An upcoming Yemeni village wedding

My husband's family is from a village in Yemen. Everything there is like time stood still. You'd barely know it is 2012 if you were there. No electricity, no running water, no paved roads. The houses are scattered throughout the land. There are rocks, pebbles and boulders everywhere. I'll never understand why no one has taken the time to MOVE the rocks out of the way so people could at least walk safely.

Not only the landscape of the village is frozen in time: The culture is as well. The religion is Islam, obviously, but the local culture is more stringent. This post will address an upcoming wedding in my husband's family.

One of our nephews, I'll call him Ali, is the one getting married. Ali has been living and working in New York City for about 10 years. He is about 30 years old now (not many from the village know their true birthdates) and eager to be married. The majority of marriages in Islam are arranged: The families of the bride and groom meet and discuss the potential nuptials. In our village, they take it a step further (further backwards, if you ask me): The bride and groom usually never meet until the actual day of the wedding. This is the case with Ali. He has not even seen a photo of his bride-to-be. All he knows is her name, and he struggled to remember when I quizzed him. I joked that I hoped she was pretty, but he didn't seem to like my joke. I wonder if he'd divorce her if she weren't! (I hope not!)

For the past few months, Ali has been "preparing" for this wedding. This means, he's been sending over money - lots of it. The bride's family asked for a dowry, as is tradition. Ali sent money for the dowry - but a better term is "bride price" because it's like the groom is paying for the bride.

He sent the money that the bride's father requested. Then, two months later, the father asked for even more. He said the bride needed better gold jewelry and clothing for her special day. Ali sent more money.

In the meantime, Ali expressed to my husband that he didn't want his wedding to be extravagant, overboard, as Yemenis tend to do it - even in the village. He was being sensible, knowing how hard it was to earn a living. He hated the idea of squandering it all for the sake of "showing off" at his wedding. His father dismissed the idea. He wanted his son's wedding to be huge, with singers, musicians, plates and plates of cooked lamb and other indicators of prosperity. The family is far from wealthy; they live on maybe $5 USD a day, but they want their neighbors to think they're well off. Such is the culture: Islam tells Muslims to be modest and humble; village culture says to show off and make your neighbors jealous.

What made it worse was that my husband agreed with Ali's father. My husband said "You can't go against the tradition! What would people think?!!" I took Ali's side. After all, it's HIS wedding. Why can't he have it the way HE wants it? If the people of the village are going to criticize his decisions, they can go jump off a cliff - it's not their business!

In any event, Ali's wishes were ignored by his father, so the preparation continued.

When Ali finally booked his ticket to Yemen, he came to our house (we live about ten hours away from New York) He came here to pick up several enormous suitcases we had packed. The cases were not packed with items for him, but for everyone back home in the village. It was full of clothes, watches, jewelry, makeup and other gifts. Yemenis typically do not visit home empty-handed. The people in the villages have so little, that even second-hand clothing is welcomed.

Ali's flight is tomorrow. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. If not, I'll probably have more material for another post!

Hurricane Sandy

My husband and I used to live in New York City. It's where we met, got married and had our first children. We have since moved ten hours away (by car) but we both still have family members in the city and surrounding areas. New York will always be our home. Our prayers go out to anyone affected by this devastating storm.

On October 28, 2012, the day before Hurricane Sandy made landfall, one of our nephews in New York City decided he wanted to take a bus to come visit us. Just like that: no planning, no preparation. Since his English isn't that great, he didn't know how to buy a ticket so he called my husband to book him one.

First of all, I have to comment that Yemenis tend to do things this way: impulsively. I cannot tell you how many times my husband, or one of his friends/relatives, have just suddenly decided to make a long journey - often to Yemen! With little/no preparation! On the other hand, I am not Yemeni and my relatives never, ever do things this way. My parents planned a trip to Asia almost a year in advance. My sister flew to the Caribbean, planning the vacation at least six months in advance. My other sister traveled to Spain similarly. My point is: a big trip takes big planning - or so it should.

Well, back to this nephew. My husband searched the Greyhound website but all the buses had already left NYC that day. He also tried the train (Amtrak) and also had no success. We were finally able to find an alternate bus line that could make the journey. Unfortunately, with the impending hurricane, the company cancelled all trips leaving NYC and leaving our nephew stuck.

The nephew told my husband "Oh, my co-worker so-and-so drove up to your state yesterday and offered to give me a ride, but I said 'no'"

My husband replied, "You idiot! Now look at all the hassle there is!"

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On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit the northeast coast of the United States, causing a rising death toll and billions of US dollars in repairs.

Prior to Sandy making landfall, Mayor Mike Bloomberg ordered evacuations of several at-risk neighborhoods. These were close to or at the shoreline and most vulnerable to the onslaught of the strong winds, heavy rains, and impending flooding. These areas were designated as "Zone A"

Our nephew (the same one mentioned above) lives in Coney Island, which is in Zone A.

My husband implored him to leave there as instructed. Our nephew said, "Nah, me and cousin so-and-so are just going to stay and wait. It'll be OK"

Sure enough, Sandy hit with FULL FORCE causing massive flooding and power outages. Our nephew and the cousin found themselves TRAPPED in their apartment building. Water flooded the stairwell up 4 stories. They had no landline phone. They had no food in their apartment (Don't get me started on how poorly they prepared) and with no power, their cell phones were slowly dying.

They tried shouting out the windows, yelling for help. Unfortunately for them, the rest of the neighborhood had already (WISELY) evacuated, so they were pretty much alone - stuck.

They were stuck for 2 days before the waters finally receded. They jumped out of their building starving and frazzled.

A lesson learned, hopefully.

A new mosque

Hubby: "I'm going to pray at a different mosque today"

Me: "Why?"

Hubby: "It's in so-and-so town, not too far away"

Me: "Why?"

Hubby: "I wonder how to get there? Should I take the highway?"

Me: "Why are you going to a different mosque?"

Hubby: "Oh I just want to see what it's like. I heard it was nice."

Me: "Are you going there to meet someone?"

Hubby: "Well, my old friend Adel prays there"

Me: "OK, so when I asked you 3+ times why you are praying at a different mosque, THAT was the answer you could've given me at the beginning"