This weekend I went to a bedouin wedding about 2 hours south of Amman. I didn’t know the bride or groom, but I was invited through a connection that told me “they love having Westerners at their weddings”. Deal. I jumped on the opportunity to experience something new.
To get to the wedding, my neighbor and I had to take a cervees (taxis that run along a set route), sit on a bus for an hour, and then meet a contact that would drive us the rest of the way through winding desert roads.
It was my first time on a bus in Jordan. They leave the station when the bus is almost full, and then the driver moves out of the spot slowly, yelling for any last-minute riders that might be drinking coffee in the shops nearby. Buses here don’t stop at set points; they drive along a route and passengers just yell whenever they want to be let off. The same rule applies to people that want to get on the bus; they stand along the road and motion for the driver to pull over. It’s convenient for locals, but confusing for me since I typically rely on bus stop names to dictate my directions. However, my neighbor knew where to go, so I comfortably followed her.
Our contact picked us up and drove us to the wedding. We were quite far south at this point, and it was the open desert land-of-nothing that I had only ever seen in pictures or films like Lawrence of Arabia. In the distance, a man riding a donkey was herding sheep across the road. A large desert dust cloud lifted from behind him and hung in the sun. When we got closer, the man yelled to us, asking what bedouin tribe we belonged to. My driver said she was from Germany. He furrowed his brow and tilted his head a bit; he had never heard of any tribe called “Germany”.
We arrived at the wedding around 7pm -right before the bride did. We stood along the road as seven or eight cars raced together to the home -everyone honking, yelling, clapping. They had brought the bride from her village to theirs, and at the sight of the cars, two men next to me shot bullets into the air in celebration while everyone covered their ears. (I took a picture and then quickly stepped to the side once I remembered that gravity means the bullets will return back to the earth at the same speed...)
Colorful and small pendant flags were strung all over the property, flapping above the tent in the wind. Under the tent, the hosts had set out large rugs that covered all of the mud and dirt, and they placed chairs in rows ontop of them. There were over 150 women in the tent, and the party was quite extravagant. I learned that most bedouin families pull all of their current finances (and finances from their extended families) to afford a celebration like this.
After a quick appearance by the groom, the men all went to another tent to celebrate by themselves. A curtain was then drawn around the property for the women, and they freely removed their black cloaks, showing off elaborate hairstyles and dresses that revealed their arms and legs. Most women wore a lot of makeup to the event, but i’m sure a good amount of it ended up on my face after they all greeted me with kisses against the cheek.
The bride sat at the back of the tent, overlooking the celebration. She wore a large white dress that made it almost impossible for her to move. People went up and offered congratulations as she sat and smiled. In front of her, people started to dance in a circle. Girls all held hands and did a Jordanian type of line dance. I wanted to learn it, so I told one of the girls in Arabic, “I’m new here, can you please show me how to dance?” She laughed and added me to the circle. Only a few people danced throughout the night; at most there were about 20 at once. It was a little odd to be watched the whole time, but dancing comes easier to me than speaking Arabic, so I stayed on the floor most of the night.
At 9pm, dinner was served. Women carried large circular platters of mansaf (the rice, yogurt sauce, and lamb dish) and set them out for groups to share. About 7-10 people sat together in a circle around each platter and ate with their hands. Since you’re all grabbing food from the same dish, this is the point in the evening when you start to wonder how clean your neighbor’s hands are. And then you remember that you just spent the whole night shaking everyone’s hands, making it statistically impossible to have avoided any germs. So you just sit, grab a handful of rice, and enjoy the food.
