What do you wear to a Nepali Wedding?

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Trip Start Apr 03, 2007 Previous
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  Kathmandu, Nepal
Monday, April 23, 2007

Don't Know? While neither did I....
So, picture this. You are a backpacker.  Your clothes are half-hazardly stuffed in your bag covered in road dust and red tikka powder (the stuf that everyone is constantly dabbing on your forehead for good luck) and the last time they were washed was crappily by you in a bucket of cold water with hand soap. All of a sudeen you are informed that you will be attending a wedding that evening and that you should wear something "nice like a dress".  It gives new meaning to the term "I have nothing to wear."
So I start digging around in my bag.  I have a black skirt, though knee length still a little short, and by some miracle, a clean black top. Put together it seemed to resemble a dress.  I even had clean black flip flops that I hadn't worn yet.  I was going to save them for Europe as the ones I wear here are so dirty.  I congratulated my own foresight, and with my hair up and a pair of nice earrings, the whole thing looked not bad at all

Class 5

.  Pragya (my prinicipal's daughter) even gave me black tikka stickers for my forehead, so all in all, I thought "not bad."
For some reason (unknown to me) the whole family did not go.  Only me, Pragya, her grand parents and her uncle.  As we walked up the alley to the main road it started to drizzle....
As the taxi pulled up to pick us up, I wondered about the logisitics.  The taxis here are called Suzuki Marutis and are the size of Nissan Micras. And there was five of us.  Somehow we all managed to squish in, four in the backseat and grandma using my right side as a seat.  As we headed off it really started to come down.  We turned down a gravel road that was loaded with potholes. The whole family kept pointing out landmarks to me but the car was bouncing around so much I couldn't see a thing.  My teeth were rattling around in my head.  I really thought that poor little car was going to break into like four pieces.  I could feel the rocks scrapping the bottom of the car underneath my feet.
45 minutes later we pull up to this huge white house.  By this time it is absolutley pouring.  I mean Canadian style.  A big lady all in bright pink (the grooms mother I would later learn) comes rushing out and drags us all up to the house.  As I walked in I reflected that in a country where everyone's favourite colour is well, any colour at all, it was somewhat strange to show up to a wedding dressed all in black

Nepali Me

.  Everyone greeted me excitedly though, and Pragya dutifully dragged me around by the hand introducing me to aunts, uncles, counsins, etc. 
The weird part was that the wedding was outside.  They had these big tents set up though not like the tents we have back home.  They were more like gigantic blankets.  They had very beautiful patterns but as you can imagine, not that water resistant.  Gigantic drops of water dripped everywhere and the ground was a sea of mud.  As we lined up for the buffet I stepped in a puddle so big it almost took my shoe off. Thankfully I wasn't the only one walking around in idiotic footwear, most of the ladies had on heels.  And alot of the young people were dressed in jeans and eminem t-shirts, making me wonder why I spent so much time pondering my ensemble....
As we sat on plastic chairs eating, the big pink lady kept laughing uproariously and hitting my face.  While not hitting exactly, more like pushing it.  She kept saying my name and laughing over and over. I couldn't figure out if she was laughing at me or what so i just smiled.  Everyone was just putting their dirty dishes on the ground and there was mud and rice and food everywhere.  A dog was nibbling at it untill a lady screamed at it and it ran away.  The service staff were walking aorund in rain coats.  Somewhere beneath the roar of the generator I could hear hindi music playing...
As I sat there soaking, freezing and smiling at the pink lady, Pragya's uncle came up to me, put his face near my ear and said "Why don't you have drink?" Dear man.  I nodded and tried not to look too eager... It was the dread whiskey and water but at this point I did not care.
It was then I learned that this was only a wedding reception, that the actual ceremony had taken place the night before

The Brats in Class 3

.  I was bummed because I wanted to see the ceremony, but the bride was still in all her gear, which was cool. And when i met her she said "hey, how's it going?".  Apparently she was from the USA.
After a brief tour of the house we were on our way, no problem with me I was really cold.  All told we were there for less then two hours.  As I headed out to the taxi, my feet covered in mud, my carefully coiffed hair plastered to my forehead, clothes sticking to my skin, I decided that next time I was not going to worry so much about what I wore.  Hey if you're gonna stick out, you're gonna stick out.
As we bounced back down the backroad from hell, Pragya told me "Oh that (pink) lady, she liked you so much.  She kept touching your face."  So what do you know.  I guess when someone hits you alot it means they like you here.
One more thing before I go, as some of you know, I have always wanted to wear a sari.  And now my wish has come true... no more wardrobe troubles.  I got it today, I absolutley despise the colour and the print, its like orange and looks like some wacky Aztec pattern.  But what can I say I did not get a choice.  It's the school uniform and all the teachers wear the same one.  If it were up to me it would have been pink and sparkly.  I still love it though, I feel cool walking around in it.  A friend once told me that white girls don't look good in saris, only dark-skinned girls do.  But I still say that I make this s**t look good.  I got lots of compliments today and just now, the guy at the internet cafe said "Excuse me miss, but you look especially awesome today." So there. I am so Nepali now.
BTW Apparently my digital camera is so old that the software is too outdated for even Nepali computers. Imagine.  At this point in time my internet guy is "working" on it.  Apparently i should have brought the cd.... but who knows about these things? Besides you should have seen the state I was in while packing...It's a miracle I even have the right cable. Any suggestions?

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