Omani Weddings and other women's stories

Last week I attended the wedding of my colleague’s sister, Halouma (I have a day job). My colleague has been fantastic in acculturating my husband and I into Omani life, always happy to answer my questions about custom and culture, and always looking for the next wedding or cultural celebration she can invite me to.
She is actually an extraordinary woman, having worked her way up from a secretarial position to team leader position without having a postgraduate qualification. This is quite remarkable as a postgraduate education is supreme currency here, regardless of whether you have any competencies or skills in that area. My colleague is part of the new generation of Omani people, entrepreneurial and willing for change in organisational systems. Unfortunately, like other young people, she is often discouraged by her managers and supervisors who are unwilling to change or accept that there might be a better way to do things (especially when the idea comes from a woman). So we are often in my office scheming of ways to make improvements whilst side stepping her boss (respectfully of course!). You know, one of the things I have ‘remembered’ here is the subtle art of manipulation. I hate to admit it because I acknowledge that these forms of power are not as direct and can sometimes seem subversive, but manipulation is something my mother taught me, and it’s the same thing that Omani mothers teach their daughters. The more I find out about Omani culture, the more it sparks memories of my Southern Sicilian culture – it’s male dominated, family focused and individualistic, and denigrating its daughters while favoring its sons (my mother STILL tells the story about my father not visiting her in hospital for 4 days because I was a girl).
Anyway, I digress. I wanted to talk about weddings. But I guess it’s all women’s stories. The wedding of Halouma was very different, for a variety of reasons, than the first that I attended. I was very excited about going and had even flown back especially from holidaying in Dubai for the occasion. I wore my ‘Hollywood dress’ – you know, the one that hangs in your closet for years until that one special occasion when you know it’s ok to be ultra glam and a little risqué. I veiled myself appropriately and headed to the reception.
When I arrived I found that there was a small group of women at the front of the room where the bride's ‘throne’ was positioned (Omani will sometimes spend $1000’s decorating the throne area with expensive flowers flown in from Europe, and silk from India). Like the first wedding I had attended, this group of women, I now realize, are the close family and friends of the bride and groom. They tend to be unveiled, without abeya or even hijab (head scarf). They take more license in their expression of the celebration whilst the rest of the guests remain in abeya or veiled. This was a surprise to me as I had been told that the women will remove their abeya and hijab when in a room with only other women. In Dubai, ALL the women arrive in their abeya which are quickly discarded to reveal a room full of ‘Hollywood dresses’. I shouldn’t have really been surprised that Omani celebrations would be more conservative, with the women passively watching the spectacle of the small group of women dancing and singing at the front. It really isn’t surprising that even though custom allows them to discard their abeya, that many women would feel too shy to do so. I have felt the gender oppressiveness of Muscat, and have myself had to fight a growing wave of passivity that sometimes threatens to drown me, when finding myself unconsciously walking a step behind my husband. But don’t worry girls – I frequently slap myself out of that one!! (To be fair on my husband, he does too!) And, of course, there was that time where I nearly lost my day job because my boss found out about my belly dancing…but I digress again!
My colleague had bemoaned that she had tried to find female musicians but that they were very expensive. I reassured her that I would bring my zills along to brighten up Halouma’s wedding. We had discussed that I should play as the bride led her procession to her throne. At Omani weddings, the guests arrive first and then only usually after the meal has been served, does the bride arrive. Halouma appeared suddenly at the rear of the reception hall and waited there like a child waiting to be lead by her mother. She looked beautiful in a white and crimson Western style dress that her sister (another one) had painstakingly designed and embroidered. She also looked very young, although having met her at the previous wedding I knew her to be in her early 20’s. My colleague’s sisters, and there are 6 of them, are in my mind a very special bunch of women. They are strong educated and opinionated. When I met my colleague’s mother I knew why. She is a mother of 10 (her youngest still a babe). She is a towering woman with the weathered lines on her face that tell a story of struggle and hardship, but also strength and resistance. Her English is very poor, and so is my Arabic, but we instantly liked each other. At Halouma’s wedding she looked resplendid in a crimson silk dress with gold trim and many gold ornaments hanging around her neck and over her ears (attached to her hijab). Her daughters were in bright colours, some had discarded their hijabs and others wore loose veils over their heads in the Arabian style. Together they looked like a magnificent kaleidoscope. I wished I had brought my camera when I saw them – but then again, my decision to not bring it was the right one. No one, apart from official photographers, takes photos as it is not the custom to photograph women, and especially when they are not covered.
Because Halouma had appeared so suddenly, I missed my queue to play zills in front of her in the procession to her throne. The women in the front were already clapping and zighareeting to the music being played by the DJ as she walked up to the throne. I got up and proceeded to the front of the room and started to play my zills as I approached. The look of bewilderment and excitement in the faces of the women at the front was truly something I won’t forget. I had expected to stay on the sidelines and play zills so I started to walk in that direction. One of Halouma’s sisters wouldn’t have it of course. She motioned to me to get up on stage in front of the bride and dance there. I congratulated Halouma on her wedding and her beauty and then proceeded to dance. I was not ‘performing’ but dancing in the way that other guests dance. I think this is where professional belly dancers need to take notice. Often I find that some of my fellow professionals are unable to just dance like a guest, they are instead always taking on the persona of the solo artist. There is a subtle distinction between the two, but the latter would not have been appropriate at this or any other Omani wedding. Even if I had been the hired entertainment, it would still not have been appropriate. My role as I danced on the stage, and the role of the belly dancer in an Arab context such as this one, is to inspire the other guests so that they will have the courage to remove repressions and join in the dance. It is not the dancer’s job to attract all the attention all the time, nor to dance in ways that will intimidate guests away from joining in the dance. Once they have joined in, I think there is room for playful performing as was the case at Halouma’s wedding.
So I danced as if I was dancing with every single person in the room. Someone came over to me and tied a scarf around my hips and encouraged me to keep going. Women would come up on stage with me from time to time and I would go into the crowd to join them. We danced gulf style and then from time to time they would put on a Lebanese or Egyptian track on and we would change our style of dance appropriately. I saw a mother chastise her daughter when she started to throw her neck around in Khaleegy style to an Egyptian track – these things are learned from a very early age. I was so impressed with the children and how they danced with abandon (within the rules, of course!) I also saw this spirit in the women but not until I started dancing more vigorously and with abandon myself.
I looked at the crowd of women and suddenly I saw them united in their dancing, women still wearing hijab, and even burka, with faces alight as they zighareeted and raised their hands to the enticing rhythms of the music. Some women carried small canes, whilst to my extreme surprise, one very elderly woman danced whilst twirling a fake rifle, spinning it expertly between her fingers, arms up in the air over the heads of other dancers. And I felt connected with this crowd. If I moved my hips more vigorously they would zighareet with excitement, and if I did something particularly skilled, like a large hip circle with a break, they would clap and zighareet again. It is a rare experience that I have been lucky enough to share.
I probably provided a source of gossip for some of the women who sat in their abeyas either too shy to dance or believing that dance is haram (forbidden). I didn’t mind as I felt like I had provided the party with some positive energy and had received lots of it in return. And my colleague gleefully informed me that many women had announced that they wanted me to come to their wedding celebrations and that I was sure to receive many invitations. Most importantly, at the end of the evening, my colleague turned to me and said with a relieved smile on her face, “I think it was a good wedding. We made lots of noise didn’t we?!”

Negotiating gender in the Gulf

Getting information about what is culturally appropriate as a western woman living in Oman can be a bit tricky. I have had some conversations with the women about the changing nature of Islam in its more liberal attitude towards women, however on the surface I dont understand how this is played out in public life. Of course I am so new here that I am, I’m sure, blind to the nuances that would give me a better insight into how the gender relations are actually being conducted. It would be the same for an Omani woman coming to Melbourne and wrongly assuming that women are treated equally to men in every respect, when we of course know that they are not. Talking to women here briefly, I am excited about learning more – the kind of equality that they speak about is the kind of equality that our feminist mothers were concerned about – freedom to speak, to vote, to act, to work, to drive a car…it’s fundamental stuff.
We went to the Muscat Festival in February and it was awesome! They had cultural dance and music from different regions of the gulf, camels, goats, donkeys, people cooking on traditional stone stoves, old women selling essences and oils. I bought some from one woman – she was great – she had this fantastic stuff that looks like bark shavings but smells divine when you burn it on charcoal – I think it’s called medhenet – and she ushered me over and grabbed my hand and then proceeded to place the smokey incense burner under my arm – I was a bit worried initially but actually she was showing me how the Omani apply under arm deodorant in its traditional form. I walked away after thanking her but then had to go back and buy some because I smelt amazing – even if I say so myself.
One thing about the festival that really fascinated me was a concert that was being held on one of the stages. Granted, the Sth East Asian plate twirlers were pretty sensational and very polished, but what was more fascinating was that the crowd was separated by gender with a steel gate. And there was a security guard patrolling the back of the audience checking that no men strayed into the women’s seating area. The segregation was reinforced for me when sitting on a ledge watching a UAE dance performance (men twirling guns and sticks). An Omani man came to sit a metre away from me and beckoned his son (about 8yrs) to sit between me and himself. The boy shyly shook his head and wouldn’t budge, until the father slid over next to me and offered him the seat on the other side. One wonders about the impact of unmitigated agency (i.e. masculinity) in such a society. Yet you don't feel any undercurrents of aggression or rumblings of testosterone waiting to explode to the surface. In fact it’s quite the contrary. Perhaps this is the role of traditional customs, like music and dance, where men huddle together close in movement and are much more open with each other than your average Australian man would dare to be.

Masaala for now
Josie