Good evening, friends. Finally I write here about my brother
Samer’s wedding.
It was held on the evening of Tuesday, the 4th of
August. A great flurry of preparations preceded, such as makeup application,
hair straightening or poofing, and manicures/pedicures. Happily, I submitted to
none of that. I relaxed all day in shorts and flip-flops; my preparations
entailed little more than slipping into a short black dress pinned with a showy
fuschia-colored rose. Posing for a photograph of the groom’s sisters and
cousin, my sister Dima assessed my makeup and chided me for wearing nothing more
than lipstick. And as she walked into the house, my uncle’s wife said to me,
“No-stress hair! You’re the smartest one in our bunch!”
At about 6 in the evening, with all close members of the
groom’s family congregated in the formal sitting room, the hired troupe of the
zaffah arrived at the entrance. The “zaffah,” that is, the musical procession,
announces itself with song and music, enters the house, fetes the groom and
family, and then accompanies the group to the bride’s father’s house. They were
about six young men, dressed in the traditional garb of qumbaz, a long belted
and striped robe of cotton, and white headdress. With them was a bagpipe (an effect
of British colonialism) and a repertoire of old Palestinian songs about the
groom: how his parents have reaped the harvest in the form of a fine son, how
lucky and blessed he is to have caught his “gazelle,” how he will have many
sons, etc. etc. The zaffah is a tradition of Palestinian and Levantine village
life: in the past family members and fellow villagers sang, clapped, ululated, played
the flutes, proceeding through the village with the groom astride a horse or
donkey. Now, everyone drives cars through the streets, merrily honking their
horns and keeping their blinkers on throughout the trip so that traffic
accommodates the one uninterrupted line of the caravan. The groom’s car leads,
and usually a close male family member, like his brother or cousin, has the
honor of driving the car. Families choose their shiniest, most expensive car –
for our wedding, my brother Bashar drove Dima’s “champagne” Mercedes (yes, that
is the word proudly used to describe the vehicle, though hardly anyone in my
family sips the sophisticated bubbly). Much like the agrarian mode of transport
would have been, the Mercedes was decorated lavishly, with bouquets of white
flowers lilies, roses, and louisianas. Following tradition, in the car sat also
the groom, my father and another prominent male elder of the (paternal) family.
Honking merrily, they led the procession of cars through the streets. The
zaffah and the honking caravan are my favorite part of weddings; children love
it too; the little nieces and nephews of our wedding did not have the great and
rare honor of riding along in the “groom’s car.”
The zaffah’s members ride in their own vehicle to the
bride’s house, and, after more feting, everyone heads to the wedding venue (in
our example, Le Meridien Hotel). Typical Arab style, we weren’t organized
enough to supply one or more of the zaffah members with the bride’s address or
important phone numbers. (In our defence, in the way of explanation, it is not
common practice to use addresses in Jordan; people still rely on directions
that refer to landmarks.) This meant their van had to follow our procession. I
traveled with Dima, my mother and my cousin Lana; ours was the penultimate car
on the route, followed by the zaffah’s. The main subject of conversation during
the ride was not the excitement that we had just experienced at the house but the
nearness or farness of the van.
The problem was, the apartment of the bride’s parents is
quite far from my parents’ house, in a bustling and car-choked part of Amman
(and that’s saying a lot, considering how frustratingly trafficky this city has
become). And guess what happened? Indeed, instead of taking the right turn onto
the bride’s street, the van sailed on obliviously, forging onwards in a sea of
cars and traffic lights! You should have heard our outraged yells and curses in
the car when we witnessed this! The rest of the procession had arrived at the
destination but couldn’t go up to collect Areej, the bride, without the
zaffah’s music and song. So the family, some twenty members, including the
groom, had to wait impatiently at the bottom of the stairs to the apartment
building. Imagine how embarrassed they were when Areej’s brother asked from the
window upstairs why they weren’t coming up yet. Meanwhile there we were,
sitting in the car, cursing at the foolishness of the van driver and the
oversight of lacking phone numbers and address, when, miraculously, suddenly,
my mother remembered the number of the zaffah’s manager! She had (manually)
dialed it a few times, and her memory is sharp as a knife. The manager was not
in the van, but he called the driver, who called Dima (again, typical Arab
style). We learnt that—can you believe this -- the driver hadn’t even noticed
that he was off-course! Finally, after fifteen more minutes of our cursing and
fuming, the van re-joined us, drove to the apartment building, and the groom’s
party climbed the four flights of stairs (no elevator!!), the women grumbling
in their high heels.
We arrived at Le Meridien’s reception hall late because of heavy
traffic; a few guests had shown up already, an undesirable fact, as the groom’s
side is expected to receive, welcome and seat their guests. Some of the
invitees mistook me for Dima, congratulating me (mabrouk! mabrouk!), asking after the children and wishing them their
own happy wedding days in the future. Despite more minor glitches, everyone was
in high, celebratory spirits. The buffet dinner included the obligatory lamb
and rice, rolled grape leaves, tabbouleh, baba ghannouj, and fresh fruits for
dessert. Alcohol is absent from the majority of Muslim weddings, but to my
utter delight, my Uncle Azal, fond of beer and whiskey, offered me a couple of
shots from a Johnny Walker bottle he kept under the table. The music blared and
we danced, sang, and clapped all night. At one point, my dad started sobbing on
the dance floor, likely overtaken by joy and nerves.
To understate it, I had a good time, but I am glad it’s
over. Phew! Samer and his bride are on their honeymoon in Greece. They will
return inshallah on the 14th of August. It’s not clear yet if her
U.S. immigration papers will be complete and ready by then. If the application
hasn’t been approved, the newly-weds will have to wait and part ways; she will
go back to Kuwait and Samer will fly to Seattle.
More news next week inshallah.
Very fondly,
Rima
