Coconuts and Eyebrows: A Wedding Tale

I feel that I have now experienced my true initiation into Indonesian culture. Earlier this week I attended an Indonesian wedding that was literally right outside my door. The morning of the wedding I had to weave through tables as I tried clumsily to exit my house, and that night I had to sleep at another trainee’s home because the music was insanely loud inside my room. But loud music and precariously situated tables aside, this was an amazing experience.

Friends, family, and the happy couple.

Preparations for the party began five days before when all the ibus started cooking and baking. Hundreds of pastries and kilos and kilos of soup, rice, meat, vegetables, and eggs (and I’m sure much more!) were prepared by hand. The day before the party the street outside the bride’s house (across the road from my own) was covered and tables, chairs, a stage, and some humongous speakers were set up. It was incredible to see the whole village come together to set the young couple off on the right foot.

Packing boxes of goodies for guests to take home.

So much food, all home-made.

Ibus working hard.

Unlike American weddings with exclusive guest lists, Indonesians invite basically everyone they know to the party. Although invitations featuring pictures of the bride-and-groom-to-be are sent out, no RSVP is required. Want to invite ten of your friends who have never met the bride or groom? No problem!

Another trainee, Cait, and I had the great privilege of helping the ibus out with some of the baking the day before. We made what we were told was batter for doughnuts that somehow involved potatoes. And I got to make coconut milk, which, to my shame as a processed-food-buying American, I was shocked didn’t just come from a can. The women simply grated the coconut by rubbing it on a wooden board, added warm water, swished the water around in the coconut shavings, and then squeezed the water – now coconut milk – out of the shavings and into a bowl.

Queen of the kitchen.

Cait in action.

This coconut was grated by rubbing it on the little wooden board.

Making coconut milk! So cool!

But the real event of the wedding party (my apologies to the bride and groom for stealing some of their thunder) was when Cait, Kiplyn, and I were dressed up and had our make-up done so as to look “traditionally Javanese.” With our tall statures and pale skin we may have fooled no one, but we certainly were a sensation. Dressed in purple kebayas and our cheeks stained deep red with thick layers of blush, we drew many a compliment and stare. We had individual pictures taken by the professional photographer (photos that will no doubt show up in a family heir-loom album), and posed multiple times with the happy couple. The kids we see and hangout with every day in our village seemed especially impressed, probably partially due to the intensely dark and incredibly comical eyebrows that the woman who did my make-up, for some reason unknown to me, had decided to draw on my face. For a short moment I thought maybe I was the only one who thought they looked rather strange – maybe it was just an Indonesian thing! – but I knew when I walked out and watched my host sisters face burst into a fit of laughter that it wasn’t quite working for me. My eyebrows, described by Cait as “Disney villain eyebrows,” are still being brought up in daily host-family conversation.

Cait getting ready.

Hair and makeup.

My turn!

Red, white, and blue.

After oohing and awing at the gorgeous pictures of my friends, my ibu looks at this one and says, “Who told you to stand like that?” I can feel the love.

These classy ladies, on the other hand, know how to pull this look off.

In all regards, this was an event to remember. There was live music, lots of food, a tangible vibe of community and family, and much laughter. And some day down the road, maybe ten or more years from now, a married couple in a little Indonesian village will be flipping through their photo albums and telling their children about the time an American with crazy eyebrows came to their wedding.