The Adventures of Trevor Corner… Wed You Believe It? (From The Northern Echo)

The Adventures of Trevor Corner… Wed You Believe It?

9:48pm Wednesday 2nd June 2010 in Cockfield

Here’s another instalment from Trevor Corner’s adventures in the United Arab Emirates; a man who would turn up for the opening of an envelope!!

The Arab culture is one of great hospitality; as I’ve experienced a number of times.

Their weddings are also very different and none of them are held in church. Normally their partners will be chosen by their parents and the weddings are separate functions for the men and women; the two sexes do not meet, as is normal on most occasions!

A wedding usually takes place in a wedding hall and fortunately, there are 2 in the street where we live - the sea front.

The normal format is for the car park, at the hall, to be carpeted and large sofas set out around a dance area (for the men) and all the ladies meet inside where they can’t be seen.

Usually weddings take place on Thurs, Fri or Saturday night; i.e. the weekend.

Well, one Friday we decided to walk to a local restaurant and met up with a Polish friend of mine on the way. As we got to the hall a wedding was in progress.

This involved all the men meeting outside on the sofas and being served tea, coffee, fruit, date dessert, (like jam) chocolates and water. While some are seated the rest stand in two lines at 90 degrees to each other and sing and dance tribal/ritual songs and everyone is in traditional dress with camel whips.

While they sing their heads move like a chicken pecking corn!

In the centre of it all, young guys dance with ceremonial swords or guns, (a sort of challenging each other) its a truly wonderful sight and one I love to watch!

Well, this night we were watching the proceedings when suddenly a guy asked us to join them and led us to a sofa where we were seated. (Note from Nigel; “See what I mean!!”) He immediately ordered refreshments, Arabic coffee, tea, chocolate everything mentioned above.

After about one hour, I went to thank the guy and he said “You have not had your dinner yet, please eat with us.”

We sat down and soon everyone was called to dinner and he did not forge about us; the only 3 Europeans.

Well, inside was amazing and we were seated at tables along with 500 male guests and my wife!

The tables were set with chicken, prawns, lamb, rice, camel meat, fruit and desserts and everyone tucks in. (unfortunately with their hands) They only eat with there right hand as the left is offensive to use, so I have to remember to sit on my left hand in case anyone hands me something and i use it! (My hand that is!) After eating, its coffee and chocolates and back outside.

Well, we wanted to understand what was happening so, we asked for a guided tour of the hall and ceremony.

At the front table there were huge carcases from which they had cut the camel meat. We asked about the ceremony, and the groom, bride and fathers go to a separate room where they are married.

We asked about the ladies and so, they took my wife to the adjoining ladies hall where there were 500 ladies and all the food, the same as we had.

This ‘ladies hall’ is where the mothers can choose wives for their sons, as all the ladies will have their Burkhas off, as no men are present.

We thanked the groom for the invite and went home after a great night out with great hospitality, at absolutely NO cost too any of us. I remember thinking, “What’s going on there then!!”

In England it takes months to organise a wedding and here you just turn up and all is sorted!!

Note from Nigel… I know the feeling Trevor but I don’t think we had any interlopers!! By the way, myself and a few hundred people are waiting for an invite to sample some of this legendary hospitality!