Weddings in the desert are loud, chaotic, hot, flashy, and above all – segregated. Men party with men, and women with women. Finally, women are able to let their hair down, so to speak, and show each other just how fashionable, wealthy and beautiful they are without having to worry about an unrelated male catching sight of them. More than a celebration of the bride, especially before the bride enters, it is a celebration of femininity.

Upon entering the hall, women can be seen primping themselves, from adorning more bright coloured make-up to their eyelids, to pulling out their curling irons and unraveling, unraveling, unraveling the cords from their purses to put the finishing touches to their overall look. The dresses are more than ornate, often to the point of gaudy, with sequins, sequins, sequins and see-through mesh just like the figure skaters’ outfits I see at the Olympics. Gone is the phrase “simple is beautiful”. I’m not sure the phrase has disappeared from the desert as much as it never existed in the first place.

Perhaps it is because the desert is so mono-coloured. The lack of water makes greenery, the way that I know if it in my homeland, and bright coloured flowers a rare luxury held only in the gardens of the truly wealthy. Perhaps it is because on an average day, a woman’s world is limited to the four walls of her home, or those of her neighbour’s home. Going out on the street, one woman to the next looks generally the same, head to toe in black. There is no colour, individuality; save the few sequins, or slight embellishment on the corner of the black head scarf. Perhaps this is the reason why women lean away from the simple and towards the extravagant.

Admittedly, the lack of colour has sparked in me the extreme and insatiable desire to express my femininity through fashion. When I get the chance, I dress up. Even when there really is no reason, a pretty dress seems in order. Jewellery, once seen as frivolous and against my personal style, has become an important part of my day; sorting through what I have and making it work splendidly with what I want to wear. Shoes, the love of which is not new to me, have found a justifiable place in my wardrobe. The one thing, or two if you want to get technical, that truly sets a woman apart from the rest and boasts of fashion taste is her choice in shoes. I have been told that I’m different from other foreigner women because of my shoe choices and I “take care” of myself. Since I don’t exercise and I eat an excess of sugar, I assume that the meaning of “take care” in this context is that I pay attention to and execute fashion sense.

For the wedding, my fashion sense led me to wear a simple (I have not lived here long enough to lose the simple), long red dress with beautiful jewellry and leopard print high, spiked heel shoes. My close friend dubbed them “hooker shoes” the first time she laid eyes on them. I knew I was in love (with the shoes! not my friend). With toe nails painted red to match the dress, my toes looked especially sexy peeking through the peeakaboo toe opening (I did catch sight of a woman checking out my shoes/toes out of the corner of my eye at one point, so chalk that up as “1″ for moi).

A wedding is an opportunity for young single girls to parade themselves in front of the mothers and sisters of potential future mates. The dating scene is different, at best, from western cultures, non-existent in reality. Generally, as I’m speaking in generalities for most of this post please don’t be angry with me if you can think of a few exceptions** to my observations, it is the responsibility of the mothers and sisters to bring suitable prospects to the attention of the man, and upon his added approval, movements towards marriage can be made.

Throughout the event, the music is blaring, so loud that my ears ached. Women get up randomly to take part in various styles of dancing. How they can tell which songs accompany the dance from the local area, another area in the country, another country entirely or the general geographic region is beyond the ability of these novice ears. I attended the wedding with a couple of foreigner friends of mine, and we were emotionally manipulated into attempting to dance in front of all these strangers. Entertaining everyone with our jerky, self conscious movements, I was wondering if I should tell anyone that I was raised to believe that dancing, especially with the use of hip “pop and lock” motions, was considered evil and from the devil. Later, when I noticed a girl of barely 3 years popping her hips from side to side as her mother and aunties looked on and cheered, I decided that talking about my past would be beyond the ideal of sharing. Had I shared, I would have traded my sexy shoes for combat boots and trampled my way through and over a well-loved custom of celebrating the feminine. At once, I was aware that in this context, it was safe. Safe to move our bodies in ways that in clubs, surrounded by sweaty, leering men, would have been deemed sexual and seductive. In this environment, the feminie body moves and the female eye is attracted to other qualities of the dance, the texture and behaviour of the dress material, the arch and beauty of the feet, the friendship between women.

Finally, the bride enters the room and the focus shifts to adorning her with praise. Shouts are let out in her honour. The women cover their mouths as they run their tongues quickly from side to side, creating a noise for which I have no words of description. After some time, an announcement is made that the bride’s male relatives will soon be entering the hall, which is our cue to put on our coverings (this was when I was given the infamous veil lesson). Once again, I am in a sea of black. Where once there was individuality and femininity, the black material is a replacement in favour of modesty. I played a game with myself as the others watched the bride get pictures taken with her family, and later met her husband at the end of a runway to be joined together at last in celebration. Now that the women were completely unrecognizable from their glory merely an hour before, I tried to identify them by their shoes, or by the hem of their dress that perhaps peeked out slightly from the bottom of her covering.

If I can claim to have learned only one thing since moving to the desert, I would have to say that I’ve learned that no matter the circumstance, geographical location or language, women are women are women the world over. Chocolate and shoes. That’s what it’s all about. Even if our faces are 90% covered, we notice the shoes.