The Wedding: Part One. You're not gonna get to see the good pictures

One of our drivers invited Del and I to his sister's wedding dinner. We've never met his sister but this is a common thing to invite casual acquaintances or new friends to weddings events. We have an invitation to another one next month. The rule is the more the merrier. And they are merry.

The city rings with the you-you-ing of cheering women, drum-driven dance music and honking car horns of weddings. I am listening to it out the open porch door now as I type. Weddings are the major social activity of women here. Men get to eat the hand-made four-course dinner first -- in fact, after three hours I still hadn't eaten and because the men were finished and ready to leave I skipped out hungry -- but still, the men miss the really good part. While they sit around stuffed and talking about politics, the women let their hair down. Literally. The veils and robes come off and they gossip, dance and trade fashion and make up news.

Men outside the family are not even allowed to see the pictures afterward. You can take pictures, but you don't show them to men. Our interpreter brought in her wedding album to work one day to show me and we waited until the men were at lunch and locked the office door before flipping through it. So while I took dozens of great shots this night, the only ones here will be non-offending.

Specifically: 1. The groom's female relatives arrive by car at the bride's family home and glide up the stairs as if in a processional. 2. The dancing feet of one of the bride's many dark-haired cousins. 4. The bride's nephew, one of the little boys who are allowed into the female revel.