All the Colors of Henna

After a long week of classes and presentations, there was no way I was traveling this weekend, and so I decided to settle in for a nice quiet weekend at home.  Friday seemed to last forever as my class and the presentations in that class seemed to drag on forever, but once I was finally done, I realized I really didn't have anywhere to be.  In the end, I decided to stay in the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning where we have our classes and talk with some of my fellow SIT-ers about home, boyfriends, and what movies and TV shows we missed the most.  One of the girls brought up this American movie she had found along the Souk Street where we both live.  I had never heard of the title before, Toy Boy according to the package, but it seemed interesting so we decided to watch it.  Most of the movie went as expected, but the ending did not fit the "feel good" formula I was looking for at the moment.  Boy was a Casanova, met a girl who changed him, however, the girl refused him so she could marry a rich New Yorker.  The last scene is, and I kid you not, a toad swallowing a mouse.  Not exactly the uplifting movie I needed to help me get through being just a tad homesick during the week.

Despite that horrific start to the weekend, things turned out fairly fantastic.  After days and weeks of rain, the sky finally cleared over Rabat, and I spent most of the day Saturday lying around on the terrace and talking to my oldest sister, Amal, about just about everything from clothes to the beach.    Not to give anyone the wrong idea about study abroad, but this apparent laziness did give me ample opportunity to practice my French and learn some more Arabic.  In the summer, she doesn't keep on her jeans and long-sleeves, but dons an entire new wardrobe that's kind of like mine in the summer.  I was initially surprised that she also wears miniskirts, shorter shorts, and tank tops in the summer because I had thought all Moroccan women were more conservative.  However, my family has definitely proven me wrong, and that there is definitely more than one side to Morocco and Moroccan women.  In the suggested packing list for the program, SIT had told me to pack conservative clothing and play it safe, so to speak, so as not to draw attention.  I can definitely understand their concern, and I do know a fair number of women who dress far more conservatively than my sisters.  Not to say that they are constantly wearing low-cut shirts etc., but instead they wearing skinny jeans, tight sweaters (since it's relatively cold here for them), and miniskirts (with tights of course)!  Not exactly what I had expected.  I was even more shocked to find that my sister not only wears bikinis, but also has 4 or 5.  I guess that's why we do the homestays.
   
During these conversations of various sorts, we did not only talk about clothes, but also the subject of dying hair came up.  I had been considering making the switch to red prior to leaving for Morocco, but decided not to do so before departing for an Islamic country where I didn't know what to expect.  I have never dyed my hair before, but my sister apparently dyes her hair every summer and sometimes in the winter.  So I figured I could trust her judgment on all things hair and dye related.  I told her that I wanted to dye my hair, and the next thing I know my entire Sunday was planned out for me.  We woke up around 9 am and followed a very strict, albeit relaxed, schedule for the day:  First, we made sure the coiffeur could perform the change that day and at a good price, and then proceeded on to search the many street stalls selling hair and beauty supplies.  I had some trouble deciding which red to choose, but in the end there were only about 3 choices so it wasn't too difficult.  Then it was off to the coiffeur to have the goop, that is the hair dye, put into my hair, and then to the hamam to rinse all of said goop out of my hair.  When I emerged from the hamam to finally see what the dye had accomplished, I found a full head of bright red.

Mission accomplished! Most people commented that it looked like I had put henna in my hair, but I assured them otherwise.  After returning from the hamam about 4 hours later, I received a text message from an SIT friend saying that her sister was willing to give everyone henna for a small price.  I asked my sister if she wanted to come along, and she agreed, though after the hamam I think she would have rather slept.  Off I went yet again.  Henna is a very interesting form of art.  To be honest, I had no idea what exactly it was before coming to Morocco, but now I have officially met henna.  To start, it is a paste that is put on your hands, palm first, and it resembles clay but is slightly more liquid.  The henna artist squeezes this paste out of a syringe that has a small needle-like tip, and makes designs on your hands the same way a cake decorator would decorate a cake.  Mami and my sister said that real Moroccan henna is supposed to be made with very fine lines and follow a more geometric pattern.  The henna I got on Sunday was definitely nothing like what they described, but is still pretty nonetheless.  It has a more floral design reminiscent of Victorian wallpaper or fabric.

The henna itself doesn't seem to bother me so far, but what really got me was the fact that I had to leave the paste on my hands for about an hour.  For a person who can barely handle nail polish drying, an hour is a very long time.  Instead I decided to follow my sister's suggestion and put my hands over the stove to help it dry faster.  You know when it's time to take it off when the henna becomes clay-like and starts falling off your hands.  Then it's time to simply rub your hands to take all of it off.  Three pieces of advice from my family for anyone who is considering getting henna and wants it to last longer: 1) while it's drying spray perfume all over your hands, 2) after all the henna has come off, put oil of any kind on your hands, this will not only help it last longer but will help your hands endure the henna with flying colors on the softness scale, and 3) don't wash your hands with soap at all for the rest of the day.  My henna appears to be darker than my friend's who got hers at the same time, so I'll take this advice to be true until I see otherwise.  All that's left is to enjoy!