Life: Idiotropic

I'm never really quite sure what to expect at International Women's nights. Will I be force fed unpalatable food by a blindfolded Italian, line up with other women with our noses sticking through a sheet to be identified, or get pulled onto the dance floor wearing jingly coins around my hips?

Tonight, my belly was covered, but I did do a little dancing.

The Turkish ladies put together a beautiful evening showing us parts of a traditional Turkish wedding- parts that were very similar to our own mating ritual, and others that are very different.

The first skit showed the girls walking in the town and catching the eye of some "handsome" men. Nagihan dropped her scarf as she walked away as a sign that she was interested and like a high school boy, he eagerly picked it up. In the next scene we saw the meeting of the parents to arrange the wedding complete with nervous bride-to-be and the commanding mother-in-law. When they seemed to agree, the prospective bride and groom were given rings tied together.

Then - it got interesting. The told us of the tradition of painting the girl's hands the night before the wedding - the Henna night. Nagihan walked in veiled and dressed in a beautiful red gown. She was surrounded by women carrying candles. As she sat down, the "mothers" stood behind her with the tray that would have held the henna. The other ladies surrounded her in a circle placing the candles on the floor and began dancing. The tray was brought forward and one women wrapped the hand the would have been painted completely in cloth. Then ladies took turns bringing gold bangle bracelets and putting them on Nagihan's other arm while she sat there the entire time quiet and veiled. Then the groom came in. She stood and they danced - he on the outside of the candle ring and her on the inside. After a few minutes of dancing, he picked her up and carried her off.

Afterwards, there was a lot of dancing. The ladies all wore beautiful coined scarves around their hips that jingled when they danced. The room had quieted down a bit after the wedding skit, then the music started and Mel came over, took off her scarf, and tied it around my waist, so she and I danced in the middle of the room. She called the other Turkish ladies over and I waved for my mom to join us and pretty soon there was a very nice crowd all dancing to the music. After that, the ladies took back their scarves and put them on to perform for us. They did a lot of dancing and it was all beautiful.

After a couple dances to the music, the drummer came out and the ladies danced with little square glittery clothes in their hands. The drummer was a petite lady wearing a classy short black dress and black spike heals.
The turnout for the wedding was amazing, so they had to add tables before they could start. They served chicken and rice with curry powder and a nice green salad. For dessert they made baklava which was wonderful for me, but too sweet for my Spanish friends. Mom and I spent the evening at the Spanish table and had a wonderful time. They are all very friendly. Pepi has learned German, but not English and brought a German friend who speaks a little English, so it was interesting talking to them, saying one thing in Spanish to Pepi, then translating it into English for her friend or trying to use a few German words here and there.

At all IWC dinners there are door prizes. This night the line for raffle tickets was unusually long as the gifts were unusually beautiful. Sennur (one of the Turkish ladies) designs and makes beautiful jewelry, so she brought beads and supplies from Turkey and taught her friends to make them and they all made matching necklaces and earrings to give away. Some of them were absolutely stunning. And I didn't win... but I know Sennur and am hoping that she'll teach me too!

So far, this was the best IWC dinner of this year - the cultural exchange was amazing and we were given a lot of information about the ceremony. Next month is Italian night and they're serving pizza! (We're forced to economize for these events or the food would be much more extravagant.)