jasminekhder
10-12-2010, 12:29 AM
Hello Literature Network members and non members!
(will note to self to write in the introduction forums later)
I finished writing a paper about the Palestinan Henna and I would like to share it with you for information and comments. I feel that information on "Palestine" in English especially is lacking and I would like to do something about it.
My assignment was to write about a Henna and some of its aspects while I attended one about 2 weeks ago. I admit, I was in a haste while writing it, and I hope it doesnt show :blush: here it goes:
Palestinian Henna Party
On Wednesday September 29th, I had the honor of attending a Palestinian “Henna”, which is a party celebrating the bride-to-be. Some people may choose not to have one; it depends entirely upon a person’s tastes and background. For “Fellahin”, or farmer, agricultural laborer or peasants, this event is a must otherwise is unheard of.
My aunt’s daughter happened to be the bride-to-be this time around and was to get married to her long time neighbor. They, my aunt’s family live in the Tūr neighborhood, somewhere in the Mount of Olives. The family has spent a few years in the US, and is an example a typical Palestinian Arab Americanized family. What I refer to as “typical” is a Palestinian Arab family that has spent a number of years in the United States, enough to acquire a good command of English, develop some of the same tastes and tendencies of an “American” or a person of the West, while still consciously retaining that uniquely “Arab or Palestinian” identity, various as they are. The mother’s side of the bride’s family is regarded as “Fellahin” while the father’s side and the groom’s family are regarded as “Ma’atsah”, or urban dwellers. Each respective peoples have their own separate ways of conducting and celebrating a Henna.
For the Fellahin of which that live in the village of Shu’fat of this age, the basic Henna is as follows. First, and importantly, the groom’s family pays for everything. The groom’s family has to buy and individually wrap in some way sweets that are later to be passed out to the audience during the Henna. These sweets are usually sugar coated almonds, chickpeas, or peanuts, chocolate or anything else sweet. Beverages are also served during the Henna. Also, on the day before the Henna, someone from the groom’s side of the family that is knowledgeable on how to prepare henna, a thick paste used for dyeing purposes, mixes wet henna to be used for the Henna party. Some of this henna will be later used on the bride-to-be and distributed to the larger audience during the Henna party. A typical Henna begins either in the late afternoon or early evening. Nearly all participants of the Henna, including the bride-to-be dresses in the traditional Palestinian dress, or the “thobe”. This dress is normally decorated in the typical Palestinian embroidery, or “tatreez”, which is made up of mostly cross stitches. Now-a-days, this dress could be easily bought. Another type of dress a bride might wear is a “malika”, a somewhat cross between a thobe and modern regular dress. Malikas are factory made and do not have cross stitches. As for the location of a typical Henna party, it is either held in the bride’s parent’s home or in a public hall that could be rented out and is only celebrated amongst females from anywhere between half an hour to 2 hours. During the Henna, the bride and her friends and family begin dancing. Later when it is time to henna the bride, family from both sides bring out a basket that has some henna in a pan or bowl in it adorned with flowers (which is meant to be used on the bride), and others holding baskets with prepackaged henna (to be used for distribution) and start dancing with the baskets on their heads or by their sides. Some person, usually someone knowledgeable in henna designs but could also be a professional artist, draws shapes and designs on the brides hands and/or arms with some of the henna that was prepared from the night before. While this is in action and when done, sweets, beverages, and some prepackaged dry and ready-made henna are passed out to the audience. After this has commenced, the bride gets up and dances along with her family and friends while cautiously being careful that her henna laced hands do not stain the dress that she is wearing. After the bride dances a little bit with her henna hands, the Henna party is officially over.
Knowledge about and the history of the Henna party ranges from person to person. You will find that some people think of the Henna as nothing more than a tradition that has been followed for as long as they can remember and that they still choose to blindly abide by these traditions. These said people also think that a wedding without a Henna party is unheard of and inevitably draws upon some disfavor by the larger Fellahi audience. Other people will tell you that the Henna started during the time of the Prophet Mohammad (S). It is interesting to note that in my village, no one has ever disputed the tradition by not making one. The Henna party can be thought of as a kind of bachelorette party to the West. This can be said so with similarities such as the event being all female and the attendees being friends and family. Though, in the West, the friends and family that attend tend to have a close relationship. In a Henna, in addition to friends, the families of both the groom and especially the bride expect to be there since they are related to her. Both variations of the party put the bride-to-be in the front line. The party is to celebrate, before her wedding, the transition from being single to married, single days of the past, having a good time, etc. There isn’t much mobility in a Henna party since it will either be held in the bride’s parent’s house or a hall. The only thing that one does in a Henna is dance and have some henna paste. I respect the Palestinian Henna party in most all the aspects I have mentioned except where the attendees are not close to her attend. The reason being is that most likely these attendees most likely do not do anything. These people take up unnecessary space therefore cluttering the walkway; they do not get up and dance, and just sit there. I think that the bachelorette/Henna party should be something special and amongst the close people to the bride. Moreover, individuals in which the bride-to-be may have a close relationship to might not choose to dance with the bride on a special day such as this due to shyness. It is more than enough that they will not get up and dance with her on her wedding day, at least let them have this-I say. I also think that the bride should have the freedom to express what and how she would like to celebrate her party. Families tend to like to “put on a show” for the people, most of the time at the cost of the bride’s happiness. This takes the festiveness out of the bride’s total bridal experience at the end.
As for the Henna party of the past for the Fellahin, it is known that it used to start with the bride-to-be being in her parents’ home, dressed in a thobe. The attendees of the Henna would gather at her house and start singing and clapping outside. The bride-to-be is to accompany the group by walking (a lot of the marriages in Shu’fat were local) from her parents’ home to her new home, the whole while singing and clapping. After she arrives at her new home the ladies stay for a little while (say 30 minutes at the most) singing and clapping. During this short event, a lady globs or makes a small dot of henna on the bride-to-be’s hand. There are some instances where the bride-to-be’s feet up to her knees would also be henna-ed, either in a stripe shape or also globed. This sums up what a typical Henna party would be for Fellahin in the past.
The Henna party of my cousin was held in a newly renovated Turkish bath named Al Himam Al Turkeyyah. This bath is located at the beginning parts of the Tūr neighborhood. We had some inconvenience finding the exact location since there wasn’t a sign of some sort hinting the place out; in fact, my family thought that the cab driver was going to strand us in the middle of nowhere. After we found the entrance to the bath, we immediately noticed the beautiful work of the craftsmanship of the past. It was as if you were entering a cave at first. Since the people who were renovating the bath weren’t completely finished with their work, you could barely see at times here or there equipment and small sections not yet completed. As soon as one gets past the hallway to the open room to where the Henna party was to be held, one could see at first sight the distasteful cloth barrier that was improvised to separate the women’s gathering from the DJ, which was a very good idea since some of the females cover themselves with a veil. One then approaches the brownish-coppered tiled floor; tiles in embedded pearl and light grey medium stones trimmed the open room of the space reserved for dancing. The delicate yet colorful flowers and trees that surrounded our open space quietly filled the place with life. The not yet finished, but beautiful fountain added an elegant spark to the surrounding. And I absolutely loved the balcony-like second floor off to our right, regardless of the fact that it also wasn’t completed yet. The weather was perfect, not too hot nor cold and contributing the calm and fun atmosphere of the event in general. We arrived at six thirty in the evening and were surprised to see that we were one of the first to arrive at the party, despite our being late for various reasons. The bride’s family was there also with a couple of other people from the mother’s side of the family. As my family are guilty of it ourselves, it is a somewhat shame when you see that people in general aren’t on time.
The bride, a very outgoing and strong person was dressed in a traditional Palestinian thobe and sitting quietly at a table. Despite her show of tranquility, anyone who knew her well enough could see the worry and anxiety. There happened to be a few problems between her and her family and her soon-to-be groom’s mother which had resulted in a few drawbacks including the absence of the mother-in-law and her whole side of the family during the Henna party. The cousin and her mother were worried that her Henna wouldn’t be “good” and boring. All in all, the Henna turned out a success with or without the mother-in-law.
One thing noticeable about the bride-to-be and her actions besides the normal going around and dancing was that she never sat on that chair reserved for the bride-to-be. It didn’t stay empty the whole time; I sat in it for a few minutes while I was taping the event. This particular chair, the one reserved for the bride-to-be is normally situated in a elevated space so that everyone can see her and it stands out from the rest (of the chairs in the room). This particular chair at the Henna was draped with white material. Whenever the bride-to-be wanted to sit, she would sit at a regular table, the table having her closer family members to it. Particularly, during the whole event, she sat at three tables altogether for an amount of time. When told to go sit in her special chair, she replied that she didn’t want to sit in front of everyone the way the chair was situated, and ignored the family’s annoying comments. Around an hour into the event, the bride to be disappeared, nowhere to be seen. This was during a somewhat important part of the party; the DJ clearly called out for the bride-to-be to dance to a song and started the song. No one got up to dance and the bride-to-be was nowhere in sight. The viewers thought that she had gotten cold feet. It turned out that she had changed her garments from the traditional thobe to a modern dress and appeared after about fifteen minutes. It was bright red, mermaid styled and fastened from the neck. She was beautiful in it, despite the color being a little too showy. The bride-to-be also took part in passing out some of the pre-packaged sweets; she passed out candy one by one to each person of a selected side, which was mostly her closest family, for a few minutes. I thought that this was nice, and also it takes up time (a rest from dancing) so it was like killing two birds with one stone. The sisters of the bride-to-be were very engaged during the whole event, very much easing the pressure on the bride-to-be herself and happily facilitating the whole party, making sure that the floor always had someone dancing. The mother of the bride danced about twice or thrice with the bride-to-be during the whole event. The mother dancing with the daughter further eased tensions and anxiety. In other Hennas, you see the in laws stuck to the bride-to-be. There is nothing wrong with dancing with the bride-to-be, but give her and her family space.
Everyone had a great time. I thought that there was a little too much attendees, but others thought the opposite. Everyone, dancers and audience were facing the dance floor. It was mostly close friends and family doing most of the dancing. Almost each person that got up playfully tugged on some person to join them on the floor. Some people who were already dancing gave a slight nod or a movement of the fingers to other people in the audience to join. This is of course embarrassing to the directed people if they do not wish to dance. The dancers took very good care of the bride-to-be; always getting her involved in dancing and talking. At the beginning of the party the cousin looked a little angry and didn’t really want to do anything, but that all changed as the time went by. It is nice having close people around you, “saving” you, trying to make the best out of things and you happy at the same time. What good did the silent, piercing audience do except just sit there? You could feel some tension in the air especially coming from a group of those good for nothing people as if they wanted to ruin the atmosphere. I am proud to say that it was the cousin’s side of the family that especially contributed to the positive energy during the whole event and kept the party alive. Of course you have those embarrassing family members here and there, but they were negligible. The most embarrassing phase of the party at one point was the crazy, seizure like jerks and movements coming from the bride’s mother’s aunt during the techno music. The music played by the DJ was reasonable yet lacking in enough songs in English and with taste. There was plenty of Arabic music, which appeased the all-Arabic speaking individuals, enough dabka music to really get the atmosphere in hubbub and enough songs in English to barely pass by. To the other attendees, this mix was perfect.
My occupation for most of the event was camera & picture girl; did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Having such an important position, meant that one had to concentrate and catch the right moments. Thus, leaving time to actually dance was not really a question. Though I was called plenty of times by some family members, friends, and even the bride-to-be herself, I was keen on producing perfect pictures while not giving the devices to any incompetent people who would surely and with trial mess things up. After all, this is a once in a lifetime chance. I look back at the event now and regret that I didn’t get to dance with the bride even once. I am with the group of people that get stage fright when an audience such as the stifling one that was at her Henna was present. At the same time, I can’t say that I didn’t try to dance even a little bit during the whole event. I got up, nearly at the end during the song “Yeah” by Usher, and as soon as I hit the floor, I could swear that I forgot how to dance. After about 5 seconds on the floor I decided it was best, for me and for the audience that saw me, to stay down. As long as everyone had fun, the Henna went and is considered to be a success, which is what had happened. The only incidents that really raised an eye during the whole ordeal were the fact that the groom’s mother did not arrive and that the bride didn’t want to have anyone henna her since she said that she hated henna.
As a researcher, it was difficult to conduct interviews in circumstance I was in. I chose instead to interview a few people from the Henna after the event for both ease and to give the attendees enough time to review the event. I didn’t feel it appropriate to ask the participants about their views about the overall experience of the Henna during the event itself. The mother and bride-to-be were already fragile about this whole party due to their circumstance. The last thing anyone needs is gossip. Other than that, those where the only difficulties I had.
If I were to have a Henna, I would first and foremost make sure only the close friends and family attend. No need for dead weight and intimidation; this will ensure that the maximum amount of fun is had by all participants whether by dancing or otherwise. Everyone else can come on the wedding itself. There surely can be other things to do than dance the whole time. Having the Henna in a night club theme would contribute a overall nice mood, and no one, at least any person from Shu’fat, has tried that yet at a Henna party. The DJ could play just as enough songs in English as they do in Arabic. Or, it might even be better if songs the DJ were to play were pre-picked. There should be more food at the event, at least finger foods. And certainly cake. A two hour maximum for the whole event is good enough. I would aim to get a professional henna designer, in order to have nice temporary designs on me. These are a few quick ideas and not much of a bad start, as I am just getting acquainted with Palestinian weddings in general.
--end--
(will note to self to write in the introduction forums later)
I finished writing a paper about the Palestinan Henna and I would like to share it with you for information and comments. I feel that information on "Palestine" in English especially is lacking and I would like to do something about it.
My assignment was to write about a Henna and some of its aspects while I attended one about 2 weeks ago. I admit, I was in a haste while writing it, and I hope it doesnt show :blush: here it goes:
Palestinian Henna Party
On Wednesday September 29th, I had the honor of attending a Palestinian “Henna”, which is a party celebrating the bride-to-be. Some people may choose not to have one; it depends entirely upon a person’s tastes and background. For “Fellahin”, or farmer, agricultural laborer or peasants, this event is a must otherwise is unheard of.
My aunt’s daughter happened to be the bride-to-be this time around and was to get married to her long time neighbor. They, my aunt’s family live in the Tūr neighborhood, somewhere in the Mount of Olives. The family has spent a few years in the US, and is an example a typical Palestinian Arab Americanized family. What I refer to as “typical” is a Palestinian Arab family that has spent a number of years in the United States, enough to acquire a good command of English, develop some of the same tastes and tendencies of an “American” or a person of the West, while still consciously retaining that uniquely “Arab or Palestinian” identity, various as they are. The mother’s side of the bride’s family is regarded as “Fellahin” while the father’s side and the groom’s family are regarded as “Ma’atsah”, or urban dwellers. Each respective peoples have their own separate ways of conducting and celebrating a Henna.
For the Fellahin of which that live in the village of Shu’fat of this age, the basic Henna is as follows. First, and importantly, the groom’s family pays for everything. The groom’s family has to buy and individually wrap in some way sweets that are later to be passed out to the audience during the Henna. These sweets are usually sugar coated almonds, chickpeas, or peanuts, chocolate or anything else sweet. Beverages are also served during the Henna. Also, on the day before the Henna, someone from the groom’s side of the family that is knowledgeable on how to prepare henna, a thick paste used for dyeing purposes, mixes wet henna to be used for the Henna party. Some of this henna will be later used on the bride-to-be and distributed to the larger audience during the Henna party. A typical Henna begins either in the late afternoon or early evening. Nearly all participants of the Henna, including the bride-to-be dresses in the traditional Palestinian dress, or the “thobe”. This dress is normally decorated in the typical Palestinian embroidery, or “tatreez”, which is made up of mostly cross stitches. Now-a-days, this dress could be easily bought. Another type of dress a bride might wear is a “malika”, a somewhat cross between a thobe and modern regular dress. Malikas are factory made and do not have cross stitches. As for the location of a typical Henna party, it is either held in the bride’s parent’s home or in a public hall that could be rented out and is only celebrated amongst females from anywhere between half an hour to 2 hours. During the Henna, the bride and her friends and family begin dancing. Later when it is time to henna the bride, family from both sides bring out a basket that has some henna in a pan or bowl in it adorned with flowers (which is meant to be used on the bride), and others holding baskets with prepackaged henna (to be used for distribution) and start dancing with the baskets on their heads or by their sides. Some person, usually someone knowledgeable in henna designs but could also be a professional artist, draws shapes and designs on the brides hands and/or arms with some of the henna that was prepared from the night before. While this is in action and when done, sweets, beverages, and some prepackaged dry and ready-made henna are passed out to the audience. After this has commenced, the bride gets up and dances along with her family and friends while cautiously being careful that her henna laced hands do not stain the dress that she is wearing. After the bride dances a little bit with her henna hands, the Henna party is officially over.
Knowledge about and the history of the Henna party ranges from person to person. You will find that some people think of the Henna as nothing more than a tradition that has been followed for as long as they can remember and that they still choose to blindly abide by these traditions. These said people also think that a wedding without a Henna party is unheard of and inevitably draws upon some disfavor by the larger Fellahi audience. Other people will tell you that the Henna started during the time of the Prophet Mohammad (S). It is interesting to note that in my village, no one has ever disputed the tradition by not making one. The Henna party can be thought of as a kind of bachelorette party to the West. This can be said so with similarities such as the event being all female and the attendees being friends and family. Though, in the West, the friends and family that attend tend to have a close relationship. In a Henna, in addition to friends, the families of both the groom and especially the bride expect to be there since they are related to her. Both variations of the party put the bride-to-be in the front line. The party is to celebrate, before her wedding, the transition from being single to married, single days of the past, having a good time, etc. There isn’t much mobility in a Henna party since it will either be held in the bride’s parent’s house or a hall. The only thing that one does in a Henna is dance and have some henna paste. I respect the Palestinian Henna party in most all the aspects I have mentioned except where the attendees are not close to her attend. The reason being is that most likely these attendees most likely do not do anything. These people take up unnecessary space therefore cluttering the walkway; they do not get up and dance, and just sit there. I think that the bachelorette/Henna party should be something special and amongst the close people to the bride. Moreover, individuals in which the bride-to-be may have a close relationship to might not choose to dance with the bride on a special day such as this due to shyness. It is more than enough that they will not get up and dance with her on her wedding day, at least let them have this-I say. I also think that the bride should have the freedom to express what and how she would like to celebrate her party. Families tend to like to “put on a show” for the people, most of the time at the cost of the bride’s happiness. This takes the festiveness out of the bride’s total bridal experience at the end.
As for the Henna party of the past for the Fellahin, it is known that it used to start with the bride-to-be being in her parents’ home, dressed in a thobe. The attendees of the Henna would gather at her house and start singing and clapping outside. The bride-to-be is to accompany the group by walking (a lot of the marriages in Shu’fat were local) from her parents’ home to her new home, the whole while singing and clapping. After she arrives at her new home the ladies stay for a little while (say 30 minutes at the most) singing and clapping. During this short event, a lady globs or makes a small dot of henna on the bride-to-be’s hand. There are some instances where the bride-to-be’s feet up to her knees would also be henna-ed, either in a stripe shape or also globed. This sums up what a typical Henna party would be for Fellahin in the past.
The Henna party of my cousin was held in a newly renovated Turkish bath named Al Himam Al Turkeyyah. This bath is located at the beginning parts of the Tūr neighborhood. We had some inconvenience finding the exact location since there wasn’t a sign of some sort hinting the place out; in fact, my family thought that the cab driver was going to strand us in the middle of nowhere. After we found the entrance to the bath, we immediately noticed the beautiful work of the craftsmanship of the past. It was as if you were entering a cave at first. Since the people who were renovating the bath weren’t completely finished with their work, you could barely see at times here or there equipment and small sections not yet completed. As soon as one gets past the hallway to the open room to where the Henna party was to be held, one could see at first sight the distasteful cloth barrier that was improvised to separate the women’s gathering from the DJ, which was a very good idea since some of the females cover themselves with a veil. One then approaches the brownish-coppered tiled floor; tiles in embedded pearl and light grey medium stones trimmed the open room of the space reserved for dancing. The delicate yet colorful flowers and trees that surrounded our open space quietly filled the place with life. The not yet finished, but beautiful fountain added an elegant spark to the surrounding. And I absolutely loved the balcony-like second floor off to our right, regardless of the fact that it also wasn’t completed yet. The weather was perfect, not too hot nor cold and contributing the calm and fun atmosphere of the event in general. We arrived at six thirty in the evening and were surprised to see that we were one of the first to arrive at the party, despite our being late for various reasons. The bride’s family was there also with a couple of other people from the mother’s side of the family. As my family are guilty of it ourselves, it is a somewhat shame when you see that people in general aren’t on time.
The bride, a very outgoing and strong person was dressed in a traditional Palestinian thobe and sitting quietly at a table. Despite her show of tranquility, anyone who knew her well enough could see the worry and anxiety. There happened to be a few problems between her and her family and her soon-to-be groom’s mother which had resulted in a few drawbacks including the absence of the mother-in-law and her whole side of the family during the Henna party. The cousin and her mother were worried that her Henna wouldn’t be “good” and boring. All in all, the Henna turned out a success with or without the mother-in-law.
One thing noticeable about the bride-to-be and her actions besides the normal going around and dancing was that she never sat on that chair reserved for the bride-to-be. It didn’t stay empty the whole time; I sat in it for a few minutes while I was taping the event. This particular chair, the one reserved for the bride-to-be is normally situated in a elevated space so that everyone can see her and it stands out from the rest (of the chairs in the room). This particular chair at the Henna was draped with white material. Whenever the bride-to-be wanted to sit, she would sit at a regular table, the table having her closer family members to it. Particularly, during the whole event, she sat at three tables altogether for an amount of time. When told to go sit in her special chair, she replied that she didn’t want to sit in front of everyone the way the chair was situated, and ignored the family’s annoying comments. Around an hour into the event, the bride to be disappeared, nowhere to be seen. This was during a somewhat important part of the party; the DJ clearly called out for the bride-to-be to dance to a song and started the song. No one got up to dance and the bride-to-be was nowhere in sight. The viewers thought that she had gotten cold feet. It turned out that she had changed her garments from the traditional thobe to a modern dress and appeared after about fifteen minutes. It was bright red, mermaid styled and fastened from the neck. She was beautiful in it, despite the color being a little too showy. The bride-to-be also took part in passing out some of the pre-packaged sweets; she passed out candy one by one to each person of a selected side, which was mostly her closest family, for a few minutes. I thought that this was nice, and also it takes up time (a rest from dancing) so it was like killing two birds with one stone. The sisters of the bride-to-be were very engaged during the whole event, very much easing the pressure on the bride-to-be herself and happily facilitating the whole party, making sure that the floor always had someone dancing. The mother of the bride danced about twice or thrice with the bride-to-be during the whole event. The mother dancing with the daughter further eased tensions and anxiety. In other Hennas, you see the in laws stuck to the bride-to-be. There is nothing wrong with dancing with the bride-to-be, but give her and her family space.
Everyone had a great time. I thought that there was a little too much attendees, but others thought the opposite. Everyone, dancers and audience were facing the dance floor. It was mostly close friends and family doing most of the dancing. Almost each person that got up playfully tugged on some person to join them on the floor. Some people who were already dancing gave a slight nod or a movement of the fingers to other people in the audience to join. This is of course embarrassing to the directed people if they do not wish to dance. The dancers took very good care of the bride-to-be; always getting her involved in dancing and talking. At the beginning of the party the cousin looked a little angry and didn’t really want to do anything, but that all changed as the time went by. It is nice having close people around you, “saving” you, trying to make the best out of things and you happy at the same time. What good did the silent, piercing audience do except just sit there? You could feel some tension in the air especially coming from a group of those good for nothing people as if they wanted to ruin the atmosphere. I am proud to say that it was the cousin’s side of the family that especially contributed to the positive energy during the whole event and kept the party alive. Of course you have those embarrassing family members here and there, but they were negligible. The most embarrassing phase of the party at one point was the crazy, seizure like jerks and movements coming from the bride’s mother’s aunt during the techno music. The music played by the DJ was reasonable yet lacking in enough songs in English and with taste. There was plenty of Arabic music, which appeased the all-Arabic speaking individuals, enough dabka music to really get the atmosphere in hubbub and enough songs in English to barely pass by. To the other attendees, this mix was perfect.
My occupation for most of the event was camera & picture girl; did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Having such an important position, meant that one had to concentrate and catch the right moments. Thus, leaving time to actually dance was not really a question. Though I was called plenty of times by some family members, friends, and even the bride-to-be herself, I was keen on producing perfect pictures while not giving the devices to any incompetent people who would surely and with trial mess things up. After all, this is a once in a lifetime chance. I look back at the event now and regret that I didn’t get to dance with the bride even once. I am with the group of people that get stage fright when an audience such as the stifling one that was at her Henna was present. At the same time, I can’t say that I didn’t try to dance even a little bit during the whole event. I got up, nearly at the end during the song “Yeah” by Usher, and as soon as I hit the floor, I could swear that I forgot how to dance. After about 5 seconds on the floor I decided it was best, for me and for the audience that saw me, to stay down. As long as everyone had fun, the Henna went and is considered to be a success, which is what had happened. The only incidents that really raised an eye during the whole ordeal were the fact that the groom’s mother did not arrive and that the bride didn’t want to have anyone henna her since she said that she hated henna.
As a researcher, it was difficult to conduct interviews in circumstance I was in. I chose instead to interview a few people from the Henna after the event for both ease and to give the attendees enough time to review the event. I didn’t feel it appropriate to ask the participants about their views about the overall experience of the Henna during the event itself. The mother and bride-to-be were already fragile about this whole party due to their circumstance. The last thing anyone needs is gossip. Other than that, those where the only difficulties I had.
If I were to have a Henna, I would first and foremost make sure only the close friends and family attend. No need for dead weight and intimidation; this will ensure that the maximum amount of fun is had by all participants whether by dancing or otherwise. Everyone else can come on the wedding itself. There surely can be other things to do than dance the whole time. Having the Henna in a night club theme would contribute a overall nice mood, and no one, at least any person from Shu’fat, has tried that yet at a Henna party. The DJ could play just as enough songs in English as they do in Arabic. Or, it might even be better if songs the DJ were to play were pre-picked. There should be more food at the event, at least finger foods. And certainly cake. A two hour maximum for the whole event is good enough. I would aim to get a professional henna designer, in order to have nice temporary designs on me. These are a few quick ideas and not much of a bad start, as I am just getting acquainted with Palestinian weddings in general.
--end--