Tomorrow the official ceremonies for my host sister’s wedding will begin. On Friday it is henna day, and on Saturday there will be the official ceremony and celebration. I will no doubt have a lot more to say about them after I have experienced them, so stay tuned!
As anyone who has ever been involved with a wedding can attest things get progressively crazier the closer it gets to the big day. Morocco is no different. Each day more and more family and friends are showing up. I honestly have no idea who is living in the house right now and who is not, as there are so many people here. My host sisters aunt actually came an extra week early (she had the date wrong), but stayed anyways to help with preparations. The house right now with all the people and preparations is rarely quiet and constantly engaged in numerous wedding related tasks. I have assisted with some of the preparations such as making a mountain of cookies and biscuits, but in general I just make sure to stay out of the way!
Another common occurrence around the house right now is a certain song. It is an Islamic religious song that is often sung at wedding times. It is not a normal day here if I do not here the women break out in song at least a handful of time with another rousing chorus. To top things off the song ends with basically everyone sing/screaming very loudly at very high pitches (so one cannot miss it when it is sung!) and everyone takes pride in how well they do this part (in other words no one is shy when singing the song).
As the first official ceremonies take place tomorrow preparations are now in high gear! The house is abuzz with cooking and other activities. One thing particularly stood out to me today when I got back from school. When I reached the top of the stairs and the second level of the house I was greeted by a slaughtered cow! Apparently they had marched the cow right up the steps just a while earlier and then proceeded to kill it and start butchering it! Luckily I am a whole hearted carnivore and I did not find the site disturbing, although it was a bit weird to see a severed dead cow head staring at me when I reached the second floor of the house (as this is not something that one sees every day!). At any rate I can be assured that the meat we will eat will be very fresh, and as I know from visiting our family farm in Iowa, that is always the best type!
The only thing I need to take care of before tomorrow is to decide what I am going to wear to the festivities. Before I came to Morocco I shipped most of my nice clothing home, as I assumed I would have no need of it while I was in Morocco. This was a good assumption until I found out that my host sister here was getting married! So I have to either acquire some good cloths from my new friends here at school or perhaps do as the Moroccans do and get my hands on a djellaba! I am leaning towards the latter, but I need to find something that is acceptable and affordable first, so we shall see.
Well I think I have rambled on for long enough, but as you can tell things are getting a bit crazy here as the big day is basically upon us! Stay tuned though as I will definitely blog about the wedding ceremonies as well once they take place!
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