The Friendship Dance

Last night was a turning point for my friendship with Holly. Although a friend and I have been meeting with her weekly for over three months, we were still treated with a bit of curious caution by her sisters and other female relatives. Several months ago, when we attended the engagement party of her cousin, my friend and I sat alone at a huge round table as if we had a neon sign pointing to our table blinking the word "OUTSIDERS!" Not last night. No, we were graced with Holly's cousin, Naomi, who welcomed us into their world. She has spent much time abroad and was looking forward to an evening fielding our questions and exercising her excellent English skills.

We were cordially welcomed by Holly's family with hello's and the kiss on the cheek. But we were still being held at arms length emotionally after the formalities were completed. Which was okay, because we realize that building friends with Arab women is just that--BUILDING. It takes much more time and patience than in the West because they are accustomed to only having female family members as friends. They typically don't move away from home, so the families are extremely large and very well connected. Whereas, in the West, frequent moving within families causes people to look outside of the family circle for friends.

One thing I noticed right off, was that many of women were choosing to wear their abayas even when others were showing off their new formal wear. Naomi told me that friends of the family or distant relatives do not take off their abayas. It was only those within the wedding party who had the option of not wearing the abaya. Ooops! Another cultural faux paux for me! Oh well--it's not like I had an abaya hanging in the car, and neither did my friend. So, we were the 2 western odd-ball women with no wedding gift and no abaya. Strike TWO for the evening in building a bridge with Holly's immediate family members.

But did I allow the ball to pass the plate a third time without swinging all the way through? No way! I looked at that cultural ball dead on and said, "Bring it!" I swung and hit a home run into the hearts of her family. How, you ask? Dancing. I know. Many of you are probably thinking you have seen me dance and it's nothing to brag about nor something you'd want to see again. At an Arab wedding parties (no matter what stage) only the immediate family members are invited to dance during the evening. All other ladies sit around the dance floor clapping to the beat and throwing money onto the dancers. I asked Holly when she was going to dance and she told me that it was not really her thing and would wait until late in the night to get onto the dance floor.

Now the dance floor is never overly crowded, even though there are nearly 100 women in attendance at this party. It seemed like an intricate social signal as to who was to dance when and with which group. There were even a few older Bedouin style songs played during the evening. The older ladies would cover their face with a veil and then sway back and forth to the music while the younger ones clapped for them. Not one Top 40 hit came on during the night. It was all Arab pop music and all VERY loud.

During the evening, my friend and I would smile and say our hello's again to Holly's sisters and mom. But there was never anything beyond the head nod or a polite smile. That all changed around midnight when Holly got us onto the dance floor. Now picture a large square dance floor with fancy wing-back chairs surrounding three of the sides. The bridal party, and the groom's family were all seated around the dance floor ready to see what we would do. I looked at my friend who was blushing beat red and mouthed to me, "this is my worst nightmare come true!" What else could we do, but dance? The music was unfamiliar and the moves even more awkward, but as soon as we got into it, they all started clapping for us and several girls joined us. I was so relieved! Even the bride was clapping and encouraged us to dance a second song. What was I thinking?! I was so not prepared for this! But, it was hysterically fun and we were 100% entertaining to these women who had probably never seen American women dancing except for on "Dancing with the Stars."

At the end of the second song, we bid our adieu to the ladies and began to leave the dance floor. Our ears were flooded with cheers and suddenly Holly's sister's were up hugging our necks and kissing our cheeks. From that moment on, we were accepted. We were no longer the 'outsiders' with whom they studied with cautious curiousity. Now we were the women who had abandoned our cultural comfort zone in order to reach into theirs and we grasped their hearts in the process. Her mother even smiled and gave us warm hugs as we left the party near 1am.

We've already been invited to another wedding scheduled for the end of this month. Maybe I should take some Arabic dancing lessons before venturing out onto the dance floor again. Naw...why ruin a good thing?