Spending so much of my break transcribing and reading about Chinar, I felt it was time to take another trip in the Wayback Machine. These two, while not the best done, are two of my favorite pictures from Chinar. They were taken at a distant cousin's wedding. A real rural wedding ceremony, which is hard to catch these days. It came in August, toward the end of my stay, and about three hundred people attended the event. Surprisingly, I knew a good amount of them by then and spent much of the day greeting the distant relatives. I hate doing it, but by August, I got really good at addressing people, saying hi and looking like I'm pleased to see them. I even got to explain to the poor bride who some of the random relatives were. It's really a shame that she couldn't recognize her husband's grandfather's cousin's or her husband's great uncle's grandchildren. Here, above, a few of the guys are hanging out outside, under the shades, away from the heat and noise of the crowded reception. It was a rare chance for these men, who are from different generations and families, who don't normally get to see each other, to talk about the weather, the price of watermelons, and how everyone's kids and grandkids are doing. While they shot the breeze outside, most of my cousins were huddled in another aunt's house right next door, playing cards and mah jongg. (Spellcheck won't help me spell mah jongg, so it'll just have to be this way.) Below, the bride is taking a brief moment to rest before facing the crowds outside. She changed into a red dress for the reception, while her room is in gaudy shades of red and pink for the wedding, since red is the traditional colour of prosperity.
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