Moroccan Wedding

A while back, we were invited to a traditional wedding ceremony taking place across the river from our duwar. We didn't know what time to arrive, but we were assured that any time before about 2pm would be okay. We left our house at 1pm, and made our first stop at the local hanut (convenience store) to buy a wedding gift. The hanut was closed, so we visited the house of the hanut owner to see where he was. His family said he was probably praying in the Mosque and would be back soon. By the time we got back to the hanut, the owner had appeared and was slowly unlocking the door. Now running a bit late, we slipped into the hanut, picked out two of the nicest cones of sugar we could find, slapped down 24 dirhams, and started heading towards the river. We skittered down the steep embankment into the dry riverbed and navigated the rocky surface until we reached the network of paths wondering through the fields. We hurried along the paths, zagging this way and that, finally reaching a path that climbed up into the back yard of a series of houses. Nobody could be seen, but we wondered towards a collection of empty cars parked next to the adobe structures until our friend noticed us crossing the field and called us into the house we had just passed.
Despite our haste, we had missed lunch; but the women in the kitchen made us some honorary tea and offered us left-over fruit. Meanwhile a parade of relatives wondered in and out, taking turns welcoming us, introducing themselves, and testing our language skills; "What is bread? What is in this water bottle? Do you know what a wall is?".
After we had finished our tea, and gave the sugar gift to our host, an awkward period of time followed, because we didn't have any reason to be there until dinner, which would start many hours later. I wondered around the house until I came to a big open room with Tagines all over the floor. A man I had met once before in town, was standing in corner working over a wheelbarrow. I asked, "what are all these tagines for"? "Dinner", he replied. When another man came in the room and made a joke about the foreigner helping cook (which he did in TashlHite not realizing that would understand), I latched on to the opportunity for cultural exchange and responded, "Waxxa, radak 3awnG (okay, I'll help you)". The truth is, I didn't really know how long it would last or what I was getting into, but my curiosity was piqued by such a collection of tagines; 40 in all. Next came 40 mjmers (braziers), followed by wheelbarrows of glowing coals. Each mjmer was filled with coal and then a tagine was placed on top with a little water inside to avoid cracking. While one man added the coal, the other man and I worked with a pair of large bellows to keep the coals hot under the tagines. Up until this point, the men had been humoring me. Now the work was hard, and they needed the help. They started taking my presence more seriously and telling me what to do next at every turn.
When all 40 tagines were set with sparkling coals below, a huge crate of raw meat was dragged into the room. Each tagine was given more hot water, about 1kilo hunk of beef, and a splash of oil (a mix of olive and vegetable). Next, they brought out the vegetables. A heavy crate of onions, a crate of tomatoes, a crate of potato, a crate of zucchini. One man grabbed a knife and started peeling the skins of the onions. Meanwhile, the other man grabbed jars of cumin, turmeric, paprika, pepper, salt, and cilantro, tossing spoonfuls of each over the meat in the tagines. I was beginning to be impressed. Men in Morocco don't cook?! And here I was in a room of men confidently cooking 40 tagines simultaneously. This, I thought, was worth sticking around for. I grabbed a free knife, pulled a stool up to the onion crate, and started peeling.
My action was followed by some celebration to the tune of, "Hey, the foreigner is still helping! He can peel onions! Go team tagine!" When the onions were done, I took a quick spin through the rest of the house and discovered why men were on tagine duty. In the kitchen, where 8 or 9 women hurriedly preparing copious amounts of couscous. Down the hall, in a room opening out into the courtyard, were 5 or 6 more women squatting in a smoky room making bread. While some kneaded bread dough, one women was carefully slathering dough and flipping sheets of bread in a stout, igloo-shaped adobe oven, whose bottom was covered with glowing hot pebbles. The last women slouched over the newly baked bread, removing pebbles that had baked into the dough.
Feeling over-shadowed by the hard work of the women, I returned to my tagine duties, which brought more praise for the foreigner as I started in on the tomatoes. It didn't take long in that smoke, meat, and testosterone filled environment to forget all about the more difficult toils of the women and regain my pride in "team tagine". I felt like doing a chest bump when we finished skinning the potatoes. Shortly thereafter, a tray of tea came in with a plate of olive oil and a folded loaf of steaming fresh bread. We gathered around the tea and bread, padding ourselves on the back for a well deserved break. When all the vegetables were prepped, we portioned them into the tagines, added water as needed, and prodded the coals to check for problems. Just then I was rushed to another house to witness part of the wedding ceremony.
Inside the next house was a large circle of people drumming and chanting tribal wedding songs around the groom. He was completely cloaked, and sitting down on a chair in the middle of the crowd. As people chanted, various family members and friends walked into the circle and dropped money for the new couple. This continued for over an hour. When it finally ended, I stole a moment of time to check on my tagines. I chatted for a minute or two with my co-cooks, but our conversation was interrupted by loud horns from outside. The father of the groom, who was eating some food at one end of the room, said, "Its the Bride. The bride has come from her city with all her family". Sure enough, as I walked outside into the dark night, a caravan of 15-20 car headlights could be seen approaching on the road. They honked their horns to a distinctly Berber beat, and women in the vehicles chanted to the rhythm of the horns. The caravan pulled right up to the front door, and hundreds of people poured out into the driveway and into the house. On the roof, the groom and his friends were throwing candy down to the guests gathered around to witness the arrival. The bride was totally covered, and adorned with the traditional flowing fake red hair and a heavy gold headdress. She was rushed into the house, and then I heard somebody say "dinner". With that, men began forming a line around the house to a large fancy guest room.
A partition down the center of the guest room effectively created two long, thin rooms (maybe 10'x40' each). The floors was lined with carpets and pillows, and short round tables were placed down the center of each room at 5' intervals. Men filtered in and took their seats on the floor, lining the walls. When everyone was present, the man nearest each table was selected to be the tea-maker for that table. A tea set was brought out for the selected men, and they prepared the tea, scrupulously adhering to the most elaborate and ceremonial Moroccan tea-making processes. When the tea was finally served, plates of cookies were past around the room, followed by a second batch of tea, and more plates of cookies. Eventually, the tea sets were bused from the tables, and replaced with tablecloths. Men began to encircle their nearest table in anticipation of main courses. Servers brought in tagine after tagine, placing one on each table with a healthy portion of bread. When my table's tagine arrived, it was served by one of my co-cooks, who pointed at me and said to the rest of the people at the table, "this foreigner cooked these tagines"! It was mutually agreed that we should pop the lid and give our dinner a taste. The bread was divided evenly among the group, the lid was doffed, "Bismillah (in the name of god)" was uttered, and we took our first bites.... Delicious! I was genuinely impressed, and so were my table-mates. I got some "tabarkallahs (congratulations)" and some "shukrans (thank you)" and then the focus went back to the food.
After the tagine, came a heaping plate of mouthwatering couscous, and finally, a plate of fruit. When the food was consumed, an old man stood up and prayed aloud for the new married couple. The rest of the men punctuated his prose with chants of "Amen". Other speeches followed, but by this time, the majority of the guests were already shuffling towards the exit. I found my shoes among hundreds of others in the entryway, and walked out into the cold winter-night air, waving goodbye to some of the men I had eaten with.
It had been hours since I had seen Amber (men and women generally eat separately at weddings). I walked over to the other house where the bride had entered, and where the women had all gone to continue their festivities. A few men were lounging outside the front door. "Do you know if the women are done eating yet?", I said. One man looked up at me in surprise, "No. They haven't even started yet". While I expected gender separate dining, I had not anticipated that women would, in fact, only eat after men had finished (probably to ensure that there was enough food for the men). I thanked the man for his information and wandered across the courtyard, settling into a spot atop a log. I still had at least an hour to wait. Might as well get comfortable.
Some sociologists say that social events like weddings and funerals are the best opportunity to really see what makes up a culture. For over an hour, I sat on that log, staring up into the stars, marveling at the unique opportunity I had found myself in, and noting the remarkable similarities and differences between this event and its American equivalent.