Before going to the wedding I decided I should wear the thoub (Yemeni white-man-dress) I bought about a month ago but hadn't yet worn. I bought it at the souq for 1000 riyals ($6.70) which is a pretty good price. Apparently 1500 riyals is a more usual price but what I didn't notice was the two rips on the edges of the front pocket or the felt-pen-marked price of 600 riyals under the collar. But this thoub purchase has been almost the only time I've been tricked into paying too much for something in this country. Yemenis in my experience are very honest business people.
Anyhow, the night before the wedding I showed my tattered thoub to Bissam, one staff at YLC who pays quite a lot of attention to his wardrobe, to see if the thoub repairable. He thought it would be no problem and we headed straight to his tailor to get the thoub patched up and looking pretty passable. After that we took it to the clothes washing place and the next day I picked up a bright white and nicely ironed thoub that looked almost new. I felt pretty awkward wearing it, especially because I was wearing it with joggers instead of sandals, but soon I became more comfortable because the general Sana'a public looked at me more like I was normal than when I walk around in western clothes.
To be honest, before I came here I saw photos of westerners in Yemeni clothes on other travel blogs and I thought they looked pretty stupid. But now I've tried dressing like a Yemeni here I totally recommend doing it. Immediately these clothes make you more accepted by Yemenis and they're more likely to stick with Arabic when they talk to you. Also the clothes eventually make you feel more comfortable amongst Yemenis and this all helps with learning Arabic.
At about 3pm on Sunday we were given the green light by the boss to leave work early to attend the wedding. When we arrived at the venue our group, comprising Yemeni staff, friends and another student, headed to a small grocery store to buy whatever drinks of food we wanted to eat while at the wedding. The scene in wedding was very dissimilar to weddings I'm accustomed to. First of all every person there was male and there must have been about 300 men sitting in rows of reclining couches chewing their favourite green leaf. I figure that the BYO custom allows the groom's family to invite anyone they've ever met and their friends. The groom was up the front of the hall on the stage sitting on some sort of throne and wearing a hat made out of flowers and alongside him was his father, I guess a best man and men from the bride's side of the family. But the strangest part for me was that there was no continuous formal program at the wedding and I had no clear idea what would happen next. For the first 2 hours I sat around talking with people would were more conversational than usual on account of qat. But sitting around really doesn't suit me really doesn't suit me - I'd rather be learning something or playing a sport or something that keeps me from thinking I'm wasting away my life. This trait was one of the reasons I thought Yemen might not be all that enjoyable for me and unless you look for other things to do you can easily spend all day Friday sitting around with other Yemenis and students chewing, smoking and oogling at Arab music videos.
Finally after 2 brain melting hours something happened!
A man gave a speech in Arabic which I didn't understand and I couldn't see him either because of the many pillars throughout the hall. After that the groom left the hall to go to his house. At first I thought he was going to his house to consumate his union but it turns out he was going to pray with his closest friends/family. I talked to the groom's father after that, hoping to find out when I would be able to escape this ordeal politely and was told the groom would return after an hour and he would wave a sword around and dance. However this planned finale did little to dilute my overwhelming feeling of boredom and I had already made plans with friends that night. So after another 30 minutes I left as politely as I possible could, saying that I had a meeting I had to go to. Unfortunately I think this probably offended some of the teachers from YLC but I'd had enough. I don't think I will attend another wedding here - there's too many other more productive an interesting things I could be doing.