Nice Day for a French Wedding

Yesterday I went with my little French family to a party celebrating the recent marriage of two of their closest friends. The location was beautiful. It was at the couple’s home, which was tucked away in a small town in the Pyrenees. We had a reverse view from what we look at each day. From Marie and Alain’s home we see the mountains; from Christian and Mariam’s home (the newlyweds) we see the small villages in the valleys. It was a fun time, even though I, of course, couldn’t speak to anyone. I let them talk about me and answered any questions they had which were translated through Alain or my fellow WWOOFer, Lilly, who’s French is fairly decent. They mentioned how brave I was to come WWOOF in a country here I didn’t speak the language. I wanted to reply that I thought it might have been more stupidity than bravery that made me chose to do it. But I guess sometimes the line between the two can be quite thin at times.

It was really great to be in a very intimate setting with people of a somewhat different culture. But I guess it doesn’t really matter where you are in the world, a wedding celebration is basically the same for any culture. It’s something to be celebrated amongst your closest friends and family. And possibly a couple of random foreigners… But the food was great (roasted pig on an open fire pit), and the wine was great (duh). We even had a little bit of impromptu entertainment. One of the older women (there were a lot of them, after all, old women love weddings) got up and sang a little song for the couple. Even though she didn’t have the best singing voice, she wasn’t off key and everyone seemed to know the song. They all sang the chorus along with her. After her little showing, one of the old little shrinking men started talking and even though I couldn’t quite understand him, I could tell that he was trying to get one of the other older guys to get up and sing, saying he had the best voice in all of the Pyrenees! The man was a bit reluctant at first, but after being put on the spot like that he sang a song and it was beautiful! I don’t know what it was about, but I’m sure something about love was involved.

So, yet again, it was another moment here where it started off really awkward for me, but in the end it ended up being quite lovely. The wine does help a bit… But just being able to sit back and observe people is what I’ve come to really enjoy. I do that quite a lot here… I feel a bit like Jane Goodall. :-)

It was quite odd that on the same day that I went to these strangers’ wedding celebration, my little brother was, in fact, getting married to his long time girlfriend, Kayla. As much fun as I had being with a bunch of strangers of whom I cannot talk to, I’m really upset that I wasn’t able to be at Zach and Kayla’s. But your wedding gift is in the mail! I wish you two the best of luck and many years of happiness together!!!