Berber Weddings

Algerian weddings are multi-day celebrations, which vary widely depending on the village traditions and the amount of religion involved. 

In Aissa’s village, weddings are like this. The bride’s parents host a farewell afternoon meal, where many many kilos of couscous and sauce are prepared for days before. The bride’s family, friends, and neighbors all attend. Men eat outside, with a male relative acting as waiter, while females eat inside, with a female serving. After eating, women dance together indoors, Berber style. It is to this event that the bride’s guests bring gifts. Acceptable gifts are blankets, sheet sets, pillows, eggs, or money. These will form the dowry that the bride brings to the wedding. This is known as ‘henna night,’ even though no henna is involved and it isn't at night. 

A few days later is the wedding. The bride’s close friends and relatives come to bid a final goodbye, and this event again involves dancing. The bride wears a white, American-style wedding dress, often with a big skirt, a lot of glitter, and fake diamonds. Her makeup is extremely heavy, and her hair is done up ornately with fake hair, creating a giant bun. The groom comes to pick up his bride, bringing with him a convoy of vehicles that include all of his guests. There is a short time when the two families dance together, men outside and women inside, and cookies and tea and coffee are served. All this time, the bride sits alone in a bedroom, surrounded by her dowry, waiting for her groom. When the groom and guests arrive, many photos are taken of the women with the bride and the men with the groom. A friend of the groom rents a pickup truck and comes to collect the dowry items to bring to the groom's house. The bride is covered in a Berber scarf and walked out the groom’s vehicle by her brother or father. The vehicle, driven by a male friend or relative of the groom, is covered in fake flowers and ribbons to make it clear it's the wedding car. All the groom’s guests and any of the bride’s family who wants to attend follows in their own cars, everyone with flashers on, horns blasting regularly, and windows down with Berber dance music playing loudly. 

The groom’s guests typically gift him with vases, sets of pitchers and water glasses, or tea/coffee pots and cups and saucers. It would be improper for a guest of the groom to give a blanket, just as it would for a guest of the bride to give cups or glasses. Then, the bride is shown to her wedding room, where her female family members help her to prepare the room for the first night by making the bed, arranging fake flower vases, and laying down area rugs. The dowry of blankets, pillows, and sheets has been delivered by a rented truck, so she has many options to choose to decorate the bed. After this, all the guests gather together outside, either in a village square, in someone’s yard, or a wedding hall, if not hosting the wedding at the groom’s house. Men sit with men and women with women. There is usually a DJ, but there can be a live band. Families are called forward to dance together to the Berber music. Women shake their hips like Shakira, while men dance more with their arms and shoulders. There is no touching while dancing. After one song, another family is called up, and this repeats all night. All this time, the bride is sitting alone in her new room. Eventually, a cake is brought out and the bride presents herself. The new couple feeds each other a piece of cake, and then dance one song together, in the same style as everyone else dances. Then, she retires again to the room, while the groom stays and celebrates.

The next day or a few days later, there is a water-fetching celebration. The bride dresses up in a traditional white Berber dress, and wears a lot of Berber silver jewelry – at least 3 heavy necklaces, 2 large bracelet cuffs, rings, brooches, and a silver headdress. Guests again come to the groom’s house, where tea and coffee are served. The woman takes two clay pitchers and walks with all the guests to the nearest natural water source; here in the mountain, a mountain stream. She fills her pitchers, and pours water into the mouths of whoever wants to drink. Then, she walks back to her husband’s house carrying two full pitchers. Upon arrival, she ceremoniously pours the water over some uncooked couscous, thus ending the day.

Aissa’s sister married a man from a Berber village over 2 hours from here, and the tradition was markedly different. When we arrived in the village of Ibelkissene, we were greeted by dozens and dozens of men and boys. We were led down the winding streets of the village, serenaded by the live band playing traditional wedding music. Once arriving at the groom’s house, the bride and groom stopped outside the front door and the groom's mom gave them candy, water, and peanuts to throw over their heads onto the crowd of guests. The men stayed outside and returned to the main square to celebrate with the groom, while all the women went into the house, where dozens and dozens of women and girls were waiting. We were led into a main room, where his sister was seated. She then had to pose for photographs with all of her new relatives and neighbors, while we as the bride’s guests sat and were fed juice and cookies. Then, we went to help arrange the bedroom. We were fed a late evening meal of couscous, and then all of the village had to go to the main square so the couple could consummate the marriage. In the square, the band was still playing. Women we were seated on one end with men on the other. In this village, only men dance. We sat for many hours watching the men dance until the groom came to join the party. Many cheers were heard from the men celebrating the consummation. We were only then (2 am) allowed to return to the house, where the bride remained. This village still has the tradition that the first sheets be checked for blood stains. There was no cake and the bride remained in the bridal bedroom for the entirety of the night.

There must also be an official part of the wedding, where documents are signed, or a religious part in a mosque, but I was not a part of either of those ceremonies, so I don't know what happens. It was a really interesting experience and I'm looking forward to my own Berber wedding someday!

Things Learned in Algeria 2013

Since I spent 2 months in Algeria, I learned many things about how Berber people live and think.

If you shower on the first day of your period, you will become very sick or die. Aissa’s grandma and cousin’s wife (who had cancer) died because of this.

Berber olive oil is the cure for every health problem. If you have sore throat, drink one spoonful. If you have a cold, put it up your nose. If you cut yourself, pour some olive oil on the cut.

Berbers are very careful to preserve surfaces. They leave the factory plastic protective layer on tvs, cell phones, and computer screens, laptop keyboards, and car mirrors. They buy ugly slip covers for their beautiful leather furniture, cover tables with plastic tablecloths, have steering wheel covers and either cover their car seats with plastic bags or buy special seat covers so they don’t damage the original seat fabric.

  

Algerian style dictates that you don’t mix colors. For example, if you have red pants, you wear a red shirt and red or nude shoes. What this means is that my style of combining accessories and clothing using two or more colors is weird and not ok here. I was told that a teal skirt could absolutely not be worn with a grey or black shirt – it had to be white or teal, even if not exactly the same shade/hue. Also, black flats could not be worn with a sea foam green dress, so I had to buy teal sandals, even though to my eye they didn’t match.

You cannot eat spicy food if you are taking medication – the spiciness causes the medicine to be ineffective.

Colds are caused by the draft from open windows. If you have wet hair and are in a room with an open window, you will get sick. Older Berbers have a similar aversion to drafts that Austrians do. I often sat in 40 degree C weather in blazing sunlight in a car with all the windows closed, because it was ‘cold’ with them open. 

You see a doctor for every ailment, no matter how small. There aren’t over-the-counter remedies like we have – if you want any kind of medicine, you see a doctor for a few dollars, get a prescription, and go to a pharmacy for inexpensive, effective medication.

Clothes are quite expensive in Algeria, especially given that the quality is often terrible. It costs more than $20 for a dress very cheaply made in China, with uneven hems and visible serged stitches.

Berber food is made almost solely of zucchini, onions, garlic, carrots, olive oil, tomato paste, bouillon cubes, and potatoes. These are chopped in different sizes or added in different orders, but they are cooked for a minimum of 2 hours and make some sort of soup or sauce that can be eaten alone or paired with couscous, spaghetti, or some other variety of pasta. They sometimes add in other things, like various spices, herbs, eggplant, olives, lentils, or beans. The main dish is almost always accompanied with Berber peppers- hot green peppers fried or roasted, peeled, blended, and mixed with tomatoes, salt, and olive oil to make a warm salsa, served with store-bought French bread/baguette or home-made tamtunt, Berber semolina bread.

Berbers believe that they can eat in a certain way to guarantee that they will have one gender of baby.

Berbers don’t seem very concerned with germs. They usually put only 2 or 3 glasses on the table, even if 6 or 7 people are eating a meal. Those people all share those few glasses.  They don’t drink very much during a meal, eating the entire meal before having anything to drink. They drink water, soda, or very sugary bottled juice.

Berbers eat with their hands and don’t mind dripping food on the table or the floor. Algerian meals are not social occasions like in America. A family of 4 or 5 will eat in shifts, even if they have a table large enough to seat everyone. Only when guests come will they set enough for each person, and even then, food is eaten quickly, rather than enjoyed over a longer period of time with a lot of conversation.

Houses are tiled, including tile baseboards, with very few area rugs, and Berbers sweep with a broom, mop with a wet towel thrown over the end of a squeegee, or wet sweep almost every day. Wet sweeping means they pour soapy water all over the floors, scrub it with the broom, wipe it clean with a squeegee, and then repeat two times more until clean.

Trash is everywhere. No matter where you go, you will always find litter on the side of the road, on the beach, in the river, or in the forest. Even at tourist resorts, you see hundreds of empty bottles and bags of trash. People generally view littering as a normal thing, and you see people throwing bags of garbage out the windows of their cars. Berber men drink alcohol in the cars on the sides of the road, and leave behind the bottles. There are certain places where you see broken bottles many inches thick, or piles of unbroken bottles. The beer of choice seems to be Heineken.

Batteries are fake and very weak – I bought “Sony extra strength” batteries made in South Korea and they were not powerful enough to even turn on my camera.

There are no window screens and houses fill with fruit  and especially house flies, which are basically ignored and never swatted or fly papered or anything. They do have plug-in mosquito repellers, which do work in my experience, but we didn’t have one here at our house and I received more bites than I ever have in my life. The bugs that bit were invisible and silent, and the bites itched for days and days, and then scabbed and still itched, and I still see the white scab marks even though the bites were over a month ago

Berbers generally don’t use toilet paper, though it is available here. Instead, they have a hose by the toilet or a bucket of water with a scoop. Most toilets are squat toilets, but you can find sit-down toilets, many with the seat removed.

Berbers eat bread with every meal, either French bread that they buy fresh every day, or Berber bread, with yeast or without, that they make at home. Bread with soup, bread with pasta, bread with potatoes, but never ever bread with couscous. They only like the crunchy part of the French bread – they take out the soft center part and just throw it away. They believe that the center of bread will make you fat.

Seatbelts are required by law only in the front seats of cars, and Berbers prefer to only put the seatbelt on when they know they are approaching a police/military checkpoint. Otherwise, no one wears a seatbelt and I was repeatedly made fun of by Aissa’s family when I put on my seatbelt immediately after getting in the car. Back seats often don’t even have seatbelts because they’ve been hidden by the seat coverings mentioned earlier. Babies/children do not sit in car seats, and instead are held in the back by someone, or left alone if there are only front passengers. There don’t seem to be worries about safety, even though I’ve been told that Algeria has the highest number of car accidents in the whole world.

Berbers generally are good drivers, even though they drive aggressively to the American eye. Without stoplights, if you don’t learn to just go, you will never leave an intersection. In all my time here, I have seen only 2 intersections with stoplights. In one of the two cases, the light was always blinking yellow and therefore had no purpose. All other intersections are either roundabouts, where the cars entering have the right of way rather than the cars already in the roundabout, or regular 3-4-5 way intersections without stop lights or stop signs. Most roads are just two lanes and full of many tractors and semi trucks, so everyone is used to passing into oncoming traffic. I have seen a few close calls, but Berbers know how to use their lights and horns to communicate with other drivers.

Berbers believe that drinking refrigerated liquids leads to a sore throat. Children are not allowed to drink water or juice that has been in the fridge – it must be room temperature. Also, too much ice cream also leads to sore throats or tonsil problems.

Kabylia is a much freer and more liberal place than the rest of Algeria, and many other Muslim countries. Girls are free to dress how they like, with knees and shoulders often visible in summer, and are free to have boyfriends and be friends with men, depending on how conservative their fathers are. However, it is expected that after getting married, friendships with these men will cease. There are Christians in Kabylia, and many people who are Muslim only by tradition – they fast for Ramadan because everyone else does, and they believe in a god, but that is the extent of their religion. However, there are also extremely religious Berbers, with men who have the full beard of Islam and women who cover their hair or even their faces. These people seem to all live together peacefully, and may all exist within one family.

There is much more gender segregation here than I’ve ever experienced before. Men hang out with men, and women hang out with women. Men sit with men and women with women. Men eat outside with the other men, and women inside with the other women. Boys play outside in the street, while girls play inside.

Women generally stay in the house all day, unless they are employed or a student, doing housework. Men, even if unemployed or retired, leave the house early in the morning after eating breakfast, returning in the early afternoon for lunch, and then leaving again until evening. These men do nothing even remotely though of as housework – they leave their dishes on the table directly, and I have never seen a Berber man (except Aissa) do any type of cleaning. If they come home at a non-mealtime, a woman in the family will cook something for them. Girls cook for their fathers and brothers, and women cook for their husbands.

The life of a Berber woman goes like this. She wakes up at 7 or earlier to make breakfast. This means she puts the espresso machine on the stove to cook coffee, boils milk in a pot, and puts out cookies or bread with marmalade. Once everyone has eaten, she cleans up. Around 8:30 or 9:00, she begins to make lunch. While doing this, she also sweeps and mops the house. Lunch is served by 12:00. After the lunch dishes are done and the food put away, she has some time to rest. She either naps in the living room or watches TV. Around 2:00 or 3:00, it’s back to work to make tea and coffee for the afternoon snack. To make tea, she puts loose leaves in a pot and fills it with water. Once it boils, she strains out the leaves and adds 5 large spoonfuls of sugar to the tea, which is mixes in by pouring the tea back and forth 5 times from the pot to the tea pitcher. She cuts up fruit, or gets out cookies, or makes some rolls to serve. After this, she begins to make dinner while also following an evening TV show, which seems to always be a Turkish drama dubbed into Arabic. Dinner is served around the sunset prayer time, meaning that in summer, dinner is much later than in winter. After cleaning up dinner, she cuts up fruit or serves yogurt for the after-dinner meal. Then, by 10:00, it’s bedtime. Repeat every day for the rest of her life.

Girls live at home until they get married, when traditionally they went to live in their husband’s home with his family. Nowadays, it’s more common that married couples can get a house of their own together, but houses are still mostly built to imagine that eventually it will be full of multiple families. There are family compounds, where the parents have one part of the house or apartment within the house, and the sons and their wives have another. Only men can inherit, so there are also multiple generations together – sons and fathers and grandfathers together. Aging parents are taken care of by their sons.

Algeria’s rich supplies of natural gas and oil have made it able to develop very quickly after difficult times in the 1990s. Gas is 23 dinars (less than 20 cents) per liter, and this price never changes. University students receive free meals and a monthly stipend as incentive to continue their studies. People get stimulus money of $18,000 to build homes. Satellite television is free, and water is free in villages with mountain sources. People seem to be very happy with the current president Abdulaziz Bouteflika for bringing the country out of war and making smart decisions with Algeria’s oil and gas money to help his people, in addition to supporting the Berber people rather than oppressing them, like the previous president did. His ailing health has people wondering what will happen when the next person takes office.

Processing Algeria

Now that I'm back from Algeria, there is so much that I want to blog about. It was the most amazing three weeks of my life. I met my new family, learned more than I could have imagined, fell even more in love, saw incredibly beautiful places, and ate delicious food. In Algeria I was able to see my whole life in front of me - everything I want fits there so well. I haven't felt that way in the US before... so now I'm just waiting until we can move there. I don't know how to begin taking all the experiences and putting them into words here. So stay tuned for more. Here is a few teaser pics of Algeria.