Thoughts and Stories from my Seldom Boring Life: Bedouin wedding

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending a Bedouin wedding. It was an eventful, 3-day affair with deafeningly loud music, dancing, good food, firing of guns in celebration, and more music and dancing. There were 2 nights of parties, followed by a Sunday afternoon party/lunch, which consisted of countless platters of rice, sheep, bread (used in lieu of knives, forks, and spoons), and yogurt. Everything was quite tasty, except for the yogurt, a sour, lumpy, lukewarm "treat" that I struggled mightily to get down with a smile on my face.

Their culture rarely allows for interaction amongst the opposite gender outside of family, so the young and unmarried in attendance were in fine form, taking advantage of the opportunity to see and be seen, showing off their dance moves with endless energy. The dancing style, called dapke, is similar to Texas line dancing, but with an Arab twist and a higher degree of difficulty. I spent much of my time attempting to avoid having to dance, but my attempts were rarely successful. Everyone was very adamant that I have a good time, which, of course, could only come from lots of dancing, so no matter where I hid, someone found me and forced me back to center stage. For much of the wedding, I was the only non-arab in attendance, and I'm a disgraceful dancer, especially when it comes to the "dapke" that was on display, so there was much pleasure gained by those in attendance while watching me in my futile attempts to move like a good Lebanese (see picture below). Thankfully, there was also much argili (see earlier post) to be enjoyed, always a positive aspect of time with the Bedouin.

Again, I came away again impressed with the Bedouin culture, with the hospitality shown to me, the general camaraderie amongst friends, and the appreciation and affection of family. This was obviously an important day for the hundreds in attendance and everyone was happy to share it with me.