Zafaaf (Wedding Festival)

Well, followers and polytheists,

I think it may well be a sign. I walked up Muhammad Abeed al-Rez Alley tonight to the regalement of fireworks. When I entered my apartment, I went first to the terrace to see if I could get a look at them. I saw the fireworks well, coming off Qasyoun perhaps a kilometer distant and I did my best to take pictures, wondering what occasion they could possibly be commemorating. Of no particular hint, but certainly of interest were the intermittent outbursts I started to hear from the house across the alley. I would see a rocket go up and explode, and then hear a boom, followed by ululations. Then the drums started. I thought, a parade! But why on my street? I waited to see the band pass, drums and men chanting and a trumpet playing, but my neighbors where going down into the street, understanding the situation better than I did. I went down too (leaving my camembert on the terrace) and soon noticed a red Kia with flowers on it. And the band members wore baggy pants and broad gold belts with billowy shirts and little caps. They formed a path coming from my neighbor's house. They were drumming very loudly and chanting words few of which I could make out. They waited a long time, and I did too, with my neighbors. After twenty minutes or so, perhaps 10 spent in silent anticipation, listening to the ululating going on inside, the bride and groom ("'aroos" and "'arees") came out to stand in the doorway, and the music resumed. I heard a few measures of "When the Saints Go Marching In" from the trumpet (Muslims have saints too, more or less). I took a video. Doubt I'll find a way to post it, but I won't go on with the details too much. The traffic backed up and the drumming began to get louder and the as the couple walked out a few steps more, the men in the baggy pants started working their torches, spraying combustibles into the air to make them flare up. Then someone decided to light one of those big canisters that shower firecrackers in a five foot radius right next to the bass drummer and his neighboring torch bearers and they all turned their faces away from it and laughed with me. The couple advance further into the street, where cars were backing up and unwittingly heightening the sense of festival by honking on their horns repeatedly. But the band, forming another path in front of the bride and groom drowned them out. And the lead cantor stepped out and started a call and response with the trumpeter and drummers. This went on for a while, and there was sword fighting and everything we come to expect in a wedding festival. Finally the groom led the bride to the passenger side of the Kia and departed, waving one last time to the video camera, perched on a short lady's shoulder.

I call this a sign, if you can still remember through that grueling description to the beginning of my post, because today I went back to Turkish Airlines to inquire again about a flight change so that I can make it to Nathan and Melody's wedding. They said $150 this time, but that the only available flight was on the 11th of May. I shrugged at this and started to mull it over, but I think after what I saw tonight, I can't say that those two days will be in any way consequential.. to anything. When I had been told it was $600 dollars and my mother invoked her father, saying, It's only money, I felt more cautious. But now, if anyone says to me the 11th of May seems too early, there's no reason not to respond, even before having taken Introduction to Logic, which I am finally registered for, If Time is Money and It's only money, surely it follows logically that It's only time.

David