THE WEDDING

At the wedding banquet people stood or sat along the walls of a large room. People just stared at the food on a table that was at least thirty feet in length. Touryalai warned me that he would walk over to get a plate of food for me. At some given signal (I don't know to this day what that signal was), people ran to the table and grabbed for their food. It was a frightening and mad dash that looked like a brawl. Touryalai returned to me, smiling, holding out my plate of food and said, "Now you know why I went to get your food."