The reception

Marina, me and the twins

The reception for the Indian side of the family was held the day after the wedding. While the couple  took their time getting home from the suite, I took Otso for a run. Finally the couple made it home, happier then ever and we started prepearing for the  night.

They reserved a restaurant, with an Indian buffet and a beautiful cake. Well… actually they organized and Marinas mother paid for it. Men and women sat on different spaces again. There was a curtain dividing the two spaces, but Abbas sat on a sofa with her new wife on the women’s side.

Marinas mother, Merja, held a beautiful speech.  Also the sisters of Abbas said a few words about him and Marina, welcoming her to the family. The only sad part was that they got news that someone died (target shooting) and then they prayed a lot and people (including Abbas’ mother) cried so they passed napkins around. Soon people started enjoying themselves again and the evening could go on.

cutting the cake

Abbas feeding cake to Marinas mother Merja
after cutting the cake

After the “program” the men went to get food first while we watched the cutting of the cake. Abbas fed cake to Marina, then Marinas mother and his mother (tradition I guess). Soon we got to enjoy the delicious food that was served. It was spicy (duh) and I had to drink so much water, but it was so good. Amazing. I never got to taste the cake, cause I was so full, but I heard it was delicious as well.

We took like hundreds of pictures (again) with different people. You can’t even imagine. People were running between pictures correcting Marinas hem and positions from time to time. It seems to be very important that the hem is at its best. Me and Merja sneaked out pretty early, since we were both so tired and  of course ended up having a bad outcome with the Tanzanian police. We have diplomatic plates on the car so no police has the right to stop us, but this one had the nerve to follow us and come at the window holding a gun (I hate that they have guns). Merja just opened the window and shouted at him and we drove off while he stood there first trying to stop us but giving up really fast. This is how they are; when they want some money they stop you for fun and make up something.  All in all it was a good night.

For the end I wan’t to point out that the wedding wasn’t all about sitting in mosque. Marina signed papers before and at the mosque we watched Abbas signing the papers on the screen. Forgot to mention before. Haha.

Abbas' close family: his brother, older sister, father, younger sister,
mother and the twins (children of the older sister) on the sofa
with the couple.