Wednesday, August 20, 2014
So I had a very interesting experience last night that I just have to share. As the title implies..... I crashed a Saudi Wedding.
The beautiful wedding invitation I received.....of course I couldn't read it. That probably would have been helpful.
It is a very exciting prospect when you get invited to a local wedding. As you can guess they are very different from what we are accustomed to and is an experience like no other. One of my colleagues, Yousef recently got engaged and I was very excited to receive an invite to his wedding. Of note Yousef is not Saudi although he was born and raised here. He carries a Eritrean passport and considers himself Eritrean so he told me it would be a bit different but also kind of similar.
All weddings here are gender segregated, so even though I was invited by my male colleague, I would not get to celebrate his wedding with him. But there would be plenty of friends and family to fill the void. Our entire office was invited so it would be an opportunity to spend some time with the Saudi girls I work with outside the hospital. Weddings here tend to be very lavish events. For women it is a huge opportunity to get dressed up and have some fun. Trust me the hair, make-up, shoes, and the dresses......you would not believe the dresses.
Three of us (all non-Arabic speakers) decided we would travel to the wedding together. I got maps and GPS locations and directions galore so we would know where we were going and somehow we still ended up at the wrong wedding. Yes that's right the wrong wedding. However, we did not know it was the wrong wedding until about 0100 (1am) after we had left and were already at home. Let's just say the night turned into a bunch of "should haves" but I'll tell you how something like that happens.
Kathleen, Cherry and Myself at the wedding.
None of us had been to an event like this before so really did not know what to expect. The first surprise was when we arrived they took our phones from us....because of the cameras, as there are no pictures allowed in the wedding as the women are all uncovered. This threw us off a bit as we were still waiting for our Saudi colleagues to arrive . We tried to call them before we entered but thought it would be fine they would arrive soon after us. We found a table close to the door so we would see everyone come in and sat down and watched the dancing and listened to the music. A couple hours past and our Saudi colleagues had not arrived but it is not uncommon for people here to say they are coming to something and then not show up so we actually were not too surprised. At this point we should have gotten up to check our phones but we just continued to wonder why they hadn't arrived and enjoyed the experience. Funny thing was they were thinking the same thing at Yousef's actual wedding. Eventually midnight hit and the meal was served. And then our driver came at 0030 (after midnight) at this point I had my phone back and was seeing messages from the girls about being on their way and a couple missed calls. First sign that something was amiss. So I sent some messages wondering what had happened to them. At 0130 they responded wondering what had happened to us because they couldn't find us at the wedding. I said the same. At this point it became pretty apparent we had both attended weddings but not the same one. When I got to work on Thursday we totally confirmed it.
The directions to the wedding venue were very clear however they neglected to tell us that there were 2 wedding venues very close together, separated by a mosque. Also they neglected to tell us that the second venue was the one we were looking for and due to construction was a little hard to see. They did tell me however we would come off the U-turn (very common on Saudi roads) and it would be right there. So we came off the U-turn and stopped at the first wedding venue we saw. Little did we know we should have kept going.
The one place we could take pictures......where no one else is around.
So as you can imagine I was a little disappointed that I hadn't been to Yousef's wedding. Being at an event like that when you don't know anyone kind of leaves you in an observatory role versus a participatory role and I would have done a lot of dancing and that kind of stuff. I also regret not being able to meet Yousef's wife and family as I am told they are lovely people but hopefully another opportunity will arise.
Kathleen and I. We have both attended a number of Embassy balls but this was something totally different.
Looking back on it today, I can see that from the moment we walked in we should have known things weren't right. No one asked who we were or anything. They just took our phones and we headed in. We probably should have asked to make sure we were in the right place. I should have done a little looking myself before giving the driver the directions to make sure I knew where we were going. Should, should, should. But no way to change it now. Kathleen and I have been laughing all day about it.
But to make a positive out of a negative I really enjoyed the night. It was a glimpse into a world not many get to see and I am thankful for that. I had to ask a lot of questions today because I just did not know what was happening last night (things have been cleared up). Not to worry, there are 2 more single guys in the office (and 2 single girls) so hopefully there will be more wedding opportunities.
Julie
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