The Henna Ceremony
 
 

 Powerful forces beyond our control were quickly taking hold of the Moroccan trip. They are called relatives. Leila has a near infinite number of these forces and wasn't capable of more than the occasional influence. Consequently, we were at a different relative's house our second night for the henna ceremony, and we were scheduled to go to yet a different relative's house the following evening for the actual wedding reception. Not wanting to miss out, yet another relative invited us to his 'farm' for a reception the day after the reception and Leila's uncle, after learning that we were headed to Fez the day after that, invited us to his farm for 'lunch' on our way to Fez. This was fantastic as far as Noreen and I were concerned. The opportunity to see how different cultures celebrate their good times is something that one rarely gets to experience first hand. We were on a `high-speed train' and felt privileged to have seats in the front row.

Apparently, it is an old tradition in Morocco for the woman to have her hands painted with henna on the day before the main wedding celebration. Henna makes a semi-permanent stain on the skin kind of like potassium permanganate (or brown ink). The henna is a dark green-brown paste which can be laid down with toothpick-like implements on the skin in various designs. (N: They used to use tooth-pick like instruments, but have modernized and now use a needle-less syringe like a cake icing decorating tube.) The henna artist then paints amazingly intricate designs on the hands (and traditionally the feet) of the bride-to-be. Words are not sufficient to describe these designs. (N: They typically make intricate geometric designs, as they are not allowed to draw images of people or animals -- a couple of the designs did include`flowers.') We have one good picture of Leila's painted hands. If I can figure out how to run the scanner back at the lab, and if I'm very lucky, I'll get a picture of the results here.

<Belkora-Hahn's Henna'ed Hands>
( Hey! looks like I got lucky!)

Most of the women were dressed in Kaftans. This is the traditional formal dress of Moroccan women. The outfits vary dramatically from region to region even within Morocco. Kara and Ann were able to borrow some from Leila's Mom and relatives to wear for the next night's big bash. Heidi already had a very similar type of dress which she had received as a gift from the people she'd stayed with when she was doing her research in Kenya.

All of the females sequester themselves with the bride and can also get a henna design (if they wish) on their hands. But not as much as the bride. After the henna is put on and until it dries (N: rather like mud), you cannot touch anything or use your hands at all or you will smudge the design and leave a smudged stain. (N: Also, during all the henna painting, a male servant in traditional garb, complete with a fez, keep feeding the women with cookies and tea.) About the time they finished covering Leila's hands (N: which took only 40 minutes per hand -- but over an hour to dry!) and the other women guests' had their turns, the relatives had put on some rather good North African music and began to sing and dance. Apparently, some of Leila's relatives were also taking belly dancing lessons and the party commenced!

Quickly the Western girls were caught in the fray and started to dance as well. Noreen was a bit slow on the uptake because she is always concerned when she might look foolish and when people are taking pictures. (N: hey, I was getting my henna bracelet done and taking photos!) Most of the men didn't dance until later, so I didn't either. Randy had so scared me with all the rules the night before that I wasn't going to do anything that no one else was doing that night. Leila's dad was right out there dancing the whole time, but he's the father of the bride so that didn't count.

Kara was the other star of this story though. She started to imitate what the other girls were doing. Very quickly the other women there started to talk hurriedly to Selma and Leila (who were the only two who spoke both English and French). Apparently they were very curious as to where Kara had learned how to belly dance. Kara said that she was just imitating them. They didn't seem to believe her. They insisted that Kara was very good at this. Apparently Kara has an Egyptian style when she belly dances. Kara may have been overcome with the flattery because she really missed a golden opportunity to make something up that would have subsequently became a legend. But that's OK because the crowning moment in this story is when Leila pulls Kara off to teach her how to belly dance. Kara has the pictures! I have seen them. Leila had better hope that her relatives never discover this URL and read that the Kentucky Belle had to teach the Moroccan Bride how to belly dance in a proper Egyptian style. Leila would never live that down.

Then, the feeding commenced, once again ...

Randy was given the task of ensuring that Leila didn't starve, since she couldn't do anything with her hands except hold them out in the air. She made it to the wedding ceremony the next day, so he must have done OK. The fact that we were once again inundated with 'envelopy things' probably helped Randy out a bit. There was much more food of course--but it was all kind of a blur by this time, so the only thing I can remember with certainty are the envelopy things. (N: let's see, there were a chicken dish with olives, a chopped liver dish -- my favorite! -- couscous with a carmelized onion toppings, plus probably a couple other dishes I can't remember either!) It takes at least a good week or two for the henna design to wear off. Leila described it as kind of a badge that tells everyone that you were at a wedding.

Sometime around 1 a.m. Leila's dad had the bus driver take us back to the Hilton. I suspect the party continued for another hour or so but by that time it really didn't matter anymore. But the fact that the same bus guy was there again (who was the same bus guy we had the day before and who ran us all around Rabat that day) was a fact that was beginning to bubble in the curiosity cauldron just prior to my losing consciousness.

The Next Morning:

I had to find out more about this bus driver (Jamal). Apparently he had been hired by Leila's dad for our whole trip. The reason that he was always available when we needed him was because he was sleeping and taking his breaks in his bus. An informal poll of the others revealed that I was not the only one who felt uncomfortable with having human beings awaiting your beck and call. During normal working hours is one thing, but basically to have someone to cater to your desires when you are out just having a good time at 1 a.m. is something quite different. We gave the driver extra money. I suspect everyone else did too. Still felt weird about it though despite Jeff's, Leila's, and Abbie's assurances that he's being well paid and that he will do quite well from this 1-1/2 weeks of carting us around. This was a general theme in Morocco, where human labor was far cheaper than it should be. We tried to compensate by being generous, but generosity never seemed to be enough.