More Yemeni adventures! So I know I said I would never go to another Yemeni wedding...but I figured that an engagement party would be different (maybe more relaxed? less psycho? less make-up and fewer prom dresses?).
The story: So myself and my friend Laura are tutoring a Yemeni girl in English and French. She is amazingly smart--she just graduated from high school and is waiting for her test results which will determine whether she can go to law school in Egypt. She is the only one among all of her friends that have plans to go to university and not marry immediately after high school. Even though the English programs at school here in Yemen are atrocious (and only 8 students in her entire high school chose to learn English) she has largely self-taught herself English by watching television and reading. And her English is amazing; she could easily travel to America and not have any trouble getting around and communicating with people, and probably even be able to take classes at university. Because the law school in Egypt is taught on the French system, she also needs to know rudimentary French before she goes, so we are helping her with that as well. Also, she does not wear the niqab (she doesnt cover her face, just her hair), and I have had some really interesting conversations with her about how Yemeni women perceive the niqab and her reasons for not wearing it. Her older sister wears the niqab, but her parents are very relaxed (and very well-off) and have let her decide for herself. It was also interesting talking with her about harassment. I asked if she is ever harassed because she is Yemeni and she shows her face, and she said that a lot of women are harassed whether they wear the niqab or not...she said that sometimes men will walk up to women who are totally covered (balto/abbaya + niqab) and they will lift up the girl's veil or abbaya. She said that when she goes to Egypt, she will not wear the abbaya, and she thinks that while it may be necessary in Yemen because of social pressures, it will be nice not to have to wear it in Egypt.
So anyways, her best friend just got engaged, and she invited us to the engagement party. Because it is different from a wedding and because I want to meet as many Yemenis as possible, I decided to go...
Yemeni engagement parties are pretty much just for the young, unmarried girl friends/family of the bride and groom. Because Yemenis marry so young, it was a room FULL of girls 18 and under. It felt like one of my sleepover birthday parties from when I was 12 years old because they were all so excited and waaaay over-dressed/over made-up. Every time the power went out (about every 10 minutes) they would all scream and go crazy. For the first part of it, it was actually really awkward. My friend and I didn't know anyone there except for the girl we tutor plus 2 of her older sisters (whom we had just met 15 minutes beforehand). At first, the girls sitting around us just stared at us in awe and didn't talk to us at all (a big difference from the wedding, where they attacked us with questions the second we walked in). After a little while, the girls on one side of me started to ask questions about life in the US...and, just like at the wedding, there were those two crazy girls who ask the awkward questions and are really invasive...this one girl started out with "So, you are Muslim?" I answered, "No, I'm Christian." Her: "Christian...?" I said it again, thinking she didn't hear me correctly or i mispronounced it in Arabic. She had no idea. Then she asked: "Do you know Islam?" Implying that if I knew anything about Islam, I would immediately see the error in my ways and convert. I answered, "Yes, I know about Islam, I lived with a Muslim family when I was in Jordan." Her: "Have you thought about Islam, it is a very good religion." I said I was Christian and that that is what I believed...awkward. Then she gave me a death glare and ignored me for 15 minutes. Then as she was getting up to leave for the night, she turned to me, grabbed my hand and said I should come back home with her to meet her family and hang out with them...I politely declined.
Several times, my friend and I were pulled/yanked up to dance. Personal favorites were NSYNC, Lady Gaga and "Mabrook" by Rami Ayach (this is a engagement party must have--and was played at least 4 different times). I wish I could have taken pictures, but because it was all girls and they were unveiled, photography was strictly forbidden.
Near the end, the mom of the bride and the mom of the groom came in to present the traditional presents of gold to the bride from the groom. This is the chance for the groom's family to show off their wealth, and they are expected to lavish gold on the bride to show off to the neighborhood that they are a good family. The event was completed with tons of cake and roses throw into the crowd of screaming, pushing 16-year olds.
Anyways. So the next day, a bunch of us in the program loaded ourselves onto the crazy van driven by the skilled and equally crazy Abu Bakr. We went to Dar al-Hajar...if you have ever seen anything about Yemen, this will have been the picture. It is the palace built on top a very tall and narrow spike of rock. It is not very far outside of Sana'a, so we got there relatively early. It is a gorgeous building. It was built around 1930 as a palace but now has been turned into a museum, and it is the most visited tourist site in Yemen....given this fact, the lack of paved roads to the village where the palace is located makes for an interesting drive. The valley it is in is gorgeous and looks a little bit like a smaller and greener Grand Canyon.
Then today, the girl who I tutor invited myself and 2 other women in the program to her house to have a traditional Friday lunch with her family. I love Yemeni food...up until today, I had really only had Yemeni food in restaurants, but because only men can work in restaurants, the food is not as good as that in the house. THE FOOD WAS SOOOOO GOOOOD. They went all-out and cooked so many different things: green beans with ground mean and tomato and spices, boiled potatoes with spices, tender juicy stewed lamb, baked chicken with spiced rice, salata, salta (yemen's traditional dish), bread, dessert, fruit....etc etc. It was amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I'm really sad that I won't be in Yemen long enough to learn how to make it all (another reason to come back next year).They were so welcoming and friendly and we had really interesting conversations about politics, Yemen, the West etc etc. They invited us back for lunch every Friday...I'm really sad that I'm leaving in a week and that I didn't meet them sooner, because I want to spend all of my time at their house!
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