Baby Henna
Today a tiny moroccan lady was delivered to my cluttered Riad room by my beautiful Moroccan man, Faysal. And by tiny I mean she literally was a midget. She was doing henna for the manager of the Riad who was going to a party.
Moroccan women have Henna drawn on their hands and feet to celebrate special occasions. Like a birthday party, wedding, before a pregnant woman gives birth or if a good friend visits from out of town. Younger women get intricate floral designs, with tiny dots and swirls, while the older women typically get henna'd in thick color blocks on their the palms, the soles of their feet and their finger tips.
Traditionally henna is a bright red in color, but the longer you leave it on the skin the darker the henna stain becomes. Henna has been a celebratory tradition since biblical times. My muslim acupuncturist told me that women put henna on their heads, hands and feet to feel happy, since red is a color of vibrancy connected to the root chakra. "The reddish-blackish hues of henna were a symbolic representation of the human bloodstream and the blood energy of the earth as the very source of life" according to the book Rituals of Memory in Contemporary Arab Women's Writing.
The henna die itself comes from the flowering henna plant (duh.) that grows in tropic & subtropic area of Africa and Asia. It comes in powdered form and is traditionally combined with essential oils, mostly Euclayptus oil and rosewater, however most henna these days (especially the ones in D'jem al Fna square, are mixed with strong alcohol and other not-so-good chemicals)
I had heard about Khadija from Emma (my friend, mentor, boss…everything) ...Khadija the midget woman that did henna.
Emma painted her as a magic midget that had many other magical powers aside from her Henna skills. She said Khadija would look into her eyes like she knew the secret of the universe, and would hang on every word Emma said.
Emma is dying to take her Sahara with us. Khadija said she'd tie herself to the top of the roof rack of one of the 4x4's just to hitch a ride with us.
She was wearing a leopard print winter Jilaba (furry like one of those cheap but soft winter blankets) and a white hijab tied around her tiny head. Faysal and Khadija opened the door and stood there for a few moments as if I was a porcelain doll on a shelf. I'd been sitting in the same place on my sheet-less bed for the past 12 hours....at this point I felt more like a cave creature, desperate for the light of day.
She kissed my face over and over calling me "Gazella", a Moroccan term for beauty, (Referencing the now vanished Sahara Gazels that once roamed the Sahara). She stood in front of me arguing with Faysal in Arabic, saying he was a liar, I couldn't be his wife. So then he kissed me on the head to show her I belonged to him.
Faysal walked out of the room and then Khadija held my arm, looked deep into my eyes as if she wanted to tell me a secret. "Faysal Zwin Bezaf" she said in arabic over and and over again, as I said it back to her in enthusiastically in agree. "Faysal is so beautiful". It was our secret.
I don't really like henna actually. It smells weird, and as is fades on my skin it really just makes it look dirty. But there's no way I would pass up a chance meeting with Kadija. I had heard about her, and we needed to meet. Maybe she would have some magic to give me.
I sat down on the same bed I hadn't left all day and Khadija took my foot. I said to her "Shwikika", which means "A tiny tiny bit" in Arabic, while Faysal then continued to explain to her that I wanted a very tiny design.
Faysal hated Henna too, he can't stand the way it smells. He said when he was a baby and his mother had henna on her hands, he wouldn't eat from them.
Khadija took out her henna needle, and I placed my foot on the soft furry fabric of her dresss. The henna ladies here use what look like syringes stuffed with black mud to make the intricate henna designs. I don't mind needles, but it does feel a bit like a surgical operation when they use them.
She started to draw the design at my toes. She really isn't the best Henna artist, but the experience with Khadija is so enchanting that it doesn't really matter. She proceeded to draw an eye in the middle of my foot and told me it was Faysal's eye. He has beautiful eyes with eyebrows like Caterpillars. I kind of hated the design, but I loved Khadija, so it didn't matter.
I saw her in the street a few weeks later, with a small child that was just about her height. We kissed each other and I was so excited to see her again. She asked to come to the Riad and gestured with her hands, to tell me she wanted to come to do Henna at the Riad again. "Enshallah" I said, meaning "god willing" which is the perfect thing to say when you don't really know what else to say.