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Rites of Passage

What did you do this weekend? In Bosnia, there are very specific things which are done on the weekends. Saturdays are for weddings and Sundays are for cleaning rugs - and hanging them over the balconies to dry or air out. Of course, that's only if your apartment complex allows this sort of behavior (the rug hangings, not the weddings!)... Today was Saturday, so today was a wedding day. Meliha Hadzihasanovic (say THAT three times fast), one of the Tuzla office's finest lending associates, married her fiancé Mirze today.

In all cultures, old like this one, or young, like our own, there are rites of passage and rituals involved in the most important days of human life: births, puberty (in some), marriage, and death. While births are joyful, and deaths are mournful, the union of two human beings for the biological purpose of continuing the species, and the social purpose of strengthening the community, is the only ritual that actively involves others. In Bosnia, where traditions run deep (as it is in the "old world"), today was a wonderful experience for the Americans who were honored to have been asked to be there....

The women in the Tuzla office asked me some days ago why the Americans they knew got engaged and then waited for, at times, more than a year to actually get married. This made no sense to them. Almira queried, "..but if you know you want to be married why do you have to sit around and wait to get on with your lives." Sensible, these women. So I explained that a year was frequently necessary because Americans had built a culture of fanfare and consumerism, and that weddings were a huge industry, employing millions. There had to be gilded invitations (addressed in calligraphy), caterers, flowers, dresses, bridesmaids dresses, booking the halls, churches, temples, restaurants, golf courses, cruises, honeymoon packages, etc. People spent months deciding menus, and seating arrangements (because everyone had family members who simply "could not be seated at the same table at the reception, God forbid..."), not to mention the hotel for the out-of-town guests, transportation for everyone involved, gifts for the wedding party, oh, and let's not forget the rehearsal dinner, after the wedding rehearsal....

It was then that I stopped because they wouldn't have been able to hear me over the gales of laughter. REHEARSALS? You rehearse?!! That was it. If they had needed any further proof that Americans were nuts, that was it. Hmmmm, sounded like I needed to find out what to expect at the attendance of my first Bosnian wedding. I turned the tables and asked them to tell me what it was all like here, and today it came together just as they described....

The day began for Meliha with a breakfast (her "last" at her mother's house), and probably a few visits from friends, and family members. At around noon, she had her chestnut locks swept up in a bun at the hairdressers (who left a few strategic strands around her ears to be curled), and then she put on a simple but beautiful gown, and waited. At about two o'clock, Mirze and a couple of his closest friends came by the house to "purchase" her. Oh my, it would seem that the Ottomans haven't completely left the Balkans. Apparently the men come knocking and say they heard there was a girl of marrying age there. They will run through the flat and bring out a woman (not the bride) and the groom will say, "no, no, that's not the one I want, I want the best one in the house." They will go back and get, in this case, Meliha, and he will pay her mother (these days, a token deutsch mark or the like), take her, and they will drive off for a 2:45 wedding in the center of town.

While this is happening, all of the couple's friends and siblings will gather in front of the town hall. I am told that there are very few mosque or church weddings, and almost all of the Bosnians I asked had never been to a wedding other than at the justice of the peace. The parents of the bride and groom, as well as the older generations, do not attend either the wedding, or the reception/meal afterwards. They stay at home and host family parties in honor of the wedding.

While the chattel is being "purchased", we are found shivering in the gray flurries, outside the town hall, watching the 2:30 wedding party leave, and drive off in their caravan of flower covered cars, honking up a storm with the emergency lights flashing. At 2:40, OUR wedding party arrives, also in flower covered cars, honking as they come piling into the town hall lot. All 30 of us hurry through the double doors which open into a long little room (15'x30'). At the front end of this room a large Bosnian flag almost covers the back wall. Two women sit at a little table facing the rest of the room. There is a long couch in front of the women which faces them. There is little else in the entire room. The guests all stand behind the couch, and the engaged couple make their way through the crowd and sit on the couch (best man and maid of honor on either side - she by the groom, he by the bride!). The women behind the table begin to speak. The guests, all crushed up behind that couch, lean forward so they can see, and hush their chattering so they can hear. Since my Bosnian is not at a level where I might understand something as complicated as, "here, sign this paper and you're married", I have to guess that what actually followed was ten minutes of a lecture on the virtues of marriage, a few questions ("Do you, Mirze, take this woman...."), brief document signing, and a couple of lovely kisses. There was a videographer, and a few cameras, but this marriage was like a one stoplight town - blink and you've missed it.

Immediately following the ceremony, a brief and rather unorganized congratulatory wedding "line" formed during which the guests all took a turn to kiss and congratulate the newlyweds. Then everyone hurried back outside (gotta get out before the next wedding at 3pm!), the couple stepped out, and the bouquet was tossed. The woman who caught it had to fight it out of the hands of a scuzzy gypsy girl (one of a pack hovering outside the townhall to scrounge for the candy or coins tossed at the exiting couples (instead of rice) as they left the hall.). Unfortunately, nothing was thrown for our friends since the candy and coins that had been brought for this wedding were being carried by a woman who was accosted by the gypsy kids upon entering the church. They grabbed at the bag and broke it, and the contents barely hit the pavement before it disappeared.

We all piled into the cars, and the great wedding procession began. We were 18 vehicles in a convey, crawling slowly through the drizzle and fog, emergency lights flashing, and the horns blaring, oh my, those horns... it was all very exciting. Tomo, the driver of "our" car, explained that the wedding procession typically covers two objectives, to drive by the house of the bride's family, and to circumnavigate Tuzla (so the world would be informed). As we drove by Meliha's mother's house, all of her guests piled out on the balcony to wave and acknowledge that indeed her little girl was married.

While we finish our procession around town and then take our seats at the tables in the restaurant, the married couple visits the groom's family, shares a coffee and some good wishes, and then come back out to join their friends. The meal is all cold, cold meats, cheeses, and salads to start, cold bread with the cold lamb and baked meat and cheese filled phyllo rolls. One of the more interesting meals I've had in a long time - not too often you get to surreptitiously scrape the cold white coagulated fat off the meat you are about to ingest, yum-my. Standard beverage selection: pepsi, mineral water, beer, white wine, and brandy. Tomo managed to finagle a bottle of red wine, bless his heart.

The meal was accompanied, with very few breaks, by four hardworking musicians; a guitar, a mandolin, a bass fiddle, and an accordion. The music seemed very Mediterranean, probably as a result of the whine of the accordion, and by quizzing Almira, who sat next to me, I discovered that these were all traditional folksongs. They were clearly familiar tunes and although the men sang them with much more gusto, the women obviously knew all the words as well. The one thing that did strike me was that every one of these songs was the tale of just an awful tragedy: the poor old bachelor who tells us, "she left me at the altar", the playboy who sings, "I ran away with another woman", the soldier on the line who tells his family and his love that he will never see them again, the young lovers who are dying because their enemies poison them, the young woman who is dying and asks for a quince, her lover goes to Istanbul to find her one, she dies while he's gone. Every single one of these was not just your run-of-the-mill tear-jerker, no these were horrible tragedies. Just the thing to be sung for the happiest (?) day of your young life.

At one point the bride and groom opened the few gifts that had been brought, and at another point two of the women friends circulated with a tray. The tray was covered with paper and wire boutonnieres that were to be "bought". Actually, they were pinned on everyone, men and women alike, and the amount of the "donation" was at each person's discretion. There was some dancing, and this occurred at whim, and usually in strings, snaking around the little restaurant tables so we all could watch. I could imagine what this might have been had the guest list numbered more like 60 instead of 30, but I was suddenly thankful at 7 o'clock that it wasn't loud and rowdy because the more tranquil setting was easier to leave gracefully.

Meliha and Mirze will spend their first night together as a married couple in their own (new) apartment. She has already mentioned that she may have to take some time off in a year or so, you know, when they begin to have children. Ah, life. The great wheels turn, and weddings are still joyous, and brides are still the most beautiful women in the room. I hope it was the happiest day in her life, and everything she hoped it would be - I'd be willing to bet it was. And wasn't it so generous of her to ask us to share it with her? (Do you think she missed the "rehearsal"?)

Copyright © 1997 – Rachel Peterson

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