Forgettable Moments

Remembered history says that David ran up to me on my first day of primary school and said "Will you be my friend?" and we've been friends ever since.

On Saturday I went to Melbourne see him get married to Andreana. It was, to be sure, a lovely wedding. If I'm honest I'll probably forget the vows, though I liked them more than most. I'll probably forget that I had to pretend to be a water pot, though I've never done that before, least of all in the middle of a wedding ceremony. I'll probably forget that there were people handing out food and drink before the ceremony or that the whole thing happened on soggy ground while the rain made empty threats to come. I'll forget the conversations I had before and after, I'm already forgetting them. I'll forget the jokes Howie and I made as MCs at the reception, and I'll forget Russell the manager of the bowling club who kept asking us questions about the wedding we didn't know, ("We're just the MCs!"). I'll forget that there were three different types of cake and that I forgot to bring a belt and a jacket. I'll forget that Anmol ate two cheeseburgers on our way home.

I'll forget most things about Saturday.

But then again, I've forgotten most of the things David and I have done together as friends. The few significant moments are eclipsed by the thousands of insignificant ones. But whatever the memories are, when David asked me to be his friend he changed our lives. Neither of us would be where we or who we are today, if it wasn't for that moment 23 years ago when David began something significant.

So while I will mostly forget the wedding, I probably won't forget that under a giant tree one February afternoon in 2011 in Melbourne, one of my oldest friends married one of his newest friends. They will profoundly change each other's lives. My prayer is that they help each other be the best David and Andreana they can be and they love each other in all the forgettable moments as well as the memorable ones.

For myself, I'm thankful that David is still beginning significant things and creating relationships that change lives.

Wedding Done

Well I made it to the wedding down here in Canberra. I'm currently sitting in my classy room here in Queanbeyan at the Wallaby Motel. It has free wifi. That's why I'm staying here. Down the road there's a motel advertising "video movies". I'm now disappointed that I didn't stay there. I'm intrigued by these "video movies" everyone keeps talking about.

As far as the wedding goes, I think it was a success. With weddings I usually worry a lot about making sure I dress within the dress code. I stress about looking formal or semi-formal or cocktail or whatever. It's hard for me. But this time the invitation said "Smart Casual" and I feel like a have a good grasp of that. Nice shoes, jeans, nice shirt, nice jacket. And that's exactly what Courtney told me when I happened to ask her the other day, so I felt pretty sure about my clothes. I even got myself an expensive smart casual jacket to wear.

And then I turned up at this wedding and I'm the only smart casual person there. All the guys are in suits and ties, and the girls were in nice dresses and heels. Now usually this would be my worst nightmare, turning up to a wedding underdressed. But I knew the wedding invite said smart casual, so I felt quite comfortable knowing I was the only one who actually dressed properly. It was everyone else who should have felt embarrassed in my presence. I reckon I made everyone else feel over dressed.

Apart from the clothes, it was a nice wedding. I didn't know anyone when I arrived but I got sat one a table with some friendly people so I pretty much had people to talk to all night. I even got to decorate the wedding car. So I think it was a win.

As far as the challenges from the blog world go, I only got two. I didn't get any food on my clothes, so tick that one off. But I didn't get any candid photos of people because I don't really have a camera. Just the iPhone one which is pretty useless. There were however 5 official photographers at the wedding so I hope they managed to cover something.

Oh, and it was really special to see James get married.

I should be a journalist.

Wedding Fun

I'm off to the wedding of my friend James on Saturday, and James has informed me that I'm not going to know anyone there.

Knowing that I'm not very good in situations like this, I just stand around and feel awkward, I thought I might ask all you folk in blog world to give me a hand. Would you be willing to set me challenges to do at the wedding. Maybe conversations to have, tasks to do, photos to take. Then I'll come back and blog how I did.

I'm not going to do everything you set me to do. And I'm not going to do anything that'll distract from the wedding. But I will try to do as much as I can. This is your chance for interactive blog fun. Woo!

Photo from: Scarlatti2004

Happy Party and Snap Holiday

I seem to have found myself in Canberra, on holiday with my parents, older sister, her husband and his family. I wasn't planning on coming to Canberra but I found out last week that my painting boss is on holidays for the next two weeks, so I have forced leave. But you won't hear me complaining. A year of minimal employment has taught me the many skills necessary for enjoying free time. And I really enjoy free time.

Before we came on the holiday we had Jo and Victor's (Sister and Brother-in-Law's) Happy Party (that is the wedding that wasn't a wedding but just looked like a wedding). It was a very happy party. Hannah, my little sister, who named the Happy Party, was very happy. She loved being surrounded by so many people. And when it came time to dance to the killer play list that Victor and I made, she was conga lining all over the place with any one who took her fancy.

Of course, the Happy Party wasn't really for Hannah. It was for all the Australians who didn't make it to Guatemala for the two ceremonies there. It was a highly chaotic event with the ceremony once again moved indoors due to masses of rain. Although the rain was only the icing on the cake for an event that seemed destined to be delayed and diverted and every opportunity. Still these hiccups didn't really seem like problems, they just made the day all the more amusing and endearing.

I was happy to be there. In some ways I found the ceremony more meaningful six months in to the marriage. Perhaps because you know they know what marriage is now. Marriage vows can sometimes seem like simple idealism when you hear them from two people who have never been married before (as they will probably sound from me if I ever say them). But when you hear them from two people who know what it means to be married to each other, even just 6 months in, it seems to mean more. They've become a more practical reality and need to be a commitment made out of, and in the face of, experience. Perhaps we should have Happy Parties more regularly for experienced couples who now know what their vows mean in practice not just in theory.

I didn't have much of a role in this ceremony. I did, however get asked to pray. In continuation of my slide down the slippery slope of unbidden expressions of emotion, I felt choked up the whole prayer. The people I asked said they didn't notice, but I did. I knew that I was on the verge of having my voice crack at any time, that getting the words out without a quiver in my speech was hard going. The problem was that I love Jo and Victor, I love marriage, and I love Jesus, and I was praying about all three, it was a convergence to make a perfect storm of sentiment to turn me into a blubbering mass of love and emotion. But I held strong and resisted all urges to shed tears. I think my well honed image of insensitivity has been kept intact for just a little longer.

When the ceremony was done, it was a night of speeches, polite portions of food, and large helpings of dancing. It was a very enjoyable night even if I do like to avoid being in large crowds of people I may have to make small talk with.

In the morning we all gathered for a breakfast with the friends and family who had stayed in the area. It was a like a post-wedding gathering of the relationally elite. I was happy to have been invited.

From there my family (minus Hannah) and the Guatemalans all piled into the specially hired chicken bus, and headed off for Canberra. We stopped at a genuine Australian farm where we were treated to some genuine Australian drought, a genuine Australian tractor ride, and some genuine Australian annoyance at wild Kangaroos. However the Guatemalans were very happy to see kangaroos ("kan-gooo-roos") in the wild as was I. I'm not a farmer, therefore I like kangaroos, especially when they're alive.

Since being in Canberra (we've been here a day now) we've been to dinner, a tourist centre, the National Museum and the National Botanic Gardens. Tonight we filled up on Middle Eastern food, had a serendipitous rendezvous with Jess and her Mum, and went up Black Mountain to see the view (of which there was very little).

It's a good life.

Going to the Chapel Chapel Chapel

My sister is getting married today...again. Three weddings for one girl in seven months. Does anyone else think that's just a little excessive? There are single women in the world who haven't even been married once. Share the love around, I say.

Still, at least there'll be food. Probably hippy food, but food none the less.

I wish Jo and Victor all the best, and may their marriage be three times as good as it otherwise would have been had they only been married once.


For those of you who don't get it, in Guatemala my sister married her husband in a civil ceremony, then they had a religious ceremony a week later, and today they're having an Australian one. It's actually perfectly reasonable when you think about it.

The Wed

I'm not sure this blog is going to do the day justice, so I apologise to all you Jo fans out there in advance. But I'll write more than anyone else has so far, I promise you that.

I'd start from the beginning of the wedding, but I'm not sure when that was. The day before was full of things like rehearsals, speech, sermon and vow printing, meals, and people being stressed.

The day started at around 5am when the bridesmaids awoke singing. They didn't wake me up but I think the rest of the house was blessed by their melodies. They all headed off to get their hair done.

I woke at six something and showered, got dressed, and noticed the rain. Of course we'd all been praying for sunshine, but we got rain. Alanis Morissette popped into my head.

At 8 10 of the many people who had converged on the house were put in cars with various bits of the world-wide wedding cake put on top of them. I was given a box to hold labeled "EXTREMELY! FRAGILE!" This made me somewhat nervous. But when Di who was sitting next to me got a whole tier of the cake placed on top of her, I was most thankful that my load was small, light and probably less important.

The two cars left the house driving slowly through the streets of Antigua with the all powerful hazard lights on. It was like when they drive heavy equipment or nuclear bombs through the centre of small towns, at least that's how it felt in the car. Outside people didn't seem to understand the nature of the convoy. We got a chicken bus on our tail for the second half of the trip honking and threatening to run us over the whole time, but Lerae, our driver, was fearless and defiant, refusing to be intimidated. She managed to get us and the cake pieces to the venue in one piece, if you know what I mean.

The wedding venue is the most sought after venue in Guatemala, so I'm told. It's on the top of a hill over looking Antigua, surrounded by plush gardens, and interesting sculptures made by someone famous. The wedding was meant to be out under a shade cloth under the watchful eye of the volcano, but the rain moved us underneath the giant, permanent circus tent thing, where the reception was to be held. It wasn't a disaster. In fact, it was more intimate, because we were forced to do the ceremony in the round, or at least we did it in a line, one half of the congregation facing another with Jo and Victor in the middle.

On arrival, I sat down with Erica, my translator, and we went through the sermon together. She'd translated it the week before so we really just had to make sure we could do it together ok.

Then it was time to stand around and wait for something to happen. There was a lot of meeting of Guatemalan people who I couldn't talk to. Finally we all went to our seats, half an hour late, Sons of Korah started up and out of no where appeared Van dressed as a bridesmaid and walking down the make shift isle. It took people a little while to realise what was going on, and when Van reached the end of the isle she didn't quite know what to do, cause everything that had been rehearsed the day before was useless. But she did alright. For those of you want to know about the dresses and all that, the bridesmaids dresses were green, the flowers were colourful and the bridesmaids looked good.

Yep, I could write bridal magazines.

Jo arrived with Mum and Dad. Her dress was white. I almost cried (but I didn't because emotions are for weak people). It was strangely affecting to see my sister getting married. I don't think I've really thought through the significance of Jo's marriage for me, so I was surprised that I was emotional about it. But she's my sister and I love her, and I'm real happy that she's getting married, so I guess that's enough.

The ceremony, if it had not been in two languages would have been a rather simple affair, songs, sermon, prayers, vows, song, songs, recessional. But seeing as it was in two languages the whole thing seemed more elaborate, and it certainly was much longer. Added to this that it was cold and rainy and we were in an undercover but open air place, I thing there were a lot of cold people, especially bridesmaids and brides.

I preached, the jokes that there were crossed the Guatemalan divide, but there weren't many jokes. About half way through the sermon I realised it was going long. And while I normally would just edit on the fly, I couldn't because I had a translator and we were working of a pre-arranged manuscript. Erica, who did really well, had asked me at rehearsal if I was happy with the length, she may have been politely saying "It's too long you, nong!" But I didn't pick up on the politeness and thought it was fine.

Still people survived, and had the sermon been in just one language I would have been happy, so I'll sit with that.

When I sat down after preaching I sat next to Valentina who turned to me and said "So cool". And I thought "Wow, Valentina liked it." Then I thought about it some more and realised Valentina would never say "So cool" and actually she had said "So cruel". This stressed me out because I thought I'd really offended her some how with all my talk of needing Jesus in your marriage. But it turns out she was only talking about the length, especially when all the young women were freezing to death. I have to admit, I agree, it felt cruel while I was up there. I wrote a summer sermon.

The rest of the ceremony was lovely. I watched most of it with a lump in my throat. There was a Guatemalan lasso, Australian prayers, and even a John Colman song sung by Alex the American (who became my best friend for two days). It was a good ceremony. And as we sat and looked outside the rain stopped and the mist cleared and we could see glimpses of Antigua below. It was pretty special.

After the ceremony was the reception. I had a job to pull a string connected to a giant lace bell full of rice and beans as the bride and groom walked under it entering the reception . It's a Guatemalan tradition I'm told to wish the couple prosperity. I didn't do too well. My string broke and Victor Snr (Father of the Groom) had to run in and tear the bell apart with his strong, manly hands. Needless to say, I felt like a little bit of a failure.

The reception was breakfast, so I filled myself with eggs, sangers, beans and smoothies while Jo and Victor circulated and talked to all 200 of Victor's Cousins. You can tell he's an ethic just by the number of cousins he has. Those of us from devoloped nations only have a reasonable number like 15 at the most.

Watching them made me glad I'm not getting married. I don't want to talk to 200 people ever, unless it's all at once.

There were speeches, in two languages, plenty of tears from the Australians, Valentina's epic cake (which looked awesome) and then lots of standing around. There was a traditional Guatemalan band, but no dancing as dancing is a sin for Guatemalan Presbyterians so we all stood around and tried not to jig.

Finally, when most people had gone home, Jo and Victor decided to leave, and so did we. Jo's car broke down so she and Victor had to be driven to their swanky hotel in Victor's Brother-in-Law's flower filled car. We stayed behind and pushed the Corolla up and down the hill. Victor Snr finally started it by doing a live battery transplant.

By the time we all got home, we were all pretty wrecked. I read my book, ate some toast then went to sleep.

And that was the wedding day.

In the morning we all headed off to breakfast with the newly weds. You can tell your sister loves people when she has breakfast with 16 friends and family on the first morning of her honeymoon.

As it turned out, when Lesley and I made it to the airport we found out we were booked on the same plane to El Salvador with Jo and Victor. So we had the privilege of doing the first leg of their honeymoon journey with them. It was nice but a little odd. Like I said after Jo's first wedding, we're a close family.

Now we're in Washington DC and they're in Argentina. I'm going to bed. I'll blog about DC later.

The wedding was good. Jo and Victor are awesome. They're gonna be a great family and their kids are gonna be cute.

It rained but Jesus reigned.

Wedding that wasn't a Wedding that was a Wedding

This is what I started writing on Saturday evening

They do things differently here in Guatemala.

I woke up today, excited because it was Jo's civil ceremony. While in Australia we do the church wedding and the legal wedding in the the same service, here in Guatemala they break things up but doing the civil ceremony before the religious ceremony.

So today was Jo and Victor's civil ceremony and next Sunday will be the religious one.

As I was saying I woke up, excited that we were going to do something official today. I may also have woken up because I couldn't sleep any more. I'm not yet totally adjusted to the time zone.

I spent most of the morning having an internal deliberation as to whether to have facial hair or not when I go to the ceremony, I decided in the end for facial hair to avoid the inevitable facial rash that always comes with shaving these days.

And that is where I fell asleep while typing so I thought I should go to bed

Once the whole house had been juoozied up, we hopped in our taxis and cars and headed off to Jo's miniature house just outside Guatemala City.

Upon arriving at her house we found Jo and Mum who had stayed there the night before after Jo's Despedida, and Lesley and Van who had both arrived in the country the night before and that morning respectively. While all the new arrivals gave themselves a tour of the house in our glad rags (Jo has a pool in her back yard about the same size as a baptismal font, good for sudden localised, religious revivals but not much else) while the women were busy getting pretty and confining Jo into her dress. When she came downstairs looking all dressed up in a large ball gown it occurred to me that this civil ceremony might be a bigger deal than I had previously anticipated. She looked pretty good.

But the excitement was short lived as Jo received a phone call asking us all to come an hour later as things weren't ready at Victor's house. This did give us a chance to have a cup of tea and all us Australians to keep asking Jo questions as to what was actually going on and what was the point of this civil ceremony. It's all a little confusing.

Basically yesterday was the legal wedding, but next Sunday will be the ceremonial wedding.

After receiving another call telling us we could come now, we loaded ourselves into the various cars and drove ourselves across the suburb, filled with it's people, street vendors, and one way streets, and arrived at Victor's family's house.

The place was full of Guatemalans who I smiled at and kissed and bluffed my way through greetings. There was one woman who I have met before who I think knows less English than I know Spanish because every time she sees me she gives me a huge grin, a thumbs up and says "Yes! Yes!" I don't understand what she means, but seeing as no one understands me either, I figure if I give her thumbs up and a "Yes!" too she'll feel validated in her cross cultural enterprises.

Victor's parents had decked out their backyard filling it with chairs and a largish, square, open-sided, tent. Under the tent were a few chairs and a table with a nice tablecloth, a big vase of flowers and two nice chairs on one side facing one nice chair on the other. This was where the ceremony was going to take place. It reminded me of a Jewish wedding, except there were a lot of people under the covering.

When the ceremony began Victor's parents introduced everyone there. We all stood and waved and were clapped. I got to sit under the tent with my parents, just behind Jo and Victor. I felt like royalty.

Pablo the Lawyer stood up with Mario the Airline Pilot Trainer/Translator and gave us a Cirmon. This is a Sermon for a Civil Ceremony. He started off by talking about ancient Roman symbolic animals but then we were told they were irrelevant. I think perhaps something was lost in the translation, but I quite liked it. I was hoping there would be more irrelevancies in the cirmon to amuse me.

He actually spent a lot of time talking about God and marriage, and I worried he might be stealing my thunder for the ceremony in a weeks time. He talked about civil ceremonies were about giving to Caesar what is Caesars. I hadn't thought about it before but I felt it was an appropriate application of the verse. Lawyer and Preacher, this Pablo was good, I was feeling more than little intimidated.

When it came time for the reading and signing of the Marriage Act, Pablo did slip a little in the Lawyer stakes. He named Jo, Joanna Mary French Lopez, told us all she was from the Republic of Australian and mis-spelt and mis-pronounced almost her entire family tree. I think this was because Jo had given him the names via Victor, over the phone while getting her hair blow dried that morning.

Despite the issues, Jo and Victor signed their life away on the document, then my parents signed as witnesses, then Victor's parents, then all the Australians. It was fun. I've never signed wedding thing before. I didn't do a very good signature.

The various parents gave a little speech, then Jo and Victor spoke. Everyone cried. I may even have teared up a little. It was nice. And the Jo and Victor were married.

It was odd, I didn't realise Jo and Victor would actually getting married that day, but it turns out they are now legally married. Still that didn't make much of difference. They don't get to actually be married until Sunday at the Church ceremony. Right now it just seems like their still engaged with more jokes about their marriage.

As it was such an important occasion we all had to eat. I do love that all cultures celebrate with food. Food is wonderful. We had a wedding feast of lasagna and Guatemalan pudding.

A few hours later the festivities wrapped up and we all headed back home to our exotic villa in Antigua. I went out for dinner that night to a hippy cafe with loud good music, with Jem, Janet, John, Grandpa and Valentina. I think Jem and I were the only ones that enjoyed the music. It was a bit loud for everyone else. The food wasn't terrible though.

That night due to new arrivals I was moved out of the room I had been staying in, into a room with Mum, Dad and Jo. I was put in the double bed with Jo. The poor girl. My sister had to spend her wedding night sleeping in the same bed as her brother. Not really the best start to a marriage. She has told me that on her second wedding night I'm not allowed anywhere near, and that's totally fine with me.

Airport Weddings and Pedidas

I have arrived now in the Guatemala. I'm "Sister's Wedding Ready".

After I last blogged I ventured out into LAX to get myself booked into my next flight to Guatemala 1:45am. I decided to check in early to save myself the hassle of lining up with a thousand other people. But when I arrived it was a like a Latino convention. I thought Latin American people were meant to arrive late to everything, but not the check in it seems.

But despite the people, I made it. I spent the whole time in the line running my tongue around my teeth and dreaming of brushing them. So I went and had dinner, then brushed my teeth. Oh how it felt so nice.

I made it on to my flight after sleeping at the gate in the uncomfortable chair for an hour, and I pretty much slept the whole flight.

Guatemala City airport is spacious, shiny and empty. It seems like they built it anticipating a boom in travel which is yet to come, but I'm happy to give them points for optimism.

Customs and Passport Control scared me because they were in another language (Elvish, if you're wondering), but I made it through alright. They didn't seem interested in my 7kgs of icing sugar. Which has given me new inspiration to begin a career as a drug runner. No one expects you to bring drugs into Latin America.

Victor and his Mum picked me up and drove me directly to the supermarket. They wanted me to see the sights.

Then it was to Victor's place for a shower, off to the posh mall for pancakes and back to the airport to find my Father.

While we were waiting at arrivals (which is situated outside, even though they have a perfectly good, shiny, new and empty arrivals hall inside) a bride and groom pulled up in a wedding car, got out and then proceeded to get married right there outside the Airport. They had a celebrant, photographer, video guy, bodyguard, cake person and everything. They stood there said their vows, had their kiss, took their photos, ate their cake, drunk their champagne and threw their bouquet right there in front of the people picking up their friends, business men and taxi hustlers. It was amazing! It could easily have been a performance by an improv theatre group, it was rather strange. I would have taken photos but I didn't want to miss the kiss.

Dad arrived just in time to miss all the fun, and we headed off for Antigua.

Victor handed us on to a taxi driver who arrived only an hour after summoned. I used the time to doze deeply. When the taxi driver got us to Antigua he promptly got himself lost. We stopped about 7 times to ask for directions. I think perhaps Guatemalans have a habit of giving directions even when they don't know the way. Everyone asked gave an answer, and only one person actually got us too the place. It may just be an over-developed sense of self-confidence. Whatever the case, we arrived at the house we're staying at only a few hours late.

We were welcomed at the door by Jane, Jo, Janet and Jem. It was a little sad to break up their retreat for women with names starting with J, but it was nice to see them. I like them all.

It actually turned out that Grandpa and Valentina were hiding inside so the J convention had already been crashed.

The house we're staying in is a large, new but old looking, posh place with a maid. I've never had a maid before, but I shall make us of it by throwing rubbish on the ground in front of her and watching her clean it up.

I'm actually not sure how well we're all coping with the maid. Everyone keeps feeding her and trying to do her cleaning and tiding for her. I wonder if our egalitarian nature insults her professionalism.

After arriving at the house I accidentally fell asleep on my bed, and woke up in time to get dressed in my nice shirt and ugly pants for the evening's Pedida. A Pedida is a Guatemalan tradition before a wedding where the Mother and Father of the Groom and the Groom come to the house of the Mother and Father of the Bride and ask permission for the Son to marry the Daughter.

Last night we had the Pedida. It was nice. All the important people made speeches. They all got translated. There was a bit of crying. I managed to stay awake through the whole thing, but I got a lot of worried looks that I might soon fall off my chair. It felt significant, the Pedida not the narcolepsy.

Needless to say, my parents said "Yes".

The two families (plus well loved ring-ins) then had a feast provided by the women of the French clan. The feast was meant to be traditional Australian, but I think it was more Hungarian due to the fact that Hungary actually has a culinary tradition to draw on. We did have Pavlova in honour of Jo's Australian/New Zealandish roots.

I went to bed around 9pm and woke up at 9am. It was one of those sleeps that feel as nourishing as a big roast dinner. It made me very happy.

Today started with pancakes and a trip into Antigua for coffee with Dad, Grandpa and Valentina. The women are now all off for Jo's Despedida (her hen's night) and I am blogging.

I'm eyeing off the hammock on the back veranda. It looks highly relaxing and exotic. I want to read a book in it and fall asleep. That'll be the life.