August 3, 2003

Palestinian Weddings

[Bethlehem, Palestinian Territories] If you want to see major league fun in action, get yourself invited to a Palestinian wedding. Fortunately, I teach a lot of students in the young adult age range -- meaning that I get invited to weddings! Excellent! (Dadburn it. George Rishmawi got married when I was out of the country. What's up with that? Thanks a lot, buddy.) What's a Palestinian wedding like? They are just like back home in Virginia -- friends, swords, dancing on tables, fancy clothes, cheering, and incredibly loud music. There's no way you can go to one and not have a great time -- unless you scream yourself hoarse trying to talk to the person sitting beside you. Normally you go to the church at 5:00 for a half-hour church service. As far as I know, it's open to almost anyone who wants to come. I've never been to one where finding a seat in the church was a problem -- just like on Sunday.

After the church service everyone goes home for a few hours to rest up for the evening. Then at about 8:00 the reception starts at the local reception hall. There are only a couple of places that are always used. I suppose the reason is that there aren't many places that can hold 700 - 1,200 people! I think the smallest reception that I've attended had about 700 people. So a thousand people get together to celebrate the union of a man and his wife. Wow. It's a heck of a wedding-palooza.

700? 1,000? When I get married, I wonder if I could convince a half-dozen folks to attend -- including both my parents and my brother's family of five? I think a half-dozen might be pushing it a bit. But I'm pretty sure I could get my dad and maybe my two nephews -- if cake is served.

My student Shouma had a good time at her sister's wedding.

My former student Sabreen gets lifted to her man for an "above-the crowd" dance.

And now, not for the faint of heart! If you want to see my favorite wedding dance,
Palestinian Wedding Dance Movie (2.2Mbytes)
right-click on the link, and select "save target as".
Then depending on the speed of your connection wait a few minutes (or a half-hour) for the movie to download.
Finally, double-click on the file saved on your computer.