Hi everyone, sorry it has been a while. I have been incredibly busy lately and debating giving up
on this blog, but a few comments from friends and family has encouraged me to keep writing.
About two months ago, I had the privilege of attending a traditional Tajik wedding. One of the girl’s in my program had a member of her host family getting married, and in true Tajik style, her host mom invited all the people in our program, so that we could get to experience both a Tajik tradition, and Tajik village life (the two-day wedding was in a village about an hour outside of Dushanbe). Early Saturday morning, the three of us who actually decided to go to the wedding piled into the car of someone’s relative (a very common experience here) and, next to homemade cakes, pastries, and a little portable oven, drove about an hour east of the city and found ourselves in the village of Navobod, home to about 400 people.
The house where the wedding was to take place was packed with relatives and all their children, and the trend seemed to be that the ten year olds played games and carried around their baby cousins while their mothers prepared food and their fathers chatted and ate it. It was a traditional house, meaning that there were doors to specific indoor rooms, but a central space which was outside. The first day mostly consisted of preparations, and on the first night, everyone who had been involved in preparations gathered together for a meal.
There was a woman's room and a men’s room, and both rooms were set up with cushions lining the walls where people would sit, and the center of the room with a blanket spread over it and an endless amount of food on top of the blanket, which we all enjoyed. There was a 60 year old woman named Matlyuba with a penciled on unibrow who sort of took us under her wing that night and explained all the traditions to us. In traditional Persian culture, unibrows are considered to be extremely beautiful (there’s even a special name for them: abru-kamun or eyebrow like a bow), which is why in many parts of rural Tajikistan women to this day will pencil in unibrows. For me, this was a major reminder of the relativity of beauty standards.
The preparations continued late into the night, and in true Tajik style (again) one of the neighbors of the wedding house offered for us to stay the night with her, since the house where the wedding was was pretty overcrowded. So we went with her and her daughter Niloofar, who was our age, and had nice conversations about marriages in the US versus Tajikistan during which we all struggled a bit to understand her accent, which was significantly different than what we are used to in Dushanbe.
The next day we woke up early and went back to the wedding house, where tables had been set up in the outside courtyard area and people from all around the village were coming in and out to get their fill of the national food of Tajikistan, Osh. A few years ago, it became illegal to have more than 150 people gathered together, and cops come around to check this, so that’s why people were coming and going, rather than everyone staying the whole time. Anyways, the Osh which consists of rice, beef, carrots and chickpeas, is cooked outside over a fire in the most massive pot I’ve ever seen in my life. Although most cooking is considered to be a woman’s job here, for some reason Osh is a men’s thing. All the men were gathered around the massive pot, cutting pieces of meat to thrown in, talking about manly things (presumably), and eagerly telling us to come and take pictures.
Finally, around noon, the osh party was broken up to the piercing sound of trumpets and drums. I looked to Matlyuba for an explanation and she told me “they’re going to bring the bride.”
Sure enough, the groom and a group of his friends and brothers in suits gathered around and piled into a shiny new Mercedes-Benz which somehow had made its way into this village (sometimes I feel like Central Asia is straight out of a Gabriel Garcia-Márquez novel) while everyone else cheered and danced. They drove away to the bride’s house across the river while we went back into the women’s room and listened to the woman singing wedding songs, playing drums and dancing.
About an hour later the trumpets and drums began again, and everyone crowded around to watch the bride, wearing an extremely intricate white dress, and the groom, in a suit, get out of the car. They walked inside to the biggest of all the food eating rooms and everyone crowded in to watch as the groom’s father welcomed everyone to the house and a cleric said a few prayers. Then the bride disappeared behind a curtain to change clothes, and reappeared about forty minutes later in an equally intricate red dress. The music started again and everyone presented her with gifts. People danced for a bit and then the bride disappeared again and reappeared wearing a blue dress. Apparently in Tajikistan multiple dresses are common, and I was told it is a way to show the bride will be well provided for.
In the blue dress, it was time for the legal portion of the wedding, so an official from the nearest government office arrived and had them both sign the legal wedding contract. After that, there were speeches and to my embarrassment they insisted on the foreigners giving a speech. The other girls from my program very quickly tossed the microphone to me, and I stood there staring at a bride and groom I had never met before that day, and about 100 others. I thanked them for their hospitality and wished them happiness, love, and (of course) many healthy children. The dancing and the eating continued until the evening, when we all piled in a car and headed back to Dushanbe.
Disclaimer: This was a very traditional wedding. It isn’t necessarily representative of every wedding in Tajikistan. Still though, I feel really privileged to have been invited and to have seen it. Interestingly, it looked a lot like the traditional Iranian weddings I have seen in historical Iranian TV shows and movies. It felt nice to be reminded of the shared history and culture between Tajikistan and Iran, which is often hard to see these days due to strained relations between the two countries and a whole lot of Russian influence over here.
That's all for now,
See you later / до втсечи / بعد تا
-Lindsay / Линдси / لینزی
About two months ago, I had the privilege of attending a traditional Tajik wedding. One of the girl’s in my program had a member of her host family getting married, and in true Tajik style, her host mom invited all the people in our program, so that we could get to experience both a Tajik tradition, and Tajik village life (the two-day wedding was in a village about an hour outside of Dushanbe). Early Saturday morning, the three of us who actually decided to go to the wedding piled into the car of someone’s relative (a very common experience here) and, next to homemade cakes, pastries, and a little portable oven, drove about an hour east of the city and found ourselves in the village of Navobod, home to about 400 people.
The house where the wedding was to take place was packed with relatives and all their children, and the trend seemed to be that the ten year olds played games and carried around their baby cousins while their mothers prepared food and their fathers chatted and ate it. It was a traditional house, meaning that there were doors to specific indoor rooms, but a central space which was outside. The first day mostly consisted of preparations, and on the first night, everyone who had been involved in preparations gathered together for a meal.
There was a woman's room and a men’s room, and both rooms were set up with cushions lining the walls where people would sit, and the center of the room with a blanket spread over it and an endless amount of food on top of the blanket, which we all enjoyed. There was a 60 year old woman named Matlyuba with a penciled on unibrow who sort of took us under her wing that night and explained all the traditions to us. In traditional Persian culture, unibrows are considered to be extremely beautiful (there’s even a special name for them: abru-kamun or eyebrow like a bow), which is why in many parts of rural Tajikistan women to this day will pencil in unibrows. For me, this was a major reminder of the relativity of beauty standards.
The preparations continued late into the night, and in true Tajik style (again) one of the neighbors of the wedding house offered for us to stay the night with her, since the house where the wedding was was pretty overcrowded. So we went with her and her daughter Niloofar, who was our age, and had nice conversations about marriages in the US versus Tajikistan during which we all struggled a bit to understand her accent, which was significantly different than what we are used to in Dushanbe.
The next day we woke up early and went back to the wedding house, where tables had been set up in the outside courtyard area and people from all around the village were coming in and out to get their fill of the national food of Tajikistan, Osh. A few years ago, it became illegal to have more than 150 people gathered together, and cops come around to check this, so that’s why people were coming and going, rather than everyone staying the whole time. Anyways, the Osh which consists of rice, beef, carrots and chickpeas, is cooked outside over a fire in the most massive pot I’ve ever seen in my life. Although most cooking is considered to be a woman’s job here, for some reason Osh is a men’s thing. All the men were gathered around the massive pot, cutting pieces of meat to thrown in, talking about manly things (presumably), and eagerly telling us to come and take pictures.
Finally, around noon, the osh party was broken up to the piercing sound of trumpets and drums. I looked to Matlyuba for an explanation and she told me “they’re going to bring the bride.”
Sure enough, the groom and a group of his friends and brothers in suits gathered around and piled into a shiny new Mercedes-Benz which somehow had made its way into this village (sometimes I feel like Central Asia is straight out of a Gabriel Garcia-Márquez novel) while everyone else cheered and danced. They drove away to the bride’s house across the river while we went back into the women’s room and listened to the woman singing wedding songs, playing drums and dancing.
About an hour later the trumpets and drums began again, and everyone crowded around to watch the bride, wearing an extremely intricate white dress, and the groom, in a suit, get out of the car. They walked inside to the biggest of all the food eating rooms and everyone crowded in to watch as the groom’s father welcomed everyone to the house and a cleric said a few prayers. Then the bride disappeared behind a curtain to change clothes, and reappeared about forty minutes later in an equally intricate red dress. The music started again and everyone presented her with gifts. People danced for a bit and then the bride disappeared again and reappeared wearing a blue dress. Apparently in Tajikistan multiple dresses are common, and I was told it is a way to show the bride will be well provided for.
In the blue dress, it was time for the legal portion of the wedding, so an official from the nearest government office arrived and had them both sign the legal wedding contract. After that, there were speeches and to my embarrassment they insisted on the foreigners giving a speech. The other girls from my program very quickly tossed the microphone to me, and I stood there staring at a bride and groom I had never met before that day, and about 100 others. I thanked them for their hospitality and wished them happiness, love, and (of course) many healthy children. The dancing and the eating continued until the evening, when we all piled in a car and headed back to Dushanbe.
Disclaimer: This was a very traditional wedding. It isn’t necessarily representative of every wedding in Tajikistan. Still though, I feel really privileged to have been invited and to have seen it. Interestingly, it looked a lot like the traditional Iranian weddings I have seen in historical Iranian TV shows and movies. It felt nice to be reminded of the shared history and culture between Tajikistan and Iran, which is often hard to see these days due to strained relations between the two countries and a whole lot of Russian influence over here.
That's all for now,
See you later / до втсечи / بعد تا
-Lindsay / Линдси / لینزی
preparations
the wedding house
the most massive pot of osh you'll ever see
bride, groom and food setup
in her red dress and drums playing
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