It was Fabiola, confirmed by the fact that she called out to us from the gate, which we can see from our bedroom window. Now, it was late at night and we were in our pjs, not that we don't put our pjs on before we even eat dinner, and it was raining. I threw on my raincoat and marched carefully down the stairs of our apartment, around the side of the building, and to the front gate where I was met by Fabiola and two strangers. Two strangers whose wedding we ended up attending. Her son, Vinicio and his fiance, Betty.
We were given the following--an invitation and a sugar statue, it seems to be a serving tower with a bird perched on the side. The information about the wedding was this: in December, in Ambato. Yes, we were perplexed too.
Here is the display I made on one of our kitchen shelves.
Now someone in the Erickson household, who wisely sent us with tools, foolishly told us we wouldn't need formal clothes. The most formal clothing we have are our not-so-formal church clothes. I wear a cotton black skirt and any random shirt. Andy wears wrinkly, casual khakis and a holy, as in it has holes, faded plaid cotton shirt--the ones he wears daily. Birkenstocks with socks for Andy and brown, black-rubber toed sporty Mary Janes or blue sneakers for me. Forget the fact that we're a couple heads taller than everyone else, more than a few shades paler, and our eyes aren't brown--we weren't going to fit in. Anita assured us the men would be in suits and ties, which they were, and insisted Andy at least get a dressy button down shirt and tie. In the mall and MegaMaxi clothing is extremely expensive for poor quality. Anita told us to go to the daily market in yada yada part of town. When we called to get those details, she thought perhaps she could accompany us the following day. (Oh, and don't even think about what having to make a phone call does to our insides.) We found a shirt and tie for $18. He may never wear them again (not exactly a wool bow-tie and tweed), but so be it.
The outing also provided us an opportunity to ask the time of the wedding and its location. 6:00pm, their church--the directions to which she texted me a couple hours before the wedding. Not having any clue where we were going, we left the house at 5:25pm to catch a taxi. We waited on the side of the street for ten minutes as it started to drizzle. Finally, an empty taxi pulled-over and picked us up. I showed him the text message with the directions. Unfortunately, I think he needed glasses, so I read him the message. Five minutes later we arrived.
Here is the church. Note the lack of activity.
We waited outside until 6:00pm, until it seemed only polite to be seated by the time the wedding was supposed to start. Here are the outfits we pulled together.
Andy tried to camouflage himself in with the wall.
Ten minutes after the ceremony was supposed to start the church looked like this.
This was not our first experience with the Ecuadorian concept of time. Back in the middle of November, we noticed that after we returned from the three-days off and thus five-day weekend of Andy's illness, no one asked where we were or what had happened. It seemed, detrimentally for my sense of responsibility, that this may be due to the South American culture where sometimes people show up and sometimes they don't. They have this saying about AM and PM time. It's something like, AM means most-likely and PM means posiblemente, or possibly.
For example, in order to take a bus to the orphanage we first needed to learn where the right stop was, what buses we could take, and when they came. Of course this information is not posted anywhere, so someone was going to escort us our first time. Guillermo insisted he would get someone to take us, yet the next day he did not call by 11am, so we called him, another scary phone call. When we did, the person he was visiting at the time, some man we had never heard of, said he would come take us. That afternoon, we waited outside for an hour realizing that PM time had transitioned from possibly, to probably not, to no. Funny enough, the next day we called Fabiola, who is always reliable, and asked her to take us. On our walk to the bus stop with her, we told her what happened the day before. Turns out, the man who didn't come was her son. Who, as it turns out, was the same son whose wedding we attended.
The ingrained notion of Ecuadorian time also extends to one's ability to be on time. Here, being on time is not prized like it is in the States or Switzerland, for example. Rather, depending on the scenario, there is an accepted amount of tardiness that is expected. For business meetings, it's something like fifteen to thirty minutes of leeway. For a party, thirty minutes to an hour late is expected.
What we did not count on were people being late for the wedding. Perhaps, we should have, but we didn't. We took the opportunity to take one of many blurry pictures of the night. Terrible lighting, but not dark/rude enough for flash.
This is the front of the church. The second figure to the left, the only woman, is Anita. She wore a full-length black dress, a black shrug over her shoulders, and a diamond-like necklace, earrings, and hair clip. The other people on stage were the musicians. Except, they didn't play songs. It was like we had stumbled upon their jam session. One was in blue jeans, another black sweatpants. They wandered around the stage, off the stage, and behind the curtain--where we imagined they had a couple drinks waiting. Anita had told us earlier in the week that they were trying to get a balloon arch for the front of the church, but it cost $26 dollars. So, for less, they got the following arch, except it seems they never got the balloons on it. The flowers were quite pretty though.
For the first forty minutes of waiting, we were privy to the aforementioned jam session. Though, honestly, there was less jamming than joking. Then, Anita sang with a band from 6:40-6:50. She sang a couple songs we had heard in Guillermo's church down here, which Andy just described for me as Christian-pop. We didn't know she could sing, but she had a nice voice. After another ten minutes of waiting, the pastor greeted the church. Then we waited another ten minutes. At 7:10, the pastor announced the members of the processional and the service officially began.
There were four main differences between their wedding and the American weddings we've attended. First, godparents, who are non-relatives, processed down the aisle. Vinicio's, who were not in attendance because it seemed like they were American, sent an email that Anita read to the congregation. Second, in the middle of the service, the bride delivered a thank-you speech to her Mom and handed her a bouquet of flowers. Third, the vows were orchestrated with literal symbols including a Bible, a small, treasure chest of coins which they had to pour through each other's hands as they recited several verses, and the rings. Fourth, and most noticeably, guests were still arriving at 7:40pm. In fact, Guillermo's daughter and son-in-law, Henry and Jenny, did not even take a seat because they showed up at 8:00pm.
Here are the vows.
The sermon was interesting. I was happy that the pastor spoke slowly and clearly enough that I was able to understand him. Plus, if I hadn't been so sure I was understanding him, I wouldn't have known what to think about the snippets I would have caught because the wedding address was on abuse. It was a warning to husbands not to physically, psychologically, or emotionally abuse their wives. Because children learn that behavior, and if they see at home, they think it's okay to repeat it. Men should not abuse their wives to not treat the children bad behavior, but also to create a better society.
Then the pastor spoke about how Vinicio had many women, which generated an uncomfortable laugh in the church. But what he meant was that he had many options for a wife. The pastor quoted the highly suspicious figure that there are seven women for every one man, yet Betty was the best woman for Vinicio. He had the men in the church raise their hands to show who thought they had the best wife. Andy's hand was a little slow and not much above his shoulder, but I'm pretty sure that's just because group participation in church is awkward for us.
Then came all those literal symbols, before the church finally let out about 8:00pm, with the pastor announcing the reception site. We were happy to see Henry and Jenny, since we knew no one other than Anita and Fabiola, the sister-of-the-groom who nearly single-handed organized the whole affair and Fabiola, the mother-of-the-groom who spent the week before the wedding in deep grief that Vinicio was leaving home. They asked if we were going with someone to the reception. We said no. We said we didn't know where it was. They asked if we had a car, we said no. We tried to hint and hint that we had no idea what we were doing. Finally, they offered us a ride, though Andy had to sit in the back of the pick-up truck, which brings me to another wedding-day anecdote.
We had gotten a late start on showering, dressing, and eating before the wedding. I was in the middle of blow-drying my hair, for the first time down here, when Andy walked into the bedroom with an enormous bouquet of white lilies. The thoughts that passed through my head were, "Did Andy get me flowers? Did Andy get me lilies? We haven't been apart at all for him to do this. He certainly didn't order them over the phone." But the puzzled look on Andy's face meant he was as confused as I was. Apparently, while I was drying my hair, the neighbors knocked on our door and handed Andy the enormous bouquet. He asked, "De quien?," but didn't understand the reply, so he simply thanked them only to get a quizzical look and something about the flowers being for his wife. Andy insisted I attempt to figure out more, so with half-dry hair I went out to the rooftop where they were doing laundry and asked, "De quien?" Only to understand a single verb "dejar"= "to leave." So, I too said, "Muchas gracias," and entered the apartment. Thus, we had no idea where the flowers came from. "Maybe we're supposed to bring them to the wedding?" I thought aloud. But alas, we concluded that our neighbors had given us an outrageously expensive looking bouquet of flowers. "Guess we're getting them something for Christmas," we concluded.
Back to the wedding. Andy is riding in the back of the pick-up truck, I'm squishing in the front with Henry, his wife, and their young daughter, Joyce. Jenny says to me, "Did you get the flowers?" Uh-oh. I'm now thinking we were supposed to bring them with us. But instead, she says that they sent us them to welcome us and make us feel included. I told her we were confused but told her how thoughtful it was. We were speaking in English, so I'm not sure how much of that she understood. At the same time, Andy noticed that in the back of the truck he was riding on many leaves and many flowers. He thought, "Shoot, maybe we were supposed to bring the flowers with us after all." He and I resolved the matter after the car ride. Later in the night I returned from the bathroom to find him telling Henry about our six liter water jugs. Turns out, Henry asked if we had a vase.
Here are the flowers that caused so much confusion.
Guillermo and his wife, Monica, were at the reception place when we arrived. We shared a table with them and Henry and Jenny, and also with the second director of the orphanage. There was also another couple. Ramiro, the man who drove us from the Quito airport, this was either his son and his wife or his son and his wife. There was a little girl with them too but we couldn't figure out the relationship. Unfortunately, it was so darn loud in there, we couldn't really talk about the orphanage with Guillermo and the former director. We've been feeling a little out of the loop in terms of how things are run and when events take place there. Regardless, Guillermo introduced us to her as the couple providing a good model for relationships.
Here are the blurry photos taken at the reception site.
The box for your envelopes with money is to the left. We failed to find an envelope, so just put our cash in the box. They had a reception line where you greeted the bride and groom and then deposited your money. The thing next to the cake tower is actually more cake. We left early with Guillermo and Monica. Fabiola cut them some cake, I told her I'd just take the whole layer.
The flowers on the head table.
We decided that the reception site itself was decorated in the style of The Godfathers meets Spain.
Guillermo and Monica. The farthest table you can see on the right was a table of fruit. Then, that window was where the reception site announcer controlled the music. The music was a cd on repeat. The notable song was Butterfly Kisses in Spanish.
The woman closest to me is Jenny, then her husband Henry, then their little daughter, and at the head of the table, the second orphanage director, Jolana, I think.
The bride and groom making their entrance.
Fabiola is the woman to the left. The girl in pink was the maid of honor/sole bridesmaid. The rest of the bridal party was under the age of ten, and that's not even all of them pictured.
The bride and groom had their first dance. Jenny told me that everyone dances to the same song. The song could be described as elevator music meets 90s pop meets big band. Maybe. But then the mariachi band showed up and performed for twenty minutes. We learned that there is no volume control in the country. Rather, there is one setting, really loud.
Earlier in the week Anita told us food would be served at 8:30pm. In preparation, we ate dinner before the wedding, which proved to be a very good idea when the food finally arrived at 10:45pm. For most weddings you elect a main course--chicken, beef, fish, whatever. Here, they just heaped each entree on the plate. Lying on top of everything is a steak, the yellow stuff is the skin of the chicken, above the chicken is a sort-of-meatloaf with hard boiled egg/ham/carrot/pea in the middle underneath the mushroom cream sauce. Buried are potatoes, though the green rice is peeking out the right. Immediately on the bottom of the plate are carrots, corn, and green beans cooked and covered in mayonnaise. Fabiola went around the room distributing doggie-bags.
We turned the meat-loaf into a meat-sauce for pasta, the steak became beef stroganoff, and the chicken turned into fajitas.
Guillermo and Monica drove us home. They explained that brides always make the groom wait. Turns out, Guillermo had waited an hour and a half for a bride to show up at a wedding in his church that morning. I told him I was early, he said that here, that translates into desperation. Before we left the car he asked if we'd be in church the following day. Andy said, "Yes." I said, "Maybe." It ended up being no. Maybe we're getting a hang of Ecuadorian time after all.
Here's the cake we ate at home. It was chocolate with chocolate filling. Yum. No, the hole is not from my finger, how could you even think that?
Our display case has added the two-bags of turquoise rice we didn't have a chance to throw. Much to my shock it was thrown inside the church by those lining the aisle. We also have a basket from the table that held the hors d'oeuvres. Guillermo's granddaughter gave it to him, he gave it to me.
And they lived happily ever after.
The End
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