An Indian Wedding

Hello Friends, yes, I am in India.
It has gotten really good. I am really loving my stay here in India. Every since I have gotten home from Kochin (see, now I am calling Chavadi Pudur home!) I have felt more comfortable here.
When I arrived back in Coimbatore after having taken a train from Kochin, my translator, Divya, was there to greet me. I separated from my group and went with Divya. Divya's cousin was getting married the next day at six thirty in the morning and I was going to spend the night at her uncle's house. Weddings in India are usually a two day affair, The wedding I had gone to the week before was an overnighter. We came in the evening for the engagement ceremony and then went to sleep on the cement floor for a couple of hours and then got up around five to get ready for the ceremony at six-thirty, That wedding had been at a wedding hall. This wedding of her cousin's was of a much smaller budget. The bride's mother and father had died when she was fifteen and so she had no budget for the wedding expenses just what her uncle was willing to spare. Instead of sleeping at a wedding hall the family gathered at the uncle's house and went to a temple in the morning.
I arrived at the uncle's house rather late, like nine-thirty or something. Her family was extremely nice. They fed me, even though I had already eaten. I am discovering that Indians love to fed their friends. Every time I go to someone's house in the village they ask me to eat something. At first I would refuse because I was uncomfortable with eating Indian food from people's homes, I mean what if they had some unsanitary way of cooking their food. Then I got honest with myself, the places I go to eat along the street cannot be better than these homes. The other night I was eating at one of the regular stalls when i saw, out of the corner of my eye, four rats jumping from the cabinet into a hole that lead to the kitchen. After I got over the sanitation and faced the facts, I was uncomfortable accepting food because I felt bad. I felt I was burdening them and their pocket book. Even though I refused they would insist until I had no choice but to accept. I have since started to ask families why they insist on feeding me. Now I have just accepted it. I am starting to understand Indian families. I think. Anyway the family feed me, it was great.
I met the bride. She was 26 years old. She had only met the groom once, one month ago when they were arranging the marriage. This was a true arranged marriage. It is not so surprising when you have been here awhile. Our definitions and expectations of marriage are different. Although, I am still trying to sort out the differences. And I am still trying to process these differences.
Later in the evening all the woman in the house put bangles on the bride's wrist after accepting the blessing of god. We went to bed around twelve am. There were about fifteen people sleeping in the small three room house. I don't mean three bedroom, I mean three room, kitchen, living room and bedroom. Everyone slept on the floor except they made me sleep on the steel cot. Little did they know that I sleep on a cement floor ever7 night. Within an hour of sleeping everybody was up. There was a wedding to get ready for and everyone needed to take a shower. I laid there for about an hour, feeling slightly uncomfortable because this wasn't my house and I had to figure out what to do with myself for the next four hours. After an hour I went in the front room and watched as they made th bride look like a true Indian bride. Eventually, around four am, the uncle informed me that it was my turn to take a shower. I go into the bathroom and find the water in the bucket had been boiled. I hadn't taken a hot shower in a month and a half. It was the most glorious bucket shower I have ever taken. Just glorious. After the shower, I was wrapped in my sari. With jasmine in my hair and a bindi on my forehead I looked like a real Indian. Or a least that is what people told me.
We got on a privately rented bus that took the whole family to a temple. There at the temple we waited for the groom to show up and more family showed up. Finally, the groom showed up. The groom and bride stood together as a priest gave them things to hold and take blessings from the god. The uncle of the bride put a toe ring on the grooms foot which is the symbol of marriage in tamil nadu. And the groom's mother place the toe ring on the bride's foot. The priest then blesses this gold string, which also indicates a woman is married. The groom places it around his bride's neck. When this happens all those attending throw rice on the couple. Mazaltof.
The pictures featured a from the wedding before. or the pictures that I will post