Fatimatou’s Wedding

You may recall me hiding in my house reading in my jammies during my neighbor’s baptism party last year. You know how it is – a jillion people who think you look and talk funny and want you to dance for them while they laugh at you– we’ve all been there, right? Other volunteers LOVE mariages and ceremonies. They live for the next time they can sit around in the heat and dust and noise. I’ve always felt a little curmudgeonly for knowing that I’d rather eat a kilo of rancid goat meat than get sucked into an interminable, overstimulating, exhausting celebration. So when my friend, Fatimatou, invited me to her wedding, I started thinking of excuses. But, hey, Peace Corps is all about pushing yourself to the limit, and besides, I couldn’t get my hands on a kilo of sufficiently rancid goat meat.

Fatimatou is the president of the group of girls I’ve been teaching French and English to and she’s become a good friend. That afternoon, I screwed up my courage, donned a new muleffa and set off in the direction of the blaring music (which I could hear from my house, though she lives 6 blocks away). Groups of cackling women and leering boys spilled from her yard into the street. I pressed my way into the yard and was promptly grabbed by Fatimatou’s sister, who dragged me through the throng of muleffa-d ladies to a prime spot under the tent. One of the words for “married” in Hassaniya is “tented.” When a couple gets married, then they move from their families’ tents into their own tent. The place was hoppin’! The big f at Moor chanteuse plucked at her traditional guitar and yowled into the microphone. Beside her, the members of her scrawny backup band thumped on a big wooden kettle drum and picked out seemingly random notes on an electric guitar. All the girls from my class were there and yelling at mme to get up and dance. I did my one obligatory turn around the dance floor, to the delight of all attending.

THAT was just the pre-party. Later in the evening, Limnaya and I got all dolled up with our (her) fake gold jewlery and … dramatic…makeup. White moors are pretty white, but they’d like to be whiter. Limnaya powdered her face til she looked like Casper, if Casper wore too much eyeliner. There were even more people at Fatimatou’s house than in the afternoon. I followed Limnaya through the crowd to where Fatimatou’s family was sitting. Limnaya said something to them and they said, “Zahara, come here!” They led me out into the street and told me to sit down with Fatimatou’s sisters. Limnaya had asked if I could be part of the wedding party!

Six cars pulled up and Fatimatou’s sister pulled me into one. She stood in the sunroof and pulled me up. The caravan started up and pulled away, each car honking and its passengers ululating and banging on the roof. We roared through town, making as much noise as we could, til we got to the house where the couple was getting ready. They were led out and stuffed into one of the cars and then we were off again, hollering and banging our way through town.

I think I was the only person there with a camera, so I became official wedding photographer. Fatimatou’s mother and aunt were wearing the traditional wedding crown, made of gold and stone beads. Moor brides also wear the crown, but the night of the wedding, no one can see their face. Bébé sat there completely covered up in her richly dyed wine red muleffa. She and her husband sat at the head of the boxing ring-esque dance floor behind the musicians. I went over to talk to her and take their picture, but it was weird trying to talk to this faceless, shapeless Fatimatou-sized thing.

The dance floor was indeed set up like a boxing ring, with the women of the wedding party inside the ropes and the masses of neighbors and well-wishers outside. It felt like a meat market, us ladies in the ring and so many men smirking and leering from the shadows. But, wow, I think that was the first time I’ve seen Moors have fun. Try andpicture my friends, Zenabu and Aichatou, who are Fatimatou’s half-sisters. Both Zenabu and Aichatou are enormous, beveiled, Jabba the Hut-looking Mooresses, but they were scampering around the boxing ring, alternately dancing and bear hugging each other. It was hillarious! I was again obliged to get up and dance for the crowd’s amusement. Since the wedding, women have been coming up to me in the street and saying, “Zahara, I saw you dance! Why aren’t you married?”

Limnaya and I finally left at midnight, when they took a break from dancing to eat dinner. When I got home, I sat thinking about Fatimatou and her wedding night. Was she scared or happy? Did she really like her husband? I just assumed she must be anxious and scared about having to submit to her wifely duties. I went to see her in her new house yesterday. Actually, it’s just another house in her family’s same concession, not 20 feet away from her old house. As we sat drinking tea, I asked her how the house was and she said, “Oh, you know, everyone comes to visit during the day, but no one comes at night!” and winked! Ha! It hadn’t occurred to me that she could possibly be happy about finally getting to be a sexual being! I’d been thinking of her as all cowering and oppressed. Right on, Fatimatou!