Wow! I was up till 2 am last night editing a paper on globablization, urbanization, and national policy as it affects indigenous peoples. 6:15 am was a bit early to meet the day- especially since it doesn't get light until after 7. I managed, however, to roll out of bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull on my best clothes that I have. The hardest part was taming my hair. I met Marc and Peter in the dark under the few stars peeking through the night clouds. We trudged up the gravel hills to Timothy's house for the men's ceremonial portion of his sister's wedding. Wow! again. We were greeted by men in their finest Tibetan garb and ushered into a room laid out with the best the family had to offer: mounds of fried bread, bowls overflowing with apples and oranges, plates of sunflower seeds, peanuts, roasted nuts, and wafers, platters of meat and vegetables, bottles of coke, pepsi , red bull, sprite, coffee, beer, cigarettes and liquor. Mind you- this is before 7 am. It would have been nice if this was all decoration- but we quickly realized that we were next in line for the ceremonial three bowls of Chinese white lightning liquor. I apologize to the teetotalers in the audience- but we would have been incredibly disrespectful to decline the formality- so at just a few minutes past seven with the sun still well below the horizon, each one of us were obliged to suffer through three brimming bowls of clear liquor set about with flakes of gold. The stuff was tragic- horrible tasting brew that luckily had the immediate effect of a few shots of Novocain to the mouth- mercifully relieving the imbiber of any further sensation related to the taste of the liquid. Thankfully we weren't required any dextrous demonstrations and had only to sit, smile, and eat! Had we not helped ourselves to the mountains of food before us- our hosts surely would have brought the dishes to our mouths- such was their hospitality. We made it through an hour or so of feasting- aided in our awareness by copious cups of tea, red bull and cola. Finally we managed to free ourselves of the insistent graciousness of our hosts, tucked some cash gifts under a bowl on the mantle and floated home for the further ambulatory reinforcement of a very strong pot of coffee. Soon after stepping stepping safely back into our own sober home, the heavens opened up with a beautiful dumping of sleet and morning didn't actually break through till almost 9:30.An interesting note on Tibetan wedding custom: The parents of the bride and the parents of the groom are not present at the celebrations (at least not the ones to which I was party). Their time is past, and instead an uncle of the bride and an uncle of the groom and the siblings take care of the ceremonies and formalities. It is truly the day of the bride and groom. They also practice the tradition of the groom not seeing the bride until the ceremony.
Well, I guess I'm going to change out of my wedding finery and back into my overalls and get to work.
