Hands

Several weeks ago, I fell and broke my left wrist. I’m right handed so I didn’t think it would cause too many issues for me until I realized that I used both hands to put my hair up (essential in the hot humid weather we’re currently having here in Chad) and to get dressed and type blog posts faster than a caveman learning about technology. It gave me a newfound appreciation for that surfer girl whose arm got bit off by a shark and started me on a campaign to convince the doctor to let me get the cast off early. (I won! Never underestimate the power of cookies.)

The people around me said, "It's fine. Give it a few minutes and you'll feel better."
I said, "I don't think it's supposed to look like this."

The incredibly patient Dr Kalbassou

The saw thing makes me nervous

You can see pen marks and the henna at the top that looks like a bruise.

I got the cast off and my arm is shrunken and smelly with pen marks from where I scratched it with an open pen so I didn’t lose the top down there. It also had the remains of the henna designs my friend Samira did for me in Niger. They’d long washed off my other hand, but the cast had protected them longer than necessary. 

I admired Samira's henna and she offered to do it for me.

She said she's not really good at it.
I think she's wrong.

I can’t remember the first time I had henna drawn on my hands. Probably it was in the Middle East. I know I did it in India and my refugee friends in the US did it for me once. I’ve had it done for weddings in Sudan several times. I always admired how the women had these patterns and designs in their minds and could squeeze the mud out of a little plastic bag so perfectly. I asked some Somali and Yemeni guys once if they thought it made women more beautiful to have henna on their hands. They looked at me blankly for a minute and then said, “Uh, yeah…sure,” which led me to conclude that most of them don’t notice it much. But women do. 

India 2013?

Yemen 2011? I also don't know why my face is like that.

Women in the US and other “western” countries don’t have the culture of doing henna designs on their hands, but I’ve occasionally been a part of the pre-wedding mani-pedi. Having pretty nails is something mostly we women appreciate probably more than men for whatever reason, but I do think most people, regardless of gender, often do appreciate nice hands—whether from a Christmas-themed manicure done by your artistic sister who used a toothpick to draw reindeer and stockings on your nails (Happy birthday, Joanna!) or from a friend who is handy with the henna. An old Chadian adage says, “Don’t eat with someone with dirty nails,” which makes a lot of sense considering we eat from a communal plate here. So clearly people notice your nails.

I’ve been thinking about these things a lot, especially after I showed up with with beautiful henna designs on my hands (thanks to my friend Samira) in a remote village in Niger where we are doing water projects. I like to talk to the ladies about water and just hang out with them whenever I’m in the field. They are amazing and have really interesting stories. They’re stronger than I could ever hope to be, and they’re funny and kind and resilient. We laugh together often, and I usually have to be dragged away by whatever man is with me keeping track of the time. (This is not a comment on gender stereotypes, this is just reality that usually it’s me traveling with a bunch of men.) I almost always find out interesting things I hadn’t known that I should be looking for. And that is exactly what happened this time.

Fun ladies

We have the same Arabic name so that was a good connection.

Instant bond

See? Always with men. This is my military escort.

We were talking about how the new water point would change their lives and the women started showing me their hands—everyone had gnarled and bumpy fingers with thick callouses making their thumbs and joints extra knobby. They called out women who had the largest callouses to come and show me. Some of them were embarrassed, but others came up and showed me and told me to take photos. One woman explained, “These hands look bad because we throw buckets down into the open wells to get water. Then we pull the heavy water buckets back up by the ropes. We do this so much that our hands develop these callouses.” As Claire said to me when talking about how my broken wrist is healing, “The human body really is amazing.” And this is a way that their bodies adapted to be stronger. But women everywhere usually do want to be beautiful. And these ladies hadn’t decorated their hands with henna. They didn’t want to show them off. Most of them were twisting them in their robes and kind of shy-laughing as we chatted. 

I felt a bit embarrassed by my henna-hands, which I’d done to have a reason to hang out with Samira, who was fun and sweet, and also because I do love how it looks. I talk with my hands, which you’ll know if you’ve ever seen me in any of neverthirst’s videos. I wave them around even when not on camera, using them to describe things more dramatically, a trait I probably picked up from living in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment most of my life—it really helps get the point across if you don’t know (or don’t remember) a word in the language you’re trying to speak. But while I’d been very proud of my hands before, and shown them off to many people and my 20 friends on Instagram, I felt like twisting mine in my own long dress, ashamed of my dainty princess fingers and the easy, comparatively rich life I lucked into when I was born to educated middle class white American parents.

Talking with my hands to some local leaders

But as these ladies showed me their hands, I thought of the time they spend every day pulling up water for their families, serving their children and husbands and relatives living with them and animals providing them with their livelihood, and I know that they have nothing to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of. So after Aisha (name changed) showed me her hands so I could take a photo of them because she wanted me to show people outside what they suffer for water in Niger, I held her hands in mine and told her that her hands were beautiful. Her hands show her love for her family. Her hands show her strength and perseverance in hardship. Her sacrifice for people she loves. And I told her that God sees that and loves her. She smiled at me, still embarrassed, but I wanted to say it, for the record. For her, in case she ever thinks about it someday. For me, to remember that in spite of hard things I’m facing in my life right now, I don’t really have it so bad. For God, because I know He would say that to her, but He wants the Body to go out and be His Hands and Feet to serve others (or His mouth to speak His words to them).

And speaking of serving others, I’m so thankful for those who donated to this and other neverthirst projects. Because honestly, pretty words are often only as effective as henna on an arm in an old school plaster of Paris cast that weighs two kilos according to the bathroom scale Naomi gave me. You know what says “God values you and cares about your suffering” more clearly than French translated into the local language? A new water system with tap stands and a water tank that provides a jerry can full of water in less than a minute with no wear and tear on the hands, no dead animals and bugs having to be fished out at the top, no danger of children falling in. Again, we are the Body of Christ. His hands and His feet. We serve those in need in His name. We can’t multiply loaves and fishes, but we can use our resources to provide for those who don’t have them in the name of Jesus, and it’s such a blessing to us when we get to be a part of the answer to prayer. 

Also sometimes you get to climb water towers and that is always fun
though hard to do in a dress.

Handadawa Wedding

Camels by the road on the trip

I have a love-hate relationship with weddings…and just know that I’m not talking about ones in the  US, because aside from my sisters’ weddings, I can only remember 2 others that I’ve been to. That is one of the benefits of living overseas—wedding shindigs and showers get to be missed. I really don’t like showers that don’t involve water. My lovely Southern belle college roommate loved them, planned them, and made me go with her. If she reads this, she may suddenly realize that I only went to those things for those big sugar cookies some lazy person (probably me) bought with icing the color of marriage (white?) or the impending child (pink for girl, blue for boy, or yellow for people who think it’s cute to keep it a secret or purple for those who want to buck color-linked gender stereotypes as soon as possible, green if you can’t find/don’t know the appropriate color and really want to eat those dang cookies, etc). Since college I realized that one doesn’t need an excuse to buy a container of those cookies because no one has to know that you’re not going to a party, but staying home and eating all of them while watching dumb TV shows online. And since I no longer have that reason to go to baby showers or wedding showers, I just make sure to be out of the country for all I might be expected to attend or I offer to babysit other progeny. Anyway, there is a SYSTEM. But with weddings overseas, they are important cultural moments, where I learn a lot and have Experiences that I can write about here, and even though, no, I’d rather not kill my whole weekend at one go like I did this time, I’d rather not miss it either.

Another animal shot on the journey

So this last weekend was the wedding of one of the girls in our office. We (7 women, 4 babies, 5 men) piled into 3 cars and caravanned out to Atbara, about 200km north of Khartoum. OK, the truth is, I vaguely remember someone saying 200km so I picked that number but that might have been the distance from Shendi, the half-way point town, to Atbara or something else completely different. Anyway, I was told it would be a 3-5 hours trip. And I was told to meet at the office at 8:30am on Friday (our weekends here are Fri-Sat), and I said, “No way am I getting to the office at the same time on Friday as I do every other day. I need to have the pretense of a little extra sleep for the weekend, and let’s please make it 9:30.” And because I’m loud and annoying until I get my way, I got my way. And naturally, we left 30 minutes late anyway.

The amazing thing is that I let us drive
by these guys without stopping the first time.

The trip ended up taking us about 6 hours, as we stopped for what I call lunch, but they call “breakfast.” What I call breakfast, they call “tea—sometimes with cookies,” and what they call “lunch,” I call “dinner” and what they call “dinner,” I call “bedtime.” After “breakfast” in Shendi (the half-way point city), we got back on the road to continue our straight, flat, dusty, desert journey. From the road, a little ways outside of Shendi, we passed the Meroe pyramids, just hanging out there lonely in the middle of a bunch of sand dunes.  I started right then and there to be loud and annoying about stopping there on the way back. Do you think I was successful in my mission?

Atbara is a cute town with cute donkeys

Eventually we made it to our target destination before driving around in circles trying to find our way to the bride’s house. This reminded me of driving around Damascus with a taxi driver who couldn’t find the way to our friend’s house. His way of asking directions was to roll down the window, stick his head outside and yell, “Ya, Muhammad—weynak?” (Oh Mohammed, where are you?). And since more than 50% of all males in Syria are named Mohamed (this statistic I just made up right now is also true of most other Muslim countries as well), 3 or 4 nearby men or boys would stop and come over to the car to see if the driver was calling them. Then he would ask directions from the comfort of his cab. It was a genius idea, I thought. AND we made it to our destination. If Patris, our Sudanese wedding driver, had known this trick, we might have made it to our wedding destination before “lunch/dinner.” But they brought us food anyway, so it was fine.

"Resting" with Selma

Our Atbara location was right by the White Nile, and really a beautiful place. Now 8 of us ladies (our Port Sudan team met us there with one other lady), plus 4 kids, were put in the bride’s neighbor’s guest room.  The neighbor lady was a Syrian refugee living there with her family. We had some sad talks about Syria in the beautiful Syrian accent, and it was bittersweet reminiscing about old times in Syria and remembering what it is now.  But how hospitable are Arabs?  This lady took us in to help out Zuhur’s (the beautiful bride) family. She had never met any of us before. Say what you like about Arabs (and of course people will always be doing that), but you cannot possibly beat them on hospitality. They will hospitality you into the ground with their generosity and kindness to visitors, and insistence that you eat more and MORE, “Why? Don’t you like our food?!”

White Nile at sunset

After a short rest – 12 of us on 4 beds, so comfy—we went out to watch the dancing. This is a traditional part of Handadawa (Zuhur’s tribe) wedding culture. The men of the village, young and old, gather together to dance with swords. It was impressive and fun to watch. If I ever get married, I definitely want sword dancers. Anyway, it seems like a preferable option to what the Ja3liya tribe does to their grooms on the wedding day. According to my friend, a member in not good standing of the Ja3liya tribe (since she married a guy from a different tribe instead of the cousin her family wanted her to marry), Ja3liya guys are known for being tough. So all the men get together and the groom lets them beat the crap out of him with sticks to prove how tough he is. But if my time in the Middle East has taught me nothing else, I do firmly believe that no wedding is truly complete without swords.

When it got too dark for the sword dancers to continue having fun safely, they called it a night, and we went back to the room for more ‘resting’ until time to get ready for the wedding. I kept asking if it was time, because I kept thinking we should be leaving for the dang wedding, the whole point of which we were in town in the first place. But we really didn’t start getting ready until almost 9pm. At that point, I was ready (with thobe secured properly with safety pins and make-up and hair fixed with a little more effort than usual) in about 15 minutes. Then I had to wait for another hour before everyone else was finally ready. Then we had to wait for the men to come pick us up in the car and take us to the venue, which was not, sadly, by the river, but rather in a nearby athletic club. We sat near the basketball goals.  And it IS nice to go to weddings with several men who are really handy about finding chairs for everyone because, while we got there before the bride and groom, everyone else in town had arrived before us to score the best of the plastic chairs. From somewhere, I still don’t know where, our men conjured up enough places for us to sit down.

Many photos of sword dancing with sun behind them since I couldn't get many "see-able" wedding shots at night:

 I like the little boys with their stick "swords" who are learning their moves now

These guys were some of the best. Poor wives and mothers who will have to wash their dirty white robes later.

The colorful ladies watching the fun - their turn comes later

I like the fat guys.

That guy's about to get sworded in the back!

The groom (with the red sash) is hoisted on the shoulders of the swordsmen

We sat around and waited for the bride and groom to come (عادي for Arab weddings) and ate boxes of food handed out to everyone, while little kids snuck under our chairs and tried to steal anything we left there for later (they got half of my apple soda, but I ate most of the food before I put that container down, so better luck next time, kids). While we were eating, camera men slowly panned the crowd, examining people carefully with their bright head-lights, stopping and swooping certain individuals from head to toe if they were considered extra-interesting. Guess who was considered extra-interesting? Yup, the khawaja in a thobe. Guess who is really awkward and disturbing to watch on video camera? Yeah, that same person whose thobe kept sliding off inappropriately. And the best thing about our set-up is that everyone in the whole complex could watch what the cameramen were watching on the big screen. And the other best thing was that it was a really cold desert night, the thobe I was wearing was not that warm, but the camera lights were nice and toasty on their victims. Silver lining.

With my beautiful friend Noor who helped me pin up my thobe

Finally the Bride and Groom graced us with their presence. With great fanfare and smoke machines, they exchanged rings and danced their first dance.  Then they went to sit on their thrones for 5 minutes while crowds pressed in to shake their hands in congratulations. I was also pushed into that crowd, but I wasn’t really committed, so I never made it to the platform. Instead, I was carried along in the current of dancing people, and I ended up in a ring around the bride snapping along with everyone else, as that is Sudanese group-dance-style: bounce and snap.  I will confess that I do this badly, especially when cameras are trained on me and my thobe is falling off because it’s still too long and I’m tripping on it.

The beautiful bride

We danced for a little while, but it was already after 11pm, and our group was pretty tired, so we rushed everyone over to the microphones to give a speech and hand out the presents on behalf of IAS.  There loud cheers and claps (mostly from us) and then we high-tailed it out of there. I thought that was the end. I was preparing to share a twin bed with another woman and/or a child, sleeping until 5am, our estimated departure time.  But I was wrong. About sleeping with people and about being done.

Instead, we went back to our room, where we had to wait about 30 minutes until the owner came back to unlock the doors for us, moved our stuff to another house with more beds and a small couch (where I slept because I prefer to sleep alone), and then headed out AGAIN, this time to the courtyard of the bride’s house.

The bride is in red-photos after this moment were inappropriate

The yard was packed with ladies—no men allowed except the groom. This is the part where the bride dances for about an hour to traditional songs sung by the women and accompanied with a drum or two.  No men are allowed because these dances are…well…wow…yes they were. One of the main dances is when the girl takes off her thobe (while dancing) to reveal a much less clothing underneath—think, Aladdin, specifically Disney version, but any movie about harems and the exotic Middle East will do. At the end of each very impressive dance, she would stop with her hands up in front of her mouth, fingers and thumbs touching, facing her new husband. Meanwhile, all the women were cheering and singing along and critiquing her dancing skills (she had all good comments that I heard). A couple other friends of mine told me that they didn’t do this part at their wedding because they didn’t like the idea of all the people talking about them, and while I was glad this bride didn’t feel the same way so I got to be a part of this tradition, I get where they are coming from. One of my friends said she waited to do the dances just for her husband when they were in the hotel. Another as-yet unmarried girl had danced through the main traditional dances for us while we were waiting for the party to start in our rooms, so it seems that these are really important cultural aspects of the wedding. There are even institutes around Khartoum and elsewhere where you can learn these dances (I wonder how my future taxi-driver husband would feel about me learning the moves?). While American girls are choosing their dresses, the Sudanese girls are practicing their moves. If I were to have to dance in front of a bunch of women, I would for sure start practicing from a very young age. I would need a lot of extra work. But also, I should note, that the Sudanese girls have to spend significant time choosing their dresses too. This Bride had her white poofy sparkly wedding dress, a sparkly red expertly-removed thobe  and a shiny green one too, and two dancing costumes—halfway through the dance, she went inside to change into the other outfit. Apparently, you can change up to 3 times. Still, I’m pretty sure that the wedding dress at least is rented. I think that is genius, because currently both my sisters and my mom are wondering how to get rid of theirs, which they will never wear again, and they know I am not likely to wear. For one-time use: rent. It’s just the logical thing to do.

Hamudi and I took selflies while waiting for the other ladies to finish getting ready.
How cute is he?

We got back from the sexy dance performance after 2am. I made a small effort to get some of the make-up off my face before going to sleep. I wasn’t very successful, but then I didn’t have to put on make-up again for another three days, so I call it a win. We then got up at 4am, thinking we were going to leave by 5am, but we finally made it out at 6am. On our trip back, we didn’t stay together, and can you guess whose car was the last one home? But I take most of the blame because Pyramids. I know how to get my way when it’s really important…and sometimes even when it is not important.

Shopping and Salons—Wedding Prep.

Selma came in to my office and said, “Let’s go shopping! All the girls are going. We want to buy clothes for the wedding.” This meant that I could leave the office about 30 minutes early and get an appropriate outfit for the wedding, so I said yes. They said we’d be gone about an hour, but I should have known they were underestimating.  Ten minutes into the trip, I remembered that shopping is not one of my favorite things to do, and I was ready to say yes to any thing I was told to buy. We’d pop into one shop, and I’d see a thobe in an acceptable color (a thobe is a long piece of cloth like a sari but wrapped differently), and I’d say, “I like that one.” Then I’d be informed that it was for “big” women, not me. Does that mean “big” as in “old” or “big” as in “tall” or “big” as in “plus size”? I never figured it out. Eventually we landed on a piece of cloth that met with everyone’s approval, and I grabbed at the chance to be done, so I accepted. I thought we were done, but that was only the beginning.

I amused myself by admiring other merchandise. Observe the social-media abaya (long black dress for conservative girls). That Zuckerberg guy is working the advertising here in Khartoum.

 

Horrible photo of
 inside the market

First, we had to go get that piece of cloth chopped down to a length appropriate for my miserable size (too young, too short, or too skinny—still don’t know) and hemmed. Then the real hunt began—I had to get appropriate clothes to wear UNDER the thobe. At this point, the girls began to realize just how helpless I am.  I suggested just wearing a white tank top and leggings under it—that suggestion was met with horrified looks. White? With a green and gold sparkly thobe? Impossible. Cease to think it. It can ONLY be warn with a gold or green top over a black or olive-colored skirt (also, this shopping excursion was totally useful as a refresher course for the appropriate Arabic names for various shades of colors). And now that we had specifics in mind, our search became nearly impossible. I just gave up and followed them around as they imperiously informed shop-keepers throughout the entire market of our needs. They were going to make me buy shoes, but I was kind of having fun horrifying them with my terrible fashion sense by suggesting various types of shoes that I saw, ranging from comfortable ones that I probably would wear even though they wouldn’t match at all to terrifically ugly ones that I would never wear that would also not match at all. They gave up on me for the shoes. But I was not allowed to leave the dang market until I had bought an appropriate skirt (which no one will see anyway, since it will be under the those).

Dumb thobe photo of me

We rode home in a Bajaj because those guys are EVERYWHERE

After buying appropriate clothes, the next important thing to do is go to the salon. Maybe because we went on Thursday afternoon (their equivalent of Friday afternoon, i.e. weekend party preparation time) or maybe because it is a popular place, but that salon was packed to the gills. Women were fluttering around getting henna applied to their hands and feet and having their hair brushed and oiled and braided and henna-tattooing eyebrows on and applying extra slimy facial goo. I caused a stir as the lone foreign woman getting some appropriate black hair dye (what they use for henna tattoos here) drawn all over my hands. I also let them thread all the unwanted hair off my face, which amazed them as they don’t really have much extra hair anywhere, lucky ladies…

It PEELS off--better than nail polish. Definitely as good as peeling strips of dried glue
off your hand, if I remember correctly from the last time I did crafts ( 20+ years ago)

  

The scariest thing was the gas burner in the middle of the room, heating all the hair utensils—curling irons and straighteners. True confession time: I have never owned a curling iron because I have never successfully used one on myself or anyone/thing else. Although, I can cleverly snap it open and closed like a crocodile devouring its prey (and it occurs to me suddenly that maybe THIS is why I associate curling irons with pain and death? Or maybe it is being accidentally burned by them when Mom used to insist on curling my hair for church?). Forget straighteners. I won’t even pretend I know what to do with those, not that my hair needs help being straight… One time I did buy these travel hot rollers because, well, they were TRAVEL SIZE (that is an almost irresistible trait that can convince me to buy things I would never need because-hey!-they fit in my suitcase, so why not?). After several months of using them exactly NEVER times, I gave them to my sister who is not mystified by metal pins that fit somehow over plastic cylinders of electric heat death.  So, I no longer had something extra I had to fit in my suitcase (travel size or not) and she had some travel-sizeable hair accessories that she could fit in her suitcase—win/win. Anyway, these ladies were using some serious fire-powered hair tools that scared the crap out of me. It really terrifies me to see steam rising off people’s hair. I just don’t see how that can be OK.  Hair is flammable, right? At least no one caught on fire on my watch. I even got a few sneaky photos of the whole set-up for you, dear readers. And getting photos in a salon full of Arab women, terrified of being accidentally seen on someone’s social media and then snagged and put in a pornographic film somewhere on the internet, is not an easy feat. But I did it. See for yourself.

 

So, properly henna-ed, depilatoried, and outfitted in a sparkly thobe, I was considered wedding-ready. Just got to drive 5 hours to get there…

Me, admiring the finished product in the car on the way to the wedding

Wedding picture preview