We went to my language helper's wedding. As we practiced potential conversations at the wedding (nothing too complicated) I was firmly reprimanded. I kept calling her a woman. She corrected me severely. She is a girl. A girl over 25 but still a girl. I guess everyone is a girl at their wedding.
It was a wedding full of good food, bathroom breaks for Zana who had to go but could not in the dirty, dark squatty potty causing her consternation and frustration, and tears. Tears of my own when I heard the amounts agreed on by the man conducting the official part of the wedding. It was an amount less than we had spent on a gift. Paltry. The groom and the bride were not even together for the official part of the wedding, the Nikha. Rather they were in separate rooms on separate floors twice removed by staircase, once removed by walk ways across roofs, a world apart having never met. I sat. I prayed. I tried to keep language straight as I talked first to my kids in English and then to an Auntie in Hindi and then again in English. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Then we were stuffing back into our car for the long bumpy ride home, clasping sleepy children as we dodged cows, goats, trucks and all other forms of vehicular craziness in the dust filled darkness of night. The little Nano held up like a rockstar with six in the back and three in the front. We were a packed house.
It was a wedding full of good food, bathroom breaks for Zana who had to go but could not in the dirty, dark squatty potty causing her consternation and frustration, and tears. Tears of my own when I heard the amounts agreed on by the man conducting the official part of the wedding. It was an amount less than we had spent on a gift. Paltry. The groom and the bride were not even together for the official part of the wedding, the Nikha. Rather they were in separate rooms on separate floors twice removed by staircase, once removed by walk ways across roofs, a world apart having never met. I sat. I prayed. I tried to keep language straight as I talked first to my kids in English and then to an Auntie in Hindi and then again in English. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Then we were stuffing back into our car for the long bumpy ride home, clasping sleepy children as we dodged cows, goats, trucks and all other forms of vehicular craziness in the dust filled darkness of night. The little Nano held up like a rockstar with six in the back and three in the front. We were a packed house.
The room for the English people.
The bride's mother right beside Abe.
The men's wedding ceremony. The bride's to follow.
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