other meats and some pasta and some chocolates... Then our new Arab friend called for the most tender part...some Baby Camel Hump. That's right Camel Hump.....but alas most of it was reserved for the Head table...so we only got a sliver of greasy slimey baby camel hump...boo hoo.
When we were finished, we got up and started to leave..OK I asked Dr. Tej the dumb question..where are the girls and when is the ceremony...NO girls...they have a get together on Saturday afternoon after the wife consumates the marriage. This WAS the ceremony...at the end they are considered to be married, we are all witnesses. The locals can have 4 concurrent wives, they must all be treated the same, he can divorce her, ,but he must continue to support her forever. So anyway we checked out, shook hands with another greeting line of complete strangers and headed home....Another local custom under my belt !
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