Last Saturday night I went to my second wedding at permanent side (giving me a grand total of 8 weddings attended since arriving in country). While in the Ahal region, men and women sit totally separately in wedding, both weddings I have been to here have had mixed tables. In addition, this most recent wedding had a female singer, wearing a short skirt (scandalous on two counts, the skirt and the gender). I drank vodka toasts with my host mother. Eating the palow (national fried rice dish), I settled into my favorite pastime of watching children at the weddings. I continue to marvel at how alike Turkmen and American children are at large parties. There is always the little girl dancing frenetically and with total arhythmia, and another girl who lifts up her skirt without shame in the middle of the dance floor, or takes off her shoes. And the little boys wearing tiny suits, looking uncomfortable and scrambling about underfoot. Little boys may be uncomfortable in their absurdly tiny suits, but that miniaturization charms me. People watching was interrupted an abrupt change in the music to a slow, longing wail. A dancer wearing a long tight velvet coat had taken the stage. She was acting out a scene in which she gracefully refused to be seduced, and the movements looked like belly dancing, despite the long modest costume. There was a silver V of long plastic silver sequence on the front of the coat. The music picked up pace and she began to shimmy, the silver tinsel on her breast plate flying. She kept this up for at least twenty minutes as men offered money and tried to allure her with their dancing. When I asked my host sister about the performance, she explained that this was Uzbek, not Turkmen dancing. As much as I gripe about “On the Road,” I wished the character of Dean could have described the dance, because the erratic, exotic thrill would have perfectly described my enjoyment of the dancer.
Eventually, a girl looking about nine year old joined her in the dance. The girl had obviously studied danced for a while, and performed with amazing confidence in a routine with the professional. Her proud mother or aunt gave her fistfuls of money to hold up as she danced. At the end of the girl’s performance, I could see a man, I don’t know who, offer her two crisp American five dollar bills, a good sum of money here. (It is not unusual for people that have jobs with private companies to be paid in American currency here. I suppose it is seen as more stable, but I wonder if that perception may change given the economic situation).
THIS IS THE END
14 years ago
