Morocco mailbag....henna hustling
Posted by Kenzi on March 03, 2000 at 11:54:32:
Greetings to all fellow forum followers. I am writing from a
cybercafe in Marrakesh....it is just me and two 10 year old boys
playing computer soccer across from me....outside the lovely strains
of a generator, the sun bearing down heavily and the dust blowing.
I had to tell you about my first little henna experience here. I
have had my eyes peeled for anything henna related and my first night
here sitting in the central market eating I observed a very agressive
woman wearing a jellaba (hooded robe worn by both men and women) and
a headscarf, hounding a group of Italian tourists. You usually dont
see women doing this, and certainly not at night. This woman was
working hard at getting thse Italian tourists to pay attention to her
and the tourists just wanted to escape not realizing that they were
being herded into a cluster like antelope by lions. The true nature
of this dance became apparent to me when I spotted the young boy
following the woman around, carrying her book of henna patterns,
shoving it in the faces of the women in the group of tourists. The
women couldnt resist the attraction of the pictures for long and
started going through the book picking out their designs. The woman
whipped out her syringe and got to work standing in the middle of the
market. I wolfed my meal to bet able to go see the woman at work with
her syringe (without becoming her next quarry). She did handle the
syringe pretty well but I was a little disappointed in her designs:
not particularly fine or interesting, but I had to remember that this
is a hustler and not an artist. I am still looking to learn this
syringe technique and will report back with my findings.
I hope everyone is well...more later.