Henna: artful swirls of seaweed vomit

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Today marks another of the sad partings of our Fassi household: Anna, Mohammed and Elias are on a train to Casablanca, where they will catch a series of flights that will deposit them in Baltimore, Maryland. It's an exciting change: for the first time since Elias was born two years ago, he will get to live with both his father and mother in the place that he calls home most of the time. But of course it's also mildly heartbreaking to think of Anna (leaving her djellabah behind), Elias (without Tahara to feed him or Omar to play with) and especially Mohammed (moving permanently to the US on his first trip out of Morocco) displaced from the Fassi extended family that has held them (and us) for the last four months.
To mark their departure Nazua offered to do henna for Anna--a means of celebration and a way that Anna and Elias can remember (and touch) Fes and the Sadiki family for the weeks to come. MC, Meg and I were also invited to have henna done, and by the end of the evening almost all of the women of the family had applied henna either to themselves or someone else. Needless to say, the men cleared a considerable distance from our gathering in the salon and ended up having dinner on their own in a separate salon, far from the feminine toys and the general mood of self-indulgence.
Nazua started her work in the evening so that we could go to sleep with the dried paste on our hands and guarantee the darkest colors possible. So we slept with our hands wrapped in toilet paper and with socks on our hands and feet, and woke to varying shades of orange painted on our appendages, which now smell of seaweed and spices.

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Photos

The tools
Apparently in Morocco henna is applied through syringes; it only kind of detracts from the fun of the whole event.

the children
Much effort was put into keeping Elias and Omar away from the syringes, bowls of goop, and freshly designed body parts

Distractions
To keep them otherwise occupied, Ali loaded Elias and Omar into a stroller and walked them in circles around the courtyard, all the while making car noises and making them wave at us each time they passed.

Hands and feet
Meg had a paper to finish, so she had her feet done so that she could keep her hands free for typing.

Everyone grab a syringe
Through the course of the evening most of the women in the house (and Elias as well) picked up a syringe and decorated their own limbs.

The winners
Of course the verdict was unspoken, but by the end of the henna evening it was clear that Siham's work on her own left hand and Nazua's job on MC's right hand were the best designs.

...so then we sat
with fresh goop all over our hands there wasn't much to do but nestle deeper into the cushions under a pile of blankets and chill out (and, of course, take a few tricked out pictures on MC's mac photobooth...)