The story of our travels, part 2

I was thinking I would tell you about the wedding today, but there is really so much I have to tell you about first. So, depending on how this goes we might make it to the wedding, but we probably won't. I am just helping you all learn how to be patient :-)

Once we arrived in Morocco and got settled we started talking about what all is involved in a Moroccan wedding. Daniel and Elena both wanted to include Moroccan traditions as well as including some of our traditions. So we needed to know what that meant. I've talked about weddings in Morocco before, So you may know a little about what they include, but let me fill you in as much as I can. The wedding actually lasts quite a while. Ours was a full 3 days. The first day they set up a tent, get things ready, kill the animals that we'll be eating for the feast and then eat the guts that night. Sound gross? It is, but they love it. A major part of a Moroccan wedding is the food. We had a cow, two sheep and a bunch of chickens for our feasts. We ate the evening of the first night - the guts like I already mentioned, then lunch and dinner of the second day, and then again lunch and dinner of the third day. So much food, and oh so good!

The second day they do henna for the women in the morning and then a henna party for the groom in the evening. Usually that evening there would be a dinner at the Brides home where all of the grooms friends would come, but not the groom. In our case we did it all at the same house including the Bride and the Groom since we were all staying there. The third and final night the groom comes and picks up the bride at her home and they drive around the city honking cars (I was told that they only do this in the country, not in the cities in Morocco - its kinda a "redneck" thing :-)) The Bride and the Groom then arrive and spend most of the evening sitting on large chairs getting pictures taken with people and watching all of their friends dance and eat. The bride will change her dress as many times as she likes depending on the money she has and the number of dresses she has to change into. These aren't just any dresses either, they are elaborate fancy things.

So we had to figure out all of these details. We went to see a woman who we dubbed "the wedding planner" she was great. She has a shop where you go and rent everything you need for a wedding - a tent, dresses, chairs, even hand washing things. So we spent time with her talking about what was needed and what we'd like. We spent one day actually picking out dresses. Elena settled on 4 fancy, traditional Moroccan dresses and one more traditional wedding dress. Each of us girls were given the opportunity to rent a dress for the main wedding too.

Like I said yesterday we were able to visit with friends and do a little work too. Joey and the guys headed out Monday - Wednesday morning helping with various building projects. They had a blast getting to spend time with the Moroccans.

Well, I think I'll wait to tell you about the wedding tomorrow. For now here are more pictures to help tell the story. It is so much fun looking back over these pictures and remembering our two weeks there. It was really too short, but full of lots of great memories!

A typical morning in Willie & Gretchen's apartment. Believe it or not, we're not all there!

Josiah and Thomas had way too much fun together on this trip. Here they are pushing stools around, and loving it. Only in Morocco!

Having more fun climbing on stuff.

Josiah has started to do this thing were if you're sitting he wants to come and sit by you like a big boy. Here he is sitting with Gramps.

Listening to music. He loves it!

Benson and I hanging out.

Another big part of a Moroccan wedding is dancing. They love to dance and I think ever night we were there they were dancing a little bit. They usually tie a scarf around their buns to help them jiggle more. Here James is getting a scarf so he can "break it down" with the best of them.

Daniel & Brent helping a guy "mow" his lawn.

The tent getting set up on the first day of the wedding. We set it up on the roof of our building.

Daniel and the cow. They butcher it right there where he's standing, and we all watched. Its pretty gross, so I don't watch the whole thing. Its all part of the fun though! Maybe we should add that tradition to our weddings?!

Josiah on one of the sheep, he sure does love Moroccan sheep!