The Weeklong Wedding Process

675 days ago
	Geez, if you could only imagine how something such as a wedding could be drawn out to be that much longer, it is sure to be done in Indonesia. Kiky's cousin just got married over this past week and it surely made the weeks activities fade away due to continuous wedding parties and such. The amazing thing is the number of weddings here as well. I think it has a little to do with the young population, but may also be that each wedding involves up to 1000 guests! That means I get invited to wedding pretty frequently. Jeff, a Canadian friend hypothesizes that it is due to the gift associated with foreigners (aka Bules). I guess he is partially right, but also I think it is just that Indonesians like to throw big parties. Anyways, I attended only three of the many meets that the wedding party held. I actually missed the reception as I had to work. I did however get to witness the "letting go of the son" ceremony firsthand. Kiky's uncle thought it would be cool for me to sit in the front row for the first hour or so of the ceremony and listen to some prayers and watch the whole process. It was interesting, but I feel that it is a bit much. I realize how important a marriage is and all and do agree that there should be some ceremony attached to it. This thing went on forever though, and I think that really the only ones who benefitted from it were the rats and other vermin seeing as there must have been a hell of a lot of food that was wasted. After all the fussing and meeting people whom I could never recall their names if I met them on the street, the end result was a bit depressing. Seeing as Kiky and I are living together and are generally together many people questioned her "status" with me. This led to a little hateful gossip which has made Kiky since then a bit sad. I guess these things will pass with time. However, I do realize now what interacial couples must go through. Although I am respected and generally revered here due to my skin colour and build, people are not so welcoming when it comes to intimately involving their family. Kiky's immediate family has been nothing but cordial to this point, however I am sure this mood does not extend to all of her vast family. Moving to Jakarta will surely be a breather in terms of this... getting away from the gossip and curiousity which is spawned by our relationship.