The wedding at Gafsa

Tag : twisting satin

Modern Gafsa in central-southern Tunisia doesn't get many tourists.Its role as the centre of a profitable phosphate industry prettywell put an end to such aspirations, but its ancient Roman thermalpools, a 13th-century kasbah and a beautiful if small medina havetheir own appeal.
But I am not in Gafsa for sightseeing. I am here for thetraditional Muslim wedding festivities of my friend Lamjed Zahrouniand his love of almost 10 years, Imen Belhassan.
Lamjed and I met in 2004 when I joined one of his guided tours. Aswe walked through the exquisite blue and white village of Sidi BouSaid eating beignets, Lamjed told me a story about love andseparation, of patience and hope. He was engaged to Imen, who wasstudying in the US. They would marry when she finished her mastersdegree and he finished their house in his home town of Hammamet, onthe coast a couple of hours by road south of Tunis.
A few years later I was in Tunisia again, back on the bus withLamjed. The house was done, the wedding planned; Imen would be homefor Ramadan and they would be married immediately and privately atImen's home after the period of fasting ended. Then the publicwedding celebration would begin and run for a week at two sites,starting in Gafsa with four nights of parties. The celebrationswould relocate to Hammamet for the final day and night a weeklater.
As we sat on the stones of El Jem, the wonderful 3rd-centuryamphitheatre (if you've seen Gladiator, you'll know it), Lamjedasked me to the wedding. So here I am, rattling into Gafsa after aday on the road from Tunis, arriving at Imen's family home about9pm. Behind a high fence, the Belhassan house is lit up like afairground. A horde of relatives, friends and neighbours -- allfemale, except for some tiny, much-kissed boys -- are keeping thebride company. It is time for a huge, couscous dinner.
Imen, dressed in traditional bridal red, can't stand up to receiveher new guests or even give us a hug as her hands and feet havebeen tattooed with henna, wrapped in cotton wool and covered withsequinned, white satin gloves and bootees. This process is seriousas, according to local belief, the stronger the colour takes, themore fertile she will be.
Since her wrappings can't be removed and the tattoos checked untilnearly midnight, Imen has to be entertained until then. One of thewomen picks up a drum and begins a plaintive song as the localguests join in. Some of the little girls, their four-year-oldbodies already sinuous, start to dance. High-pitched ululationsbegin, too, and will break out regularly during the next six days.
Dozens of guests are staying at the Belhassan family home. Earlier,Imen explained via email: "It honours us and is actually partof our tradition to host the wedding guests. We prepare the biggestroom in the house to be the dormitory for the bride and her femaleguests."
I am welcomed like a member of the family, except I am spared thedorm, sharing the bedroom of Ansem, the bride's sister, and Zaynab,her paternal aunt. I am told that to show the bride she is lovedand will be missed, her family and friends share even the sleepingmoments with her. "I guess our culture is a noisy, sharingone, as you will discover for yourself," Imen says.
Had I known there would be one bathroom for all those women, Imight have declined. But that would have been a mistake. Instead, Ilearn to set my alarm for 4.15am and pick my way across sleepingforms to beat devout Muslim grannies to the bathroom before theyembark on their ritual washes for first prayers.
The morning after I arrive, hastily showered and dressed, I ventureinto the kitchen where a traditional breakfast, includingindustrial-strength Turkish coffee, is being served. A slew ofseven aunts are crammed into the room, stuffing minced meat andherbs into the entrails of a sheep. The same sheep's head and feetare in a bucket by the door, its bloodied fleece at the bottom ofthe back steps. One of Imen's grandmothers sets up her brazier onthe marble-tiled floor of the adjacent sitting room and busiesherself making tea. The other grandma sits by, ready to stoptoddlers getting charred on the coals.
Ranged around the walls, heaped under blankets on foam mattresses,are the just-waking immediate cousins, distant cousins, cousins whoneed a family tree to establish their connections and assortedvisitors, from age eight months to 80-plus.
They have all descended for the dancing, singing, partying,laughing, fighting, flirting, gossiping, dressing up, eating up andcleaning up that combine to make a decent wedding in these parts.
A bemused father, smiling uncle or son alert to the beauty of someof the young women gathered in the house occasionally scuttlesspeedily through as though prolonged exposure to so much rampantoestrogen and ululation may be damaging to his mental health.
The days are fraught times for everyone, not made easier by thebride's mother twisting her ankle. There is tension between the twofamilies (the bridegroom's sisters allegedly accuse the Gafsa lotof believing in black magic), Lamjed's mother is threatening not toattend and the henna artist eventually goes feral. During it all,Imen is not only henna-tattooed but waxed, indulged and petted. Shehas the evil eye cast out of her by Zaynab (with the aid of theKoran, some pins, a scarf and faith) and directs operations withthe skill of a field marshal.
The nights are even busier. One evening a band comes in to play andthe aunties amuse themselves by trussing their overseas visitorsinto local dress -- costumes tied to the body over matching shirtsand knickerbockers and hung with yards of solid gold jewellery --then making us dance, reducing our audience to hysterics.
Nerves are stretched tight by the final night when the bridegroomand his family finally arrive from Hammamet, complete withgrim-faced mother. It is starting to feel like the movie Dimboola,Maghreb-style.
At the reception hall, hundreds have turned out for Imen andLamjed's big moment. The women of the bride's family enter dressedin traditional costumes, draped in gold, looking like queens. Imen,perched next to Lamjed on a silvery sofa, is dressed in scarlet andgold, an island of peace in the maelstrom as she holds up herhands, palms outward, in timeless imitation of Tanit, thePhoenician moon goddess believed to control fertility.
The women of Lamjed's family are dressed in traditional Hammametcostumes, which involve solid gold mail, gold anklets and whitegarments.
The bride is eventually led away by the women of her new family andstripped of her red tribal dress, then re-dressed in the white andgold of her new family.
She reappears masked behind a woven golden visor, supported by hernew sisters-in-law. Imen seems disoriented; Lamjed just looksglazed.
The party, which is migraine-inducing loud thanks to an energeticDJ, mostly involves us sitting around and watching the bridalcouple having their photos taken with everyone. We eat sweetpastries; as usual, there is no alcohol.
After the Hammamet crew leaves, Imen, Ansem and their brothersstart to dance and cry, drawing their mother and cousins into amoving circle of tears and anticipated loss.
On the morning of November 7, the party moves to the coast andLamjed's family home. His male friends gather to celebrate,beginning with breakfast prepared and served by his mother, hisaunts and his sisters. Then the groom and his party are accompaniedby musicians, ululations and all of us into the local bains maures,the Moorish steam baths.
There, Lamjed and his mother dance among the whirling wisps ofvapour while the rest of us clap and, of course, ululate. After themen return from the barber, dozens of people turn up for lunch; menare there to eat and women to help.
Currents of humanity ebb and flow through the bougainvillea-edgedcourtyard of the Zahrouni house throughout the day.
Lamjed, steam-cleaned and polished, takes me to show off the househe has built for his bride. Three-storeyed, with vertiginous stairsand a roof terrace with views over the Gulf of Hammamet, it seems afitting setting for his jewel of a wife. Later that night, Imen iswearing the last of her wedding dresses, a Western strapless whitebridal gown, her hair swept up into a crown under her veil.
At her final wedding party in Hammamet, Imen looks beautiful enoughto be marrying a king.
This is the biggest and loudest party yet. The noise is incrediblethanks to a band and a crush of more than 800 people, some of whomby now are like old friends. The grannies are here and all thedancing aunties from Gafsa. More pictures are taken; there is moresitting and watching the bride and the groom. There is a scufflewhen bouncers throw out a young man for trying to smuggle in grog.
The sisters of the bride and the groom have a running tiff throughthe night. Lamjed and Imen do their bridal waltz to the tune ofHappy Birthday. This is how to get married, Tunisian-style.
Postscript: After the party, Lamjed took Imen to the home he madefor her. They stayed in Hammamet for about six weeks, then went tothe US, where Imen is studying for her doctorate.
In four years the couple may be back in the house Lamjed built forImen.