On my life, the honeymoon

A free day! Yesterday! At last! And how it was needed. Spent most of the day relaxing and speaking in English, few suprises all pleasant here and there... but here's the cultural note you've all been waiting for.

Last night was a wedding, and to quell your fears or crush your hopes I'll let you know right now that it almost assuredly wasn't mine. It was a cousin of my family, someone I'm not sure if I've met yet. I arrived a little late and was rushed to a group of men, among many groups, all in their best boubous for the occasion and feasting on fresh meat tajines followed by couscous; it was a blessing after this past week of intestines and fish, make no mistake. After the meals, and there were multiple, with multiple bouts of greetings exchanged in the interim, there was some moor music and dancing. This particular music session was mostly centered around a very old woman with a drum and many more women around her who would start up a song and clap along while one or two people would get up and do some traditional dances. After many people had danced and a great number of songs had been sung, it was decided by general consensus that the toubab, me, must dance. I fended off these demands with the plaintive plea that I had left my daraa, my boubou, at home and was dressed in only my toubab clothes, not fit for traditional dances. No these mischeivous old women wouldn't get me up there in front of everybody, no not me. Moments later several other old women gathered a daraa from a teenager and a howli (scarf/head covering) from a man to my left and threw them over me and dragged me to the center. I was a hit, let me tell you. And the rest of the night was filled with not only greetings but people telling one another that the toubab had danced and them looking at me incredulously but gleefully, "You danced?" or with congratulations "You danced well! Zehn hatta!"
Today has been much the same, filled with leftover wedding food (yes!) and congratulations on my dancing.
By the way, my head healed up fine, I'm dressed in traditional clothing, and my local name is Bilal. Gotta run!