Last Thursday, Alison and I had the opportunity to go to the wedding of one of the brother of a former student. We have been to weddings before, but never a PERSIAN Bahraini wedding. Essentially, the wedding is broken into two parts: men and women separate, then everyone comes together.
Cultural Side Note: Bahrain is not homogeneously Arab. Rather, there are people of Gulf Arab descent, people of Persian descent, and then people who are ORIGINAL Bahrainis (locally known as bah-RAH-ni). Of course, as time goes on the three cultures continue to mix, but it’s not uncommon for Bahrainis to identify with one of those three groups.
This particular wedding started at 8pm, which means that to be on time, one must arrive no earlier than 9pm. Alison, and our friend Melissa, went together in elegant dresses, but covered in black abayas (without a hijab - the head covering), and arrived at a very fashionable and comfortable 9:30 pm. I'll let Alison talk about what she experienced here:
The hall was decorated beautifully, similar to any other night reception in the US with decorated round tables and a center dance floor. The place was filled with blaring Arabic/Persian/Indian(?) music. And I mean blaring. It really made it difficult to converse with the person sitting next to you at the table, forget about the person across the table.
This left only one occupation for the night, people watching. And this was THE BEST place to watch people. We all had arrived in abayas, but as soon as we were in the privacy of the hall (away from men), the abayas came off. And the women were extravagant. More women than not had attended a salon that day to get their hair and makeup done. I admit I like going to Arab events, because the makeup is so ornately done.
The dresses were also fantastic. When I first went to the malls in Bahrain, I would wonder at the abundance of scandalous and expensive couture dress stores, when it seemed like all I ever saw women wear were abayas. It’s at the weddings they get DECKED OUT. This still kind of confused me as to why women would spend (I’m estimating) and average of $200-400 for make-up, hair and dress on an event that no man will see her in.
I learned however, that weddings are often the places that mothers and sisters will pick out a girl for their respective sons and brothers. So oftentimes single girls go, knowing that someone might be looking to pick out their future daughter-in-law!
After about 2 hours of time with the ladies, the bride finally comes in. I have never been to a wedding in the states where a bride is as adorned as at an Arabic wedding. Her eyelashes were AT LEAST a half an inch long, and I have never knew hair could get that big. In talking with friends, a bride will typically stay 8-9 hours at a salon getting done up, and the salon packages start at $250. Just for an evening! One time I showed some Arab friends my wedding pictures, and they wondered why I didn’t have any make-up on (which I did). I think it was the equivalent for them of showing up for a wedding with jeans and a t-shirt.
This bridal display only lasts about 15 minutes, before all of that lovely hair, and the top of her dress is covered gently in a white wedding-style abaya and hijab by the girl's family. This cues everyone else in the room to cover as well. Then the men are allowed to come in. It was then that I realized that a wedding is really about the women. There were probably a total of 300 people there, and maybe 50 of them were men.
As for me - I was at home with Eva. There was a small gathering for the men, but it was mostly close family. At about 10:30pm, Alison came home - covered in her black abaya - to feed Eva. With that finished, we drank a little bit of coffee and headed back to the wedding (leaving Eva with a sitter of course).
In a few days, I'll post the next bit of our wedding experience!
3 comments:
So, what you're saying is that in addition to a couple hundred thousand dollars for Eva's college education, tens of thousands of dollars for the camels in her dowry, and several thousand dollars for her wedding, you now have to find a couple hundred more for hair and makeup on her wedding day. At least the orders of magnitude are decreasing...
Hello whoever you are, stop talking about a country which you really don't know about. don't live in it if you don't want to, otherwise, stop commenting on the Bahraini people and pretending that you know everything while in reality, you know nothing. instead of making this useless website, get a life, or create a website on the Americans, the wars they cause, and how ''polite and innocent'' they are. oh, and just to provide you with a simple fact: original Bahrainis are not Bahranis, so do not spread false information.P.s you shouldnt worry about how much make-up girls wear, because everyone can do whatever they want, so dont ruin our reputation !
Dear Anonymous,
I think you have misunderstood my purpose! I'm not trying to make fun of Bahrainis! Rather, I'm sharing with people back home some of the things that I have enjoyed experiencing with my Bahraini friends. For the make-up, I'm not trying to criticize, but to show what people in other countries do.
I have really enjoyed living in Bahrain, and don't pretend to know everything about Bahrain. I certainly don't know more than you. However, I'm sharing things with you that I have learned from my Bahraini friends (either Arab, Persian or Bah-rah-ni).
Everything that I have learned, I've learned from local history sources (for example the National Museum) or through talking with my Bahraini friends. Specifically, the part about Arabs, Persians and Bah-rah-ni's comes from my friends in one of the towns (near A'ali), who consider themselves Bah-rah-ni.
So I'm not trying to pretend I know everything - just trying to share some of the interesting culture from Bahrain with my friends back home. And I do like living here! Which is why I enjoy telling people about what I am seeing.
I hope that you can understand this. Please don't think that I don't like Bahrain!
Josh
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