Garangao!

On Wednesday night, our school hosted a Garangao event. For those of you not in the know about Garangao (come on, everyone, brush up on your lesser Islamic holidays!)--it falls on the 15th day of Ramadan and is a festival for children, sort of like Halloween. Only, instead of black cats and ghosts and witches, kids dress up in traditional garb and place a bag around their neck (another difference between Gar. and Halloween: I think that we were really warned against the neck/bag combo as kids) to collect fruits and nuts in.

So Students Affairs decorated the building to look like an old Arabian village--amazing rugs everywhere, lining the floor of the atrium and in most of the hallways, woven couches to sit on, and the walls were covered in brown paper and spraypainted to look like stone/brick. There were lanterns strung on the ceiling and food stands AND this entire transformation happened in about 12 hours. Over 500 people came-- families from the community, students, faculty, etc. There was a photo booth area, a dj, and...a FASHION SHOW.

Naive Lauren, eager to help, signed up to be a "volunteer dresser," unaware of the scale and stress level of this event. I was in good company though--my friend Line (who's new faculty too--in charge of Art Foundation) showed up like me-- kind of slobby, undercaffeinated and confused about the scene. It quickly became clear that this was not some slapdash, amateur fashion show, when we walked into the computer lab (our "backstage") to see racks of gowns--all sequined and bagged up and extremely glitzy, and our models (about 20 students) with full hair and makeup, getting their photos taken by a professional photographer. The designer, "Joe", was fluttering around, nervous--in various degrees of shirt-untucking, cell phone talking, and hair-gelling, giving us directions half in Arabic, about how to pin up gowns and tie sashes. Um...moi? Pin a gown? Tie a sash? Work under pressure with high-priced foreign garments? New and dangerous territory indeed.

What follows was excessive nervous laughter from me, at least one gown with a makeup stain on it, girls with their clothes flying off, hair pieces falling out, stilettos clomping, misfitting outfits, and general chaos. The theme of the show was an Arabian wedding--and I'm told these are very very fancy affairs. In my mind, the show took it to a new level--Lesley, new friend and Student Affairs maven, was dressed as the bride; an ensemble that was entirely gold and teal taffeta and lace, a towering headpiece...and, to top it off, rainbow-colored, metallic false eyelashes. She looked out of this world. And, like everyone else, more than a little like a drag queen. Here's a thought: the Qatari students explained that the fashions at weddings here usually are even fancier than those featured in the show! The mind reels at this image. They did say that brides generally don't wear metallic, rainbow eyelashes though.

Here's Joe and the girls celebrating a job well done, and me giggling in the background like lunatic. By this point in the evening, I had only had two pieces of baklava for dinner, and I was completely out of my mind:


And here's part of the show. See how many people were there? I think I'm saying sorry for stepping on a small child--they were everywhere, especially underfoot. And I'm getting better at discreet video-taking and picture-snapping (not everyone loves our American habit of memory capturing here in the Middle East). Unfortunately, I missed taping Lesley's ("the bride") grand entrance to the techno wedding waltz remix, but this is a general idea of what the atrium looked like:


Phew--long post. Things otherwise are good here, today (Saturday, which is really our Sunday--the work week begins tomorrow) has been my first real day of homesickness. I will chalk it up to a case of The Sundays, and try to focus on the fact that I'm going to see a movie called "Sharks In Venice" starring Stephen Baldwin tonight at the mall. It looks incredible, definitely distracting, but I still miss you all!