it's wedding season...

Soooo…it’s wedding season in Albania..and yes, this reminds me of one of my favorite vince Vaughn movies of all time…although, I think I’ll have to go with the darkhorse and say “Made” is my favorite…

Anyway, it just allows me to talk about cultural context a bit…something that is going to start happening every week for the rest of the summer is a procession of cars driving down the main roads honking their horns while driving about 3 mph….i have yet to see anybody ghost ride the wip, although I’m sure it would be a hit, I’m not going to introduce the idea because of the inherent danger behind it, I have seen a 3 or 4 year old sitting in the front seat on the fathers lap steering while the father controls the acceleration….but back on topic..initally I was shocked by this practice, and surprised that none of the villagers were annoyed by such an event…

But two things hit me today that helped me put things back cultural context…1^st off, somebody was bumping a wedding song this morning at about 7 pm…and by bumping I mean I think their apartment was down the street but I could still here it…the important thing here is that it’s a song about weddings/marriage and nobody in town seemed to mind…I figured if nobody would mind, I wouldn’t either, and decided that would be my alarm clock for the day…

The second occurance happened while I was getting my first real deal Albanian haircut…I believe I have the traditional American fade, with the Albanian twist of the hair in the back bottom not being cut but rather matching the top of the fade to create a semi Mohawk…I’m not sure though since I don’t have a mirror to check the back…but anyway, the traditional celebration of cars driving past, honking their horns announcing the marriage of a new couple (which reminds me..quick insert…gay marriage is legal in Albania…that’s not to say that no discrimination occurs…but hats off to Albania for getting that done and for future progress)…but what I noticed was not only the barder and the people in the shop not annoyed, but they stopped what they were doing to smile, watching the procession and wave to the newlyweds....

And that’s where cultural context comes in….in albania, from what I’ve seen..many woman, and even many men continue to live with their families until they get married…so not only is it a great day that two people decided to spend the rest of their lives together…but, you also have all these other life changing events/coming of age ceremonies happening…this in addition to how close knit the communities are (I’m a bit ashamed to admit at times during my life I didn’t even know the names of my neighbors)…it all makes sense in the context of culture…