Saturday, November 12, 2011

I do! And so does everybody else.

This past month, everybody and their dogs got married. It was crazy. The Mongolians ask the Dalai Lama when they should get married and apparently every day in October was a good day. 2 full days couldn't pass without someone in the school getting married.

Mongolian weddings are quite different from American weddings. First of all, the bride and groom literally wait on everybody hand and foot. The "reception" takes place in the house in which the two will start their life together. The party usually happens something like this:
  1. Eat.
  2. Drink Tea.
  3. Eat again.
  4. Drink arag (fermented mare's milk)
  5. Toast the bride and groom with a shot of vodka.
  6. Vodka Toast. And Repeat.
  7. Drunk male relative arrives.
  8. Drunk male relative insists you take 3 shots of vodka in rapid succession and refuses to take the cup back until it's empty.
  9. Eat again.
  10. Present the couple with gifts (vodka, chocolate, and a song), vodka toast when finished.
  11. Drunk male relative divvies out more vodka.
  12. Sing a song, vodka.
  13. Repeat #12 seven more times.
  14. Time to leave! Drunk male relative guards the door until you take your goodbye shot of vodka.
  15. Stumble home. Realize it's only 5 in the evening and you are very very drunk.
Here are pics from my two favorite weddings this month: Anhaa and Zorigoo! This is my beautiful counterpart and her new hubby (she's 6 months prego in this pic... and pretty much ready to pop at this point. She's on maternity leave now and is expecting next month!)

Oh, also these are Kate's pictures, hence the professional-esque quality.

Drunk Male Relative.

This is the gym teacher. This is his daughter's wedding. It was so much fun. Anhaa wanted to lesson plan with me afterwards and that was all fine and dandy for her (she wasn't drinking on account of the baby), but I was basically useless by the time we left.

This song is called "Welcome to my Ger" and it was just the first of 20 songs sung that afternoon.

1 comment:

  1. woohoo,repeating 7 more times #12,well i guess u were in a one big heck wedding,usually we dont drink like that, in rurals they drink lot of Airag(not an arag) and distilled vodka.DV is like korean Soju.

    ReplyDelete