Two cats live in my house. They want to live outside – and it pains me that I cannot let them out. When they get bored with each other, they sit in the window to catch sight of the wildlife – or other cats that are not so burdened by fears for their safety. Fact is, other than each other – and fleas, cats outdoors have little to worry about. They prowl around at night, get fed at multiple houses, have no natural predators.
In even greater numbers, prowling around town, are the squirrels, the ground squirrels, and rabbits. You would think, with all of the cats the populations of rodents would be controlled. But, since the cats are so well fed, they ignore everything but other cats competing for their turf, or the occasional songbird. It is not uncommon to see multiple rabbits decimating gardens in town, while a cat saunters past, on a beeline for the backporch and a bowl of food.
Two years ago the situation was very different. There were very few rabbits in town. I never saw a ground squirrel crossing the streets, and cats would turn up missing from time to time – and it was assumed that they succumbed to age, or cars, or some predator. We hear coyotes at night, and on the edge of town we could see fox kits peeping out of culvert pipes.
Talking to Everett, the town maintenance supervisor, I learned that, among his many other jobs, he exterminates pests. When it became a concern that the pet cats were being eaten by foxes, the town began a campaign to erradicate the foxes from town. With no natural predators I am looking for a very powerful air rifle to give a chance to the garden behind my house.
Soil covering the roots of crops provides a stable support in which a plant can grow. Like the soil, people provide the foundation that enables a community to grow. When there is inadequate soil, the plant topples, withers and dies. When a community loses it population, it too withers and dies.
Neither mineral soil nor people alone can make a plant or a community healthy and productive. To encourage plants to thrive, water frees up the nutrients in the soil, feeding each plant cell, enabling the plant to grow. In a community, good will carries civic resources that make society flourish. These resources may be money, but equally, they can be a mixture of ideas, energy, and the motivation necessary to grow a healthy and productive community.
Good will evolves through the recognition that we cannot live in isolation. When put into action, goodwill shakes loose resources that nourish society. Good will increases when we realize that individually we have enough, even a surplus that can be shared.
Each of us has needs. Each of us has surplus. For each individual the needs and surpluses are different. By identifying what we lack, and what we can share we create an alternative economy that uses less energy and resources than trying to be completely self-sustaining in isolation of others. But, as it is a combination of soil and water and nutrients that makes a plant grow, so it is a combination of people of good will sharing resources that makes a community grow.
Since the creation of the Interstate Highway System we have been able to ride from coast to coast with only minor deviations from a uniform standard. We can predict within an hour how long it will take to go from Jacksonville, Florida and Santa Monica, California, on Interstate 10. We can visualize every meal and every gas station stop along the way. We can even plan our time around the television programs we want to watch in our hotel rooms – completely oblivious to the diversity we pass through; the cultures and environments that historically defined America.
We used to deviate from our speed and path to avoid potholes or mud puddles, or to take in a meal in an unfamiliar town. We used to wake up in the morning to explore the culture of a new place, if only for breakfast and a conversation before continuing our travels. Rather than focusing exclusively on the destination, we absorbed the dignity of varied and unique cultures along the way. The differences from our own culture may have been slight and easy to understand, or almost other worldly, but each interaction expanded our insight into the larger human condition.
The impact of these encounters allowed us to see America as an array of cultures, with each adding to the health and diversity of the nation. From our travels we carried away small pieces of these cultures and integrated them into our own. Whether it was a recipe, or a sense of respect for something that was sacred, we learned of values that were equivalent to ours. It was in our acknowledgement and respect of these other places that the dignity of other cultures perpetuated our sense of strength through diversity in the nation. Most of us are now relegated to collecting replicas of culture, disconnected from the environment, and even more disconnected from the hands and mind that created the original artifacts.
Historically, cultures evolved as a means of transforming local environments to resolve social needs. This transformation maximized the unique and diverse natural and cultural capital of all things that formed the community, and preserved the integrity, if not the dignity of those places. The unique and diverse cultures within these communities are analogous to the biodiversity of a virgin forest. To maintain a healthy forest, niches between dominant species provide an alternative genetic stock in the event that the majority falls prey to disease or predation.
All of this I say in past tense, because by most people’s standards it seems that social diversity of the West is rapidly devolving into a monoculture of efficiency. Whether by choice or circumstance, efficiency is rapidly insinuating itself as the primary principle governing American and European culture. The principle of market efficiency dictates that uniformity maximizes access. But, a uniform and monolithic efficiency that allows us all to partake equally in commercial opportunities can also uproot cultures that are uniquely tied to a specific environment if those cultures do not meet the goal of efficiency. The free market is not free, but with each individual cost cumulatively chipping away from the foundation of diversity, allows a deadly substitution of the losses that lead to an increasingly oblivious and unsustainable world.
A snowball rolling down hill grows in mass, momentum, and force until it can remove anything in its path. In the same way, corporations and other monolithic cultures focus energy on the acquisition of greater mass and capital to eliminate obstacles in achieving a superior corporate objective. Integrity, not dignity, is the preferred vehicle for achieving corporate goals. Integrity is rule based and measurable, thus progress can be assessed, and efficiency can be pursued. Making things more uniform allows us to spend more time on other pursuits, even if that pursuit is in finding ways to further increase efficiency.
No law (except the remorseless survival of the fittest) dictates that the dominant culture must predate and suppress alternative cultures into niches, and then to eradicate them. It is, however, in the short sighted interest of the prevailing monoculture to ensure mutations or predecessors are diminished. Such suppression prevents the cross-pollination of ideas that could alter what is understood, superficially desired, and controllable. In a dignified society, it is the protection and nurturing of diversity that is the measure of health and progress of a community, not our capacity to predict outcomes by creating uniformity.
To maintain some control over the paving of unique cultural artifacts and mores (we once found so copious in travels off the interstate highways) we attempt to harness the efficient corporate juggernaut and steer it away from its relentless drive toward greater ubiquity but, we are failing. It is in the last bastions of off-the-freeway communities, the backwoods of rural America, in the unique customs still practiced in homes that these precious natural and cultural materials remain perilously perched in niches to inform the diversity of culture.
It is our obligation to natural and social dignity to protect these niches from the corporate snowball rolling downhill, to inform others, and encourage the practice of the inefficient dignity of learning and sharing diversity that will keep us as a culturally diverse and healthy society.
My blog life has me pondering the imponderable – fist under chin – bearing down on the ideas of how we should be and how we should treat one another. I am not trying to deceive the reader – in that I really do try to practice what I preach.
In all honesty – philosophy is never far from my mind – but, my life is significantly more diverse in events and decisions. It is more that I choose not to write about the tedium of living – protecting my stupidity and ignorance – and the minor victories that come my way… But, the reason I believe the way that I do is based on this life I am living – a life that continually informs and reinforces the philosophy I espouse.
I think that I would like to take some of the cover off of my life. I have always been very protective of my privacy. I do not want to create a exhibitionist spectacle. But, so often an event occurs that leads to a tangential idea – and the only thing I end up writing about is the idea, not the event. Without the context, it is not possible to view the validity of perspective from where the idea grew. This may be great for an analytical thesis, but it does little to encourage normative dialog – and I would honestly like to know what others think.
So, here goes…
About 3 weeks ago, Barb and I went to Nebraska to visit her mother who is thinking about moving into assisted living. Her mother and I are pretty good friends – and I wanted to be there for her. Barb would probably have gone without me – but, I wanted the time with her – just to check out how she was doing. Other than being the reason we were there to begin with, this description has little to do with the status of Barb’s mother. It has to do with me.
I have always been drawn to this place – a place many would see as a small and slowly dying town in the middle of the corn and bean fields of rural Nebraska. Some would say it is “conveniently located in the middle of nowhere”, and has little going for it – except the cost of living that allows a 3 bedroom house to be rented for as little as $300. (see the blog post “America and the Culture of Now”)
It is true that the most prominent thing is the sound of whistles from endless coal trains heading full from Wyoming and returning empty from electrical plants to the south and east. (Read John McPhee’s book, “Uncommon Carriers“). But, what it is not seen in a passing glance is the history of families who still support the town for their basic needs – the church, the grocery the hardware, seed supply and farm supplies. “Achievement Day” each summer still celebrates the spirit of life on the prairie. There remains a Women’s Club that maintains the public library, a Masonic Lodge, an American Legion Post, a Boy Scout Troop, and a 4-H Club.
It is a town with so much potential.
Three days before we got there, the owner of the cafe “The Base Hit” died of a heart attack in the kitchen. For years I have looked at that cafe as a real oddity – in a town of 300, how in the world can it stay open? But, for all the time I have gone – going on 14 years – it has been open. For almost as long there has been a sign in the window “For Sale By Owner.”
It has a bar, and is connected to a converted gas station – where the roll-up doors for the 2 bay garage are permanently closed, and that space is now used primarily for a packed Sunday buffet consisting of 3 meats, canned vegetables and prepared salads.
Barb and I walked through the small town just sort of taking stock one morning – and realized that there was little holding us in DC… Both of our lives are in a state of transition at the moment. It is the first time that one of us has not been career hopping, and the first time that we really feel concerned about the way the economy seems to be devolving.
To be continued…
Change of scene – 25 years ago – I am a relatively young man, working as the program director of a juvenile delinquency prevention program in Houston, Texas. I taught inner city kids how to grow organic vegetables and ran something called “The Center for Self Reliant Living.” The center was only a shadow of what I wished for it to be.
I had grown up with gardens and around farm animals – I learned how to drive a tractor as I grew up in the south. My grandparents lived pretty much hand to mouth. My grandfather was a mechanic in his own corrugated metal building not far from his house. He had a “pick your own garden” with purple hull peas and corn, and grew a few turnips next to “the shop”, skinning them with his Barlow knife, slicing off bites for lunch.
I have this history that is so far afield of what I have been doing for so many years. I am, perhaps, a bit too complicated in my thinking – but this does not match the lifestyle that makes me most comfortable. In the past few years I have been slowly trying to expand the idea of “self-reliance” – gardens, of course, but beekeeping, beer making, and cheese making and canning – living in a more sustaining way. Part of this came from East Texas, and part from my experience in Crimea with the Crimean Tatar – where lives lived so fully – so richly – so close to the earth, families bringing together their lot to find community – sharing skills to create a whole that has failed to leave my mind and heart. Half a world apart – they are more similar than distinctly different.
Barb was born and grew up in this town, and went to school here. Most of family and childhood friends are still here. For her, this town remains deep in her heart, and we return as often as we can. To that end we are thinking about buying the cafe in Davenport, Nebraska. We spoke to the owners wife, and she would like to continue to work there as we slowly make changes. This would provide her with an income to cook and manage the place.
Over time – perhaps a year, maybe more – maybe less, we want to change the name to a brand – Have special nights where we could do smoked meats and barbecue or Cajun food – or maybe Greek, or French, or Indian. Use the kitchen for catering special events in the region.
Not only is there a gas station/ garage attached to the cafe’ – but there is also another building next door with an open area that would make a good beer garden. A place where we could have Thursday night movies projected in the in the spring, summer and fall. I could see brewing beer (and in Nebraska it is legal to distill spirits.) But, this is only anchor, of sorts, to so much more.
I want to recreate the “Center for Self Reliant Living” that uses appropriate technologies reduce our impact on resources, to teach and inform. We want a bed and breakfast, and to grow food that is self sustained and organic. Eventually we would like to grow into more properties in the town. Appropriate architecture and solar panels, bio-diesel, wind generators – all used to power the center buildings and – hopefully, eventually – used by businesses in the town. As ideas become reality, we hope to shape a destination for the region, providing opportunities for people from the surrounding towns and cities to come and visit.
I know I can get land there for a reasonable price – a couple of acres that we can afford near town. We want to plant some fruit trees (for sure apples and pears, and I hope plums, peaches, apricots and cherries) and brambles (blackberries and raspberries) on part of it. These could be the focus of a pick-your-own business, as well as to supply the restaurants and grocery stores, as well the ingredients for pies – or dried and sold, or used in various ways.
Because much of the land near town has not been used for production for many years, it could be certified organic. I would then grow veggies for the cafe – possibly develop an agreement with other cafes and grocers in surrounding towns and see if I could not make a go of it. I would like to grow grains and hops for a brewery and sell to locals (and via the internet) for home brewing. I would also like to use a small part for of the land free range chickens for meat and eggs.
I would join with the World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farms (WWOOF) and invite interns from around the world to come and participate in the whole operation. (I recently learned that there is a waiting list for foreign participants wanting to come to the states for the experience.)
To Be Continued…
Thus far, all I have been writing about are ideas for Barb and me – the bigger ideas and ambitions for us is to be a part of revitalizing the town – in this case, her home town. We want to focus all of this creative interest into a nonprofit effort for economic and community development to bring jobs to the community. We want to participate in creating a destination for Lincoln and Omaha and Kearney, and regionally to Kansas City, Denver and Oklahoma City – a place that can provide weekend experiences – where people can shop, learn a skill or craft, relax in a bed & breakfast – with everything that is done being open to the public – from cooking to catering to farming to brewing to cheese making – for people to come and become part of the community.
The Center For Self Reliant Living should work hand-in–hand the county and state economic development agencies to define projects that support the historic culture and fabric of the community, while creating jobs, resources, and venues for increasing revenues – thus, future opportunities for growth. In many cases, the Center for Self Reliant Living will support competing businesses that have competing interests, because diversity of offerings often enhances the quality of the whole.
In doing this we want to open all of this up to the other citizens of the town and region to bake, offer rooms, to learn to make cheeses and quilts or even brew root beer, and then have a venue through which to sell their goods. If everyone participated a little, the results would be amazing. This would also open a whole new audience for agri-tourism where people could visit family farms, getting an education and taste of farm life, and the families hosting them could gain supplemental income.
As a destination for some city folk there will need for things that fit more discriminating pallets. We would like work with local producers for grass fed beef and raw milk for cheese making. This would be an excellent opportunity for others in the community to build their own businesses; the local grocery could buy artisanal cheeses (some of which would be made by the community) and more expensive and regional wines, and creating venues for fishing and hunting for guests – helping the local economy with home grown guide services, supplies and housing.
A blacksmith shop that teaches classes in smithing, can generate additional revenues to an innkeeper, a grocer, and a restaurant, the smithy could create pieces to be sold to visitors, and repair tools and implements for local businesses. Neighborhood gardens coordinating with restaurants can supplement income and ensure fresh vegetables are available for visitors and residents alike (A chalkboard could say “The squash and tomatoes you are eating today come from Annie Smith’s Garden,”, or “Today’s featured pot roast was grown in Bill Jones’ field.”) Quilting, once a mainstay of the culture and lifestyle in the farming community, could be revitalized as a learning venue and a revenue generator as a cottage industry.
We identify people and companies in the region who want to participate and we encourage visitors to visit these businesses, and in turn, we all share in the advertising. Competition becomes more regional than local. We all work together to grow the county’s economy – begin to breathe life again into the town of Davenport and this, in turn, leads to people exploring an even greater area – adding commerce to a wider venue – to Carlton, Hebron, Bruning, Edgar and beyond.
As far as interns go, we would like to adopt the closest community college (like Central Community College) to provide internships in the breadth of their offerings (including but not limited to Horticulture, Culinary Arts, Management, Web Design) to help refine the presence of our effort. We would like to provide employment and training opportunities for high school students during the school year, and perhaps for summer jobs in each of the venues of the Center. In return, we would like to work with the school to close the loop and bring produce that was grown by their student interns into their cafeterias through school supported agriculture.
The opportunities for community development are much greater than just training our youth. To grow a community there needs to be a diversity of activities and opportunities for the residents as well as the visitors. Both adult and family venues should, eventually, run the breadth of the seasons. There can be spring and fall festivals, and summer and winter courses.
I want to dig a pond for aquaculture and angling that can be used as an ice skating rink – with a big fire pit in the winter – with s’mores, and a hot chocolate concession. If possible, a sense of joy, thankfulness, and should always be a significant part of the planning and implementation of all that is done. When it is there – it shows.
Each year for as long as anyone in the town can remember there is something called “Achievement Day”, and I want to be able to be a part of the town to restore some to of the achievement that should be part of a vital community… This annual celebration is held in the town park – and I think a great addition to that space would be the dance hall venue. We want to share the expense to create a rough cut wood-framed dance hall – with ceiling fans, neon lights and screen walls that can be used for polkas and country dances. In time I would like to attract popular names to come and celebrate the renewal of Davenport.
A final thing that we would like to create – not as an after –thought, but as a tribute to the land that is the foundation of all that this town and the county are made of – we want to seek out marginal land to slowly restore a contiguous section of this tall grass prairie for teaching, meditation and research.
To Be Continued…
For over 30 years I have worked toward an idea called “The Center for Self Reliant Living.” The reaction has ranged between two extremes – a fear that I was interested in building bunkers and storing up food for Armageddon to the right, and a fear that I would climb to the top of a tree and pronounce my divorce from technology and society, and live as a hermit in some inaccessible corner of the world to the left. Either way such actions would require my estrangement from social interaction, and this would in fact, be contrary to what I believe self reliance is all about.
Self reliance is not of the individual – it is of the community. One person saved from Armageddon does not mean that they have actually survived. Survival is a much thicker thread of life and living and culture. I believe we are placed on this earth to share with others, to grow in our understanding of the human condition and use all the tools at our disposal to make the world a place that nurtures diversity of thought, and encourages us to take healthy risks. I am not talking about driving fast and letting go of the wheel, or smoking, or doing anything to excess. I am talking about sharing our thoughts and feelings – to dream and to admit that we do not know it all. To be sustainable – we need one another.
Self-reliance focuses on skills to obtain and create food, shelter and security. But, if all we do is amass goods and knowledge and live in isolation, it is as good as not living at all. If we are threatened to the point of surrounding ourselves with others who think as we do, arming ourselves with emotional and material weaponry, then security will always be something we chase and never possess. Self reliance is not a proposition to encourage behaviors and lifestyles that drain energy from our communities. There are more ideas and inspirations that we have yet to experience that would add, not detract from the health and sustainability of a community.
Self reliance is also laughter and communication and growing in our understanding of the world around us. Self reliance is learning new recipes, discovering new cultures and enriching our lives with new ideas and outlook, or listening to music on instruments we have never before seen. This introduction of ideas and sensory experiences helps to propagate new ideas, reinforce old ones, and generally cause each of us to grow in our understanding, and test new ideas about how we can make things better for all of us.
In its own way, this is exactly what the Chautauqua of the 19th and early 20th centuries provided communities isolated from opportunities for entertainment and enlightenment. Considered the “the most American thing in America” by Teddy Roosevelt, Chautauquas provided settlers of the Midwest lectures on contemporary topics, history and civics, debates, theater, music and preachers that were more readily available on the east coast.
The truest sense of Chautauqua to me is the sharing of skills and knowledge and inspiration with one another. It does not need to be under the tent of a traveling show. If we create an environment that encourages the entrepreneurial spirit, artistic passion, spiritual inspiration, the mastery of our talents, we are doing more to achieve sustainability and self reliance than any amount of energy expended to protect ourselves from what we do not know.
To be self – reliant is to be creative, resourceful and open to discovery.
Self reliance is self sustaining. Self reliance is community.
Asan and Venera Khenjamentov were married a week ago. It was a lovely ceremony. But, it was also a cultural experience that continues to fill gaps in my knowledge of the Crimean Tatar on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. (Please visit the Blog – Crimea River and Other Words for more)
The Crimean Tatar were the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea when Catherine the Great took her grand tour in 1783. They were, and remain Moslem. They were ruled by a Khan of the Ottoman Empire at the time, and the culture of Crimea is steeped in the Turkic architecture, dress, and language that – though uniquely Tatar – is similar to going to Texas and seeing the strong influence of the Mexican culture in the building, food, and everyday language. It is deeply ingrained to the point of being indistinguishable as to who is using it – Anglo or Latino. Take the Alamo for example.
I have known Asan for 9 years. When I came to Crimea the first time as a Fulbright Fellow in 2001, Asan was a freshman in the Taurida National Autonomous University in English Philology. I would come to the English classes and reflect on, and answer questions about American culture. Although they saw enough of the idealized, even caricatured culture of the US on television – in poorly translated Bay Watch and Columbo reruns, I was the first native speaker of American English many of the students had ever met.
Asan Kenjamentov in 2001
Asan was an exception. Having had an exceptional English language education from the madrasa in Bakhchisarai, he went to the US for his senior year of high school in Ticonderoga, New York. On the day we first met in his class Asan invited me to his hometown on the Black Sea coast. The town’s name is “Vesyolye” (or “Happy Village”, and is a characteristically insensitive russification of the original Crimean Tatar name for the town, “Gud Luk.”) I took Asan up on his offer, looking at it as an opportunity to conduct an ethnographic study of the indigenous people of the highly environmentally vulnerable Crimean Mountains. (See images from this study in this blog.)
On my first visit to his family I was struck by their openness and kindness to me. Over the years I grew to love this family, and with it came my inclusion as a family member in a culture, friendships and experiences, exemplifying the generosity expressed to all who visit there.
At the end of World War II Stalin deported the entire Crimean Tatar population from their homeland in a ploy to repopulate the Black Sea region with Russians. At gunpoint, families were forced into cattle cars and shipped off to Uzbekistan. Only after protests at the Kremlin in the 1980’s were a limited number able to return to Crimea. The repatriates were able to return – but, not to the coast of the Black Sea, only to the plains in the north. Both Asan and Venera’s families were among the first to return.
Venera was raised in the small farming village of Tymoshenko between Simferopol and Djankoy in the plains of northern Crimea. This is one of the first villages populated by returning Crimean after 40 years in exile. It reminds me a lot of villages in the Midwest of the US, and is not unlike the congregation of small towns like Davenport in Thayer County, Nebraska. There are fields stretching as far as the eye can see, with grain elevators and the occasional livestock feedlot punctuating the horizon.
It was here that the first events of the wedding would take place beginning Saturday afternoon. But first I am returning to my adopted family and the village by the sea.
I arrived at the village of Gud Luk at 4:30 pm on Friday after a 3 hour train from DC to New York, an overnight plane to Kiev, an overnight train to Simferopol, and a 2 and a half hour drive through the Crimean Mountains to the village.
Under the almond trees of Anife’s house (Asan’s mother) the preparations for the groom’s wedding party on Sunday in full swing. Carrots being grated, eggplant and onion being sliced and lamb and beef being ground, these will be the ingredients for the main course of pelmeni (dumplings), sarma (stuffed grape leaves), dolmas (stuffed peppers), and lagman (a vegetable beef or lamb stew.)
I burst through the door of the house forgetting to remove my shoes – finding Anife having coffee with friends and family in the living room. It had been 3 years since we saw one another and she jumped up laughing, to give me a big hug. We sat as Asan’s younger sister, and recently married, Halide brought us a pile of 20 or more cheberiki – light fried dough half moons filled with lamb, onion, and spices, and tea. After being filled with good food and conversation I went to sleep off the too many hours on the road, returning to the house until just before we leave for the wedding, the following afternoon.
At about 3:30 on Saturday we assembled at Anife’s house for the 3 hour drive to Tymoshenko, and the beginning of the highly ritualized and fun centered wedding festivities. There was a car hired to drive the groom and the best man, and trailing behind in a minivan (a 12 seater – seating 14) carrying the entourage of friends and family who “have Asan’s back.” It is traditional that the parents of the marriage families only attend the party that they host, and so Anife and her siblings stay behind to prepare for Sunday’s party. Halide also stays behind, as she and her new husband are practicing, devout Moslems and the vodka served at this post-Soviet Moslem event is enough to prevent their attendance.
The day had threatened rain, and the drive was sodden with intermittent showers – portents of the next 48 hours.
We arrive at the Bride’s home at 6:30pm. Unfolding ourselves from the van, we are ushered into the Bride’s Family’s Coffee; a welcoming minute to collect ourselves before the festivities begin.
Walking in, we moved past the party tent – where 350 celebrants were already listening to a raucous accordion, violin and organ trio playing traditional Crimean Tatar and popular Russian dance songs. You can still hear it in the background as we now sit and drinking dark coffee from demitasse cups and share light conversation, until the bride arrives in full gown and veil.
The bride is lovely and demure, and it strikes me for the first time in all of the weddings I have attended that Asan and Venera are the King and Queen. Its not that this is any different than any other wedding from the stand point of how that hold themselves. It is just that the day with the groom and bride presiding over their families and friends lends itself to kindness, dignity and dispensation that is attributed to royalty –and I know that they will share by the bucketful.
Together we rise, and begin the processional out to the tent. Asan and Venera in the lead, then the Best Man and Maid of Honor, guiding us to past the band, and all of the others now seated and waiting, to the table for the groom’s family.
The room is bright, the music loud, and the bench table is brimming with fish and beef dishes and salads and juice, water and vodka. Runners are poised throughout the tent to resupply food or drink as it runs out at the tables. With the seating of the bride, groom, and entourage at the end of the long hall of a tent, an elder of the family takes the microphone to announce the wedding, wishing the couple well and pronouncing blessings for their future.
Heart Of Stone 