What a week it was.
More school visits than I can count. Got to see 3 of my current sponsored students at their schools.
Then there was the wedding on Friday.
It was AMAZING. Every time the women wearing the silver moved, the jewelry made very pleasant sounds. Quite a bit dangled, so it was lucky my cats weren't there. They've have interpreted all the jewelry as cat toys.
I was slightly surprise the bride wasn't wearing silver jewelry, until the groom and his family and friends showed up. They brought her jewelry with them on a large tray suspended beneath a bamboo pole. (sadly, this wasn't put on until late in the evening, so I had to settle for pics and videos). There were piles of other gifts, including a couple of thoroughly tied up geese also suspended from a bamboo pole.
My limited Mandarin was useless, since most of the talking, shouting, singing, etc. was in the local Miao dialect. Songs were sung, questions were asked and answered, the groom and some of his friends had to try playing jump rope wearing their socks on a slightly spiky rubber mat. Finally, after the groom and his friends had to down several rounds of alcohol, he got down on one knee. It looked like the ceremony was going to end quickly.
Instead, the one of the bridesmaids shoved a phone in front of his face and demanded he start reading some lengthy text. From context, it appeared to be a detailed and highly amusing set of wedding vows (there didn't appear to be any vows required from the bride). He finally finished and tried to present flowers to the bride. She pushed them back and extended one hand, with her ring finger slightly raised. Once he gave her the ring, he was finally allowed to give her the flowers and complete the ceremony.
We all then wend around to the courtyard beside the house for the wedding feast.
I waited until the wedding feast was wrapping up and some people were leaving before sending a message to the bride and to the girl I sponsored (she's now graduated and is also the bride's best friend) thanking them for the most wonderful birthday present ever. My girl was missing at this point and we were walking back to the cars. She wrote back to ask what I meant. I told her it was my birthday, and that I didn't say anything earlier since I didn't want to hijack a wedding. She told me she was dropping her sister off and that she'd be back in 10 minutes. Then the bride and groom showed up where we had the cars and also congratulated me.
My girl's skills are impressive. Somehow, in a tiny little village that's in the middle of nowhere, she found a small birthday cake for me. There wasn't time to eat it at that point. We walked into a field across the road to take a few pics and 4 older Miao women from the groom's family decided this looked fun, so joined us.
In the evening, my charity group did the most unsubtle surprise party ever. After we got back from the wedding, I went for a walk in "Old Town", which is the tourist area around the river. One of the charity's office girls started texting me on WeChat wanting to know when I'd be back. I didn't have a specific plan (other than relaxing and eating some VERY rare reduced-fat Cheez-Its while sitting somewhere with a nice view). I told her I might stay another hour or so, unless there was some specific plan for the group to go do something. She said there was no plan, but also kept saying I should come back ASAP. I did stop to enjoy the view from one of the bridges while finishing my Cheez-Its and then started working my way out of the maze of streets in Old Town. As I was coming back, she kept wanting to know how much longer I'd be. I could have shared my GPS location, but by this point, I'd figured out what was up. Instead of GPS, I sent an occasional picture of the shops I was walking past (she was a sponsored girl from FengHuang before moving to Dongguan, so knows the area).
There was no chance to sneak into the hotel. She was waiting in the doorway. In the elevator, I told her I needed to run to my room to use the restroom. Even before getting my door open, I could hear the crowd 2 doors down in the room the charity's founder was in. Since it was a long walk in a drizzle, I took a moment to change my shirt, but not before sending a message saying "I think I'll take a shower, see you in 15 minutes" - just to hear the anguished reaction from down the hall.
As expected, there was a crowd wedged into the founder's room. They also had a bigger cake. After blowing out the candles, I ran back to my room to grab the cake my girl had given me. I should have brought it with me when I first entered and said - "Does anyone want cake?" while walking in, but only thought of that later.