Thursday, December 15, 2011

An Invitation To Become a Work of Art

On my way here to the cyber today, I was greeted by a young woman. I stopped to exchange greetings with her. As I was doing so, I noticed that she had henna on her hands. It looked like the person who had drawn it onto her hands had done a pretty good job. Suddenly she asked me if I wanted henna on my hands.

Although Moroccan girls and women often have henna on their hands, I don't think I've ever seen Moroccan men with henna on their hands. But then I remembered that my friend and former fellow PCV, Ben, had had henna on his hands, but just a big blotch of it, not crafted into any sort of design. Thinking of how he had had it on his hands, I agreed, somewhat hesitantly, to have some henna put onto my hands.

I then saw that the young woman's friend standing next to her had one of the syringes used to apply henna to the skin. I extended my hand to her, slightly concerned about what she was going to draw on my hand, thinking that Moroccan women have designs of henna drawn onto their hands, but that Moroccan men don't have henna designs drawn onto their hands.

However, soon after she started drawing on my hand, it became clear what she was writing. When I discerned that she was writing an "A" on my hand, I started laughing, since I had realized that she was going to write my Arabic name, "Abdu," or "Abdo," on my hand, which in fact she did. I thanked her, appreciating her generosity in sharing her henna with me, and her sense of humor in writing my Arabic name on my hand.

Moroccan women usually use henna for purposes other than writing people's names. They use it often for at least a couple of purposes. One is to color the skin and fingernails. As I've mentioned, women use henna on the skin to draw designs on women's hands. However, Moroccan women also apply it to their hair, so as to give their hair an orange tint. People have also applied it to leather, wool and silk. I've also seen it applied onto pottery here in Morocco, though the potter who I saw doing so down in the town of Tamegroute, which is well-known for its pottery, told me that only potters of that region apply henna to pottery; he said that potters elsewhere in Morocco don't apply henna to pottery. The henna plant is grown here in Morocco.

When it is applied to the hands, one has to wait (less than an hour) for the very dark brown henna to dry. After not too long, the gooey dark brown henna hardens, and will fall off very soon if you don't wash it off. Indeed, as I have been typing this blog entry, pieces of the hardened henna have kept falling in front of the keyboard on which I have been typing. At this point, most of the dark brown hardened henna has fallen off, revealing, on the palm of my hand, orange-rust colored letters spelling "Abdo."

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