One year in and I have my second
Tabaski under my belt! Tabaski (also
known as Eid al-Adha) is one of the two major Muslim holidays celebrated in
Senegal. In my village, the celebration was a low key affair of praying at the
Mosque, dressing up, visiting neighbors, begging forgiveness, slaughtering
sheep and goats, cooking, feasting, and family.
Like celebrations all over the world half of the excitement was preparing
for the festivities. For weeks, the
village tailors sewed new clothes. Tufts
of synthetic hair caught in the breeze as women sat in hair braiding circles. And I endured the henna catastrophe.
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| My tabaski outfit. |
‘Henna’ is a dye from henna
flowers that creates a temporary tattoo used all over the world. I've had Middle Eastern-style henna, applied
in intricate designs with a piping bag like cake icing, several times back in
the United States. But Senegalese henna
is an entirely different process. Here,
you make a design on the bottom half of your feet or fingers by cutting
heavy-duty white plaster tape, sticking it onto the appendage, mixing henna
powder with water, plastering the goo on top of the tape design (like
spray-painting over a stencil), then you put plastic over the design, wait
hours, rinse the henna goo off, apply a 'blackening-agent,' reapply the
plastic, wait again, and voila!
Of course, this is all knowledge
accrued the hard way after a day of painful lessons. An acquaintance of mine offered to do my
henna and I jumped at the chance. She
told me what materials to buy (well, only half of them I later found out), to
drop my tape off with her the day before, and to meet early in the morning a
couple of days before Tabaski. The day
before, rather explosive diarrhea (more common here than I would like to admit)
kept me within dashing distance to my latrine so the tape did not get dropped
off at her house. Mistake #1. Between my upset stomach, lack of bread in my
village, greeting families, and a loose goat... my attempts to arrive early on
the day were thwarted. I arrived at
10:30. Mistake #2.
My friend and I got to work
immediately. Spread out on her floor, we
laid out the tape on heave plastic before cutting it into the design. She cut each strip into halves or thirds,
making thinner lines. Those only cut
into half-width lines were made into diamonds.
While cutting the tape, my attempts at small talk in Wolof were made
increasingly awkward as we realized I had not bought all the required
materials, namely a razor blade to speed up the cutting process. Mistake #3.
We decided to relocate to the
hospital in the neighboring village to apply my henna because I was late and my
friend was also planning to do the mid-wife's henna. As I'm good friends with the mid-wife and she
has excellent food, I agreed that this was a good idea... especially as we'd
get good lunch! While this may have
seemed a good idea, the relocation process turned out to be excruciatingly
slow, my friend needing to shower, apply lotion, try on all her outfits, reject
most of them, and apply two perfumes before we sashayed down the road at the
hottest part of the day. Mistake
#4.
After we slowly sashayed our way
to the hospital (since my friend is fashionable and therefore doesn't hurry),
greeted everyone, drank two glasses of tea apiece, and sat down to recommence
we were delayed another half an hour debating where to buy another razor
blade. Because I left the last one in
her room. Mistake #5. May I just point out that a) I was told we
were done cutting so I assumed we wouldn't need the blade anymore and b) there
is only one store so I'm not sure why everyone debated where to buy the new blade from.
We finally got started, my friend
putting the tape on my feet. Senegalese
patterns are on the bottom half of the feet, so one long strip of tape outlines
the edge of the pattern and beneath that you can get as creative as you'd
like. My pattern was fairly simple, with
just diamonds stuck on my feet like poka-dots underneath the outlined
edge. As we mixed my henna powder with
water, I realized my attempt at forethought, buying my henna a couple months in
advance, backfired. Henna doesn't have a
long shelf-life. Mistake #6.
Thankfully, I was in the care of
an expert so through the use of sugar and crossed fingers we were able to make
the old henna work. When we finished
layering henna on top of my tape pattern my friend began to lose patience. I didn't know I had to have plastic bags to
put over my feet. Mistake #7. Pleading that same ignorance, I didn't know I
needed socks to put over those bags
on my feet. Mistake #8. We scrounged up some bags but went without
socks as my only pair were at the bottom of my suitcase, never used since I
arrived in Senegal.
At this point, my friends were
losing patience with me. I could
understand their frustrations, doing a good deed for a friend... who was
woefully unprepared. But no one had told
me I'd need half these supplies! Just as
both feet were encased in plastic sacks, lunch was served. I was given a severe warning not to let my
feet touch the ground and given my own bowl while everyone else sat together
next door. I was feeling extremely self
conscious, overly apologetic, and I couldn't move.
An hour later, the sun had worked
its way onto the mat we were lying on so we moved it. My attempts at relocating were clumsy since I
did a strange crawling with my feet splayed in the air because I'd been told my
feet couldn't touch anything . After
generally slowing things down and getting in the way I realized there were
multiple sets of hostile eyes set on me.
My friend said "Why don't you just stand up and we'll move the
mat. Didn't you know your feet are
'hard' now?" Ugh. Mistake #9.
The afternoon consisted of
helping apply the tape design on the mid-wife's feet and letting my henna soak
into my skin. Everyone couldn't believe
my skin didn't absorb the henna as quickly as theirs did (I do have a lack of
pigmentation in my skin, every see me try to tan?). After hours of checking to see if the design
was stark enough on my skin, they peeled off the plastic and washed off the goo
as the sun began to go down. My friend
mixed together the 'blackening agent' with ash and water, applied it to my
rinsed off feet, and told me to sit tight... until midnight. I was dehydrated, tired, embarrassed,
struggling with diarrhea (try handling that for a day when you aren't supposed
to walk anywhere), and needed desperately to go home. After a whispered consultation, we rearranged
the plastic sacks on my feet so my flip flops would fit between my toes, and I
started on my way home. I walked for
half an hour with black plastic bags filled with ash and water tied to my
feet. It was like the ending of a
sit-com. I tried to cheerfully greet
everyone I passed but it was difficult as they were distracted by my strange
choice in footwear. I could see the
question they were all wondering, what is this strange ritual the American is
doing with bags tied to her feet while she goes for an evening stroll? Is it related to her evening runs? Is this also an activity done for 'fun' and
'sport?'
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