Many months ago, when I originally arrived in Jordan, I was told about the traditional Arab affinity for firing off weaponry at weddings and the dangerous consequences that have resulted from it, but without any specific details. A couple nights ago, I was sitting with Wamidh at his house, after he and his wife invited me over for dinner, and he started showing me some videos on his computer, including this one here.

Here’s a link in case the Firefox Flash Bug is preventing you from seeing the embedded video.

It was the first time that I’d seen video-recorded evidence of the horrible mistakes that can happen when guns are a major part of a wedding ceremony. Wamidh read the Arabic description to me from the side of the Youtube page; it seems that the man had just finished shooting off a 9mm into the air, and his two-year-old son picked it up off the table and started waving it around, trying to be “like daddy” like any little kid would want to do. As you see, the kid shot it directly upward and into his stomach. The man was taken to the hospital, but he had already died on arrival, as the bullet had gone up and through his heart.

This all happened in the city of Aleppo, Syria, which is only a few hours north from where I’m about to be heading now for the weekend. Dozan wa Awtar has an international choir concert in Damascus, Syria’s capitol, where we’ll be singing with the national Syrian and Lebanese choirs. More information when I get back on Sunday!