Wedding Season

I am quickly learning that the best thing for me to do while here in Nepal is to just go with the flow. And by flow, I mean doing whatever it is that my host mother suggests I do. I was nevertheless pretty excited to learn that I was going to have the opportunity to go to wedding festivities during my stay here. Last week, the same evening that I was presented with my dance slippers, I was informed that I was not to make plans for Monday or Friday as there were two weddings for me to attend on those days. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go to a Nepali wedding yet, but I sensed that it was not so much an invitation as it was an announcement of how I would spend those evenings and I didn’t feel comfortable saying no. Don’t bite the hand that force feeds you an unnatural amount of food in a single sitting is what I always say.

I came home at 5:30 on Monday as instructed. I wasn’t told very much about the wedding, and didn’t really have any idea what to expect. All I knew was that I could choose my own outfit and that the wedding was of a somewhat distant relation - my host mother’s sister-in-law’s nephew’s aunt’s brother’s son’s ambidextrous lactose intolerant agoraphobic third cousin twice removed. Or something like that.

The car that was meant to pick us up was late, and as my host mother and I sat outside waiting I tried to ask questions that would give me a clearer sense of what to expect. Somehow the entire conversation seemed to be misinterpreted on both sides and by the time our ride came I was even less sure of what I was walking into. Five minutes after leaving we pulled up to a house where a well dressed family of seven was standing by the side of the road. They all seemed a little put off by my presence and when I realized that they were all planning on getting in the car with us I understood why they might be irritated about the unexpected extra body that was taking up precious space in the car. Somehow we all managed to get in: two people in the trunk, a child on a lap in the front, and four and of us and a toddler in the backseat.

The reception was being held a little out of town, and for the first half hour or so I enjoyed the view of Kathmandu from the window. We drove out past Pashupatinath and the burning bodies. Maybe because it was so hot and I was already starting to feel a bit clostraphobic sitting scrunched and contorted to the point where my shoulders almost met in front of my body, between two middle aged women sweating on me, and the constant stream of drool that was falling into my lap from the toddler who had fallen asleep in the arms of my host mother, but I felt a little overwhelmed.

We turned down a hill and followed a road into an area where none of the houses were completed. Dozens of homes were scattered about with metal beams extending out of concrete poles, and it appeared that construction had been halted some time back. It soon became apparent that we didn’t know exactly where we were, and somehow the hand drawn map that had accompanied the invitation wasn’t helping us very much. We pulled over and asked someone on the side of the road for directions. “Straight” they told us, pointing, and we continued on. A few minutes later we pulled over again, and again were told to continue straight. We repeated this process a number of times, always being told to go straight. The road went from being reasonably well paved to a little rough and a little narrower to gravel and about the width of a single car till we were driving along a dirt “road” that was really only suitable for ATVs.

Eventually, although I still can’t totally figure out how, we found ourselves in the middle of a field face to face with a cow that stood chewing its cud and eyeing us suspiciously as it stared into the front window of the car. The driver slammed on his breaks, and it was at this point, 45 minutes from when we had asked for directions the first time, and after the map had been passed back and forth in front of my twisted body countless times, that my host mother turned to me and quite seriously said “we may be a little bit lost.” I bit my tongue and nodded. Two teenagers hanging out listening to music in the field finally pointed us in the right direction. Apparently the place was in fact on the main road, and had we stayed on it, what took us 45 minutes would have taken about two.

When we finally pulled up to the entrance of what appeared to be a converted barn we pealed ourselves off of each other and the upholstery. I guess I hadn’t zipped my bag because as I climbed out of the car its contents spilled out all over the ground, leading to another round of sideways glances from my companions, especially those still in the car who now had to wait even longer before getting out. It was then that I realized I didn’t know how to say I’m sorry in Nepali.

The rest of the evening was pretty awkward, and I definitely stuck out, but it was still an interesting experience. I spent most of the evening just trying to figure things out…. Who were these people and whose wedding was this, who touches whose head, who was I having my picture taken with, were the bride and groom happy, how do I politely back away from the dance floor before being forced to dance to another song, how does all that red paste stays on the brides forehead and how many bobs of her head would it take before it started falling off, how do I successfully get a french fry off the tray and onto my toothpick and if I get that far do I dare try dipping it in ketchup. This last one I never really figured out. If all my food was brought to me in tiny pieces on trays carried around by children who appeared to look down on my inability to get anything to stay on a toothpick long enough to get it to my mouth I would probably starve to death. This method of serving food adds a certain level of pressure and inefficiency to eating that fascinates me, but also makes me feel a little panicky. With every failed attempt at stabbing a fry or momo I felt a combination of frustration and that specific form of embarrassment I get when I wave at someone I think I recognize only to realize that I don’t in fact know the person and have to quickly draw my hand to my head as if I have hair in my eyes. Except with the food this process was on repeat, and I felt like I was much less able to pretend to be doing something else. I don’t think I was fooling anyone that, despite the aggressive stabbing motion I was making at the tray, in the end I was really only interested in the toothpick because I had something stuck in my teeth.

The wedding on Friday was for a closer relation, and I was told I would be wearing a sari to that one. Putting on a sari is a somewhat intricate and complicated process, and from the looks of it takes a lot of practice to get it right. By Friday I had been wrapped and unwrapped three times already, each time having to give up any sense of modesty, and each time holding my breath as cloth was being pinned to me at a frighteningly quick pace. Because I am completely incapable of putting a sari on by myself I think my host mother got the general impression that I also might struggle with taking my clothes off and so took on the task of handling all things clothes related. And because my will to argue has been weakened by the heat, and because she came at me with a fist and mouth full of open safety pins I let my arms be lifted above my head as she took my shirt off. While I was a little taken aback the first time, by the second time she told me to take my skirt off I was less resistant. I did draw the line when she came at my chest to fasten all the clasps on the under shirt, saying I could get it. Turns out I was wrong, and it didn’t take long before I was admitting that I needed some help.


It took me awhile to adjust to wearing the sari, but after a few initial trips and stumbles I was managing ok. The only thing I was uncomfortable with was the bindi that was stuck to my forehead before I could figure out what was coming at me. I tried to devise a plan of how to make it fall off somewhere, getting it wet and practicing wiping sweat from my brow so that it would be lost somewhere in the shuffle. But those things have surprising staying power. In the end I just told my host mother the truth and took it off before leaving.


I don’t know if it was because of the sari, that people were just generally friendlier, that Cecilia and other foreigners were there, or because I had been through one wedding already, but I felt so much more at ease at the second one, and I even found myself enjoying parts of it. I still couldn’t manage to successfully skewer a french fry but I still have a few more weeks and a few more opportunities to master the art of appetizer eating. In the meantime I will practice my dance steps, study the family tree, and accept that I will probably find myself in an endless number of awkward situations before I leave Nepal but should take it all in stride because chances are that in the end they will make my best memories.