Wedding Preparation & A Widows Event
Day 5 - October 16, 2021
Today I went and had breakfast with my host and his father. Then I came back to the house to speak with Auntie and drink some tea. There will be no losing wait during this season. I have been overly fed. I live in a permanent state of full which is not something I’m used to and to be honest it is a little uncomfortable. I will have to find a way to set some boundaries for myself so I don’t continue to feel this way.
Next in the agenda for the day was shopping with my November bride Rachel for her jewelry. It is a family affair and Rachel is patiently trying on every suggestion from her shopping party. I am learning that Auntie has a very strong personality, the best intentions, and a natural ability to step into a leading role among family and friends. I am also learning that Indian weddings operate on a massive budget and time frame.
In the US, the weddings I have photographed involved an engagement session and a wedding day. This wedding has at least five events that are full blown parties with hundreds of people involved. The necklaces for one event alone are several thousands of dollars. Then there are the venues (plural), housing family and friends from all over, feeding everyone for each party, the formal wear for the bride and groom and the family for multiple events, and the list goes on and on. I’m realizing that part of the reason people in this culture only marry once and stay married for life is because the whole family invests in your future together financially and emotionally so you have to make this work. This wedding process takes the family their whole lives to save for and it is a big deal.
The reason that the family buys gold jewelry for the new couple is so that if financial struggles happen in their marriage they have something to leverage at the bank for a loan to get back on their feet. The bank actually holds the jewelry and will give a loan to the couple. When they couple pays back their loan they also receive their wedding jewelry back. Not only does this process give the couple incentive to pay back their loan on time but it also gives them the ability to repeat the process if their difficulties repeat over the years of their marriage.
Another thing I have realized is you can tell a person’s financial status by how much they weigh. To be blunt, the thin people are in poverty and the fat people are wealthy. No joke. Why, you ask? Because the wealthy people can afford food. Simple as that.
Wow! All of this before lunch. Haha!
After lunch I was able to attend and photograph a Widows Event. All of the widows came, sat down on the floor together, and we started the event with some singing. After a few songs the event host spoke and shared some pictures I had taken for her family. It was so sweet to see her pride for her family and the widows cheering her on. They asked me to introduce myself, so I did and then I was able to serve them all tea and cookies. The host then spoke for a while to encourage and challenge the widows as they prepared for the coming weeks. At the end of the event we gave each widow a gift to help them financially.
Let me pause here and explain a few things. First of all, the term "widow" means a woman who has lost her husband AND has no one to provide for her. Widows are, to no fault of their own, viewed as bad luck. That means that not only are they alone in life but they are also no longer welcome in their own community. Most of these women have deep scars from abuse they have suffered. One woman spoke of how her son beat her after her husband's death and showed me the welts across her back and sides. Another woman was missing an eye, another had severe scaring across her back, and another was completely blind. Second, what we gave them to help financially for the month was $3 dollars each. Let me repeat that... they live off of $3 dollars for the MONTH. I became so overwhelmed at one point that I started sobbing and the event host paused to make sure I was okay. My life is literally perfect compared to what these women live day in and day out but they checked to make sure I was okay. These women were singing, They were speaking blessings over each other. They were celebrating family. They were caring for me. It was incredible.
To end this entry I have some levity to share, because life is a roller coaster and today was exactly that.
Update on the wedding shopping... There are five full wedding events that each need their own gown so this evening we went shopping for five separate wedding gowns. Oh my gosh. There are endless options: colors, styles, patterns, textures, etc. We were there for an hour and hadn't settled on anything. If you know me, you know that I love a good thrifting moment and I will spend hours rummaging through bins and making deals with the cashiers but good ole fashion try-on-everything-in-the-store shopping is not my thing. Also, I still have a bit of jet lag and the Widows Event shook me, so although the process was interesting and everything was so beautiful, I was tapped out in about an hour. Thankfully my host somehow got the vibe that I needed rescuing because he arrived moments after my brain made the decision to be over the situation. Not only that, but he took me to eat soup and pasta so GOD BLESS HIM because that was exactly what I needed in that moment.
Today was long and I realized that when I called my man before bed and answered his question about what I had for dinner by saying,
Me: "Chicken...and cotton swabs..."
*silence*
Me: "What did I just say?"
Him: 😂😂😂
So yeah, my brain is broken and it's time for bed.
PS. I literally can't think about that conversation without almost choking on laughter. I crack myself up 😂
