when we arrived mitha had still not come back from school. meanwhile her mother cut through the backyard to a neighbor who has a kiosk and we bought the glasses; one box from me, one from mitha, and also a bag of rice. the neighbor recommended some cookies too, but mithas mother decided it was enough, it was nice watching her pick out the present. until now i never knew what the standard gift wrapped boxes were, with a little fan shaped end to them from the wrapping paper, and each box is in a different paper and they are always in piles in the kiosks...so...it turns out they are ...glasses...and then i remembered last year when i went to a wedding there was one whole room with piles of these gift wrapped boxes 5 feet high stacked against the walls,,,i couldn't figure out what it could be....so it is glasses....okay....glasses....
anyways, she looked at each box and picked out the one that was cleanest and not crumpled, the same with the bag of rice....which one of the 2 had the prettiest knot in the hand packed plastic bag of rice. just like her house is perfect, so everything should be the best, even though they don't have any money....no connection between the two. the neighbor put it all in a plastic bag and suddenly i realized that the people that were all dressed up and walking with trays with colored doilies on their heads in front of us earlier on, were also bringing presents to the wedding.., and i wished i too had a nice tray to put it on my head and bring it like that instead of in a plastic bag, so i explained that to mithas father, and they began to look for a tray and doilie. (this is the same little voice inside of me that i will explain later, that told me about the tray)
so first her mother took the small tray and took their own bag of rice that they need for food, and poured it onto the tray to make a nice thick base, then she placed the wrapped up box of glasses on it, and then the bag of rice i had bought, and decided to go and exchange the second box for cookies, returning with the one brand of cookies that are sold in the kiosk. and on top of it all a pink doilie. all placed attentively on the little table with the white lace tablecloth that had been put into the kitchen hut but was taken out since i arrived, was wiped off, tablecloth aired out and neatly arranged and set in the middle of the courtyard.
meanwhile i had been sitting in the courtyard, watching their younger daughters playing; hanging up little empty snack wrappers on a string, and tying it between two branches, and underneath cutting little pieces of banana leaf and putting it in a pile...i wondered what the game would be...and suddenly it "clicked"! they were playing "kiosk" and the older one of the two comes on one side of the string and chooses which of the empty snack wrappers she wants to buy, and the kiosk saleswoman asks if maybe she needs some banana leaves too to make offerings today? i love it!
meanwhile mitha came back from school. as soon as she entered the courtyard she walked in the kitchen door and after a moment came back out to be with us for a moment. her father explained to me that when she was a baby he would hold her and she used to cry, it is known that if the baby cries when you hold them, that means you need to take them into the kitchen where the god brahma resides and then the baby will stop crying. so that is what he did, and for the past 13 years that is what she does whenever she comes home...she walks into the kitchen...i laughed and told them that my kids also walk straight into the kitchen when they come into the house, but it is for a different reason! they open up the fridge to see if there is anything to eat! and then they too walk out into the other rooms....she soon disappeared and washed herself and came back wrapped in a towel an
d entered their one bedroom to get dressed. her father decided to join us (since there is a respectable present to be given) and also went and washed and walked back with a towel around him and also into the bedroom and came out looking quite spiffy with a white shirt and typical balinese mens bandana on his forehead and a sarong. meanwhile mitha was still getting dressed, including putting whitening cream on her face, since the balinese believe that light colored skin is more attractive. i felt bad for her that as a developing 13 year old she does not have any privacy to get dressed and that her whole family just goes in and out of the communal bedroom, we took photos, and walked over to the neighbors.the bride and groom had their ceremony in the morning, and were now, each in their respective tent area of men on one side of the path and women on the other, the priest was there preparing for the land blessing ceremony because marriage is considered dirty so you have to bless the land in order to make the marriage clean. the man behind the priest singing the whole time is their way of guaranteeing that if god forbid something is not done properly or was forgotten in the ceremonial preparations, the singing will cleanse all of that and guarantee its validity.
mitha and i walk
ed into the tent area for the women and were seated on some plastic chairs after having handed the tray over to a woman that placed it on the floor in front of the bride who was dressed in red and gold and sitting on the porch of their unfinished house looking very hot and tired. her mother in law was sitting next to her. her own mother is not invited to the wedding...now the bride belongs to the grooms family and household and her parents are not invited to come over, but they will visit her parents in 2 days after the marriage to say hello, even though they live in the same village.once the present was given we were seated and brought a glass of sweet tea and a little basketful of goodies. one interesting one answered my riddle of what the spi
rals of palm leaf strewn on the beach are for...it is like a "push up" ice cream, but it is wrapped gooey sweet something in the palm leaf spiral, and also i ate something with banana and rice that was wrapped like a little packet in a leaf. and everyone sits...some of the women that were sitting on the edge of the porch made small talk with each other, but the only words said to the bride are when they are ready to leave, usually after 5-10 minutes at which time the bride is supposed to recognize which tray and doilie is which and when the person says congratulations and wants to leave, the doilie is lifted, the anonymous standard gift wrapped box of glasses is put in the stack of anonymous standard gift wrapped box of glasses pile, (which gets moved into the inner room of the unfinished house each time it gets too high for the porch and a new pile is then begun), the rice in the bag is put in the pile of rice in bags, and the cookies in the high pile of standard one of a kind cookies, and the layer of rice that padded it all on the tray is poured into a big basket and when that reaches the top it too is moved into the inner room.and will later be brought as an offering to the temple (and then returned home and used) the tray and doilies are returned to the guest and off they go home, having "celebrated" the wedding!meanwhile the priest and the grooms parents, brothers etc, are sitting on a mat on the ground busy with their cleansing ceremony that no one else pays attention to, and the men are in their tent eating their basket of goodies and drinking their sweet tea, and then leave. while we were there, each woman that came in balancing the tray on her head as she walked up the entrance, brought the exact same gift and went through the exact same order of actions....
as we left, i asked mithas father, what in the world a bride and groom are going to do with all the glasses?! he didn't understand the question....i said, let's just say 100 people came today and everyone brought 4 glasses in a box. that means they received 4oo glasses! he said; oh no, many many people will come tonight, now there were only a hundred. and i kept repeating: but what are they going to do with all the glasses??!! use them, he said... only now when i am writing this do i understand that all the glasses are probably used in order to give all the guests the glass of tea! and those that are not used, are later given as gifts to the next marriage, or baby ceremony, or teeth cutting ceremony, etc. that is THE gift that one brings...period. and i also remembered that last time i went to an engagement party and everyone brings a small box and puts them in a pile, and then later someone walks around with all of the small boxes and gives them out to all of the guests, and inside is the exact same snack for each guest, so i guess this is a way to save any embarrassment or additional expense for the young couple, so you just bring glasses and cookies so they can host the 100's of guests that come by for a few minutes to say congratulations.
when her father drove me home on their motorbike he started to repeat his usual routine of " if for any reason i have caused you pain, or have said or done anything that was wrong, please forgive me...." and i always cut him off and say that everything is fine and i am fine and he is good...but suddenly i understood, that this is like the man singing at the land blessing ceremony i just witnessed at the wedding...that it is very important to "cover all bases" so that god forbid no one is hurt or offended by something that you have done unknowingly...it reminded me of kol nidre prayer on yom kippur...where we too ask to be absolved from all of our promises, etc. and that his saying this to me is not out of politeness, which i thought it was until now, but out of true desire that nothing bad happen to him on account of unknowingly causing harm to someone,
glad i listened to that little voice that whispered in my ear when i walked out of my room all dressed up to go to the wedding: maybe you want to take some money with you to give for a gift for the wedding?
thank you little whisper that always takes care of everything...if i just listen to you always... amen.
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