Henna Party

^ This is a picture of me a few minutes after I had the henna finished. We had to wait 1-1.5 hours to let it dry. Then we washed it off with sugar and water (this is supposed to make it last longer)!

^The final product of my henna!


Last night we had a Henna Party, which ended up being really awesome. Three Indian women came to one of the apartments and did Henna for us. I got one hand and one foot done(as you can see in my pictures). Our director brought us a bunch of amazing Indian food and we all just hung out as we waited for the henna to dry.
The 3 women who came to do it for us were so nice! One thing I've noticed about Indian women is that they are all very nice. One was 22 years old, one was 25, and one was 29. I wish I could remember their names... I was asking them questions to get to know them and learn about their traditions. We've been learning about the Indian marriage traditions in my Womens Issues class I was curious to see if it applied to them. In India, 60% of marriages are arranged & 40% are "love marriages." The 29 year old was married and has two kids, one 10 and the other 7 years old... she said she got married at age 18 (which is average for an Indian woman). I didn't get to ask her if her marriage was arranged or not, because she didn't speak very good English. The 22 year old was not married yet, and when I asked her if she had a boyfriend it seemed as though I had offended her, woops! Maybe that question was too personal. The 25 year old was married. I asked the 25 year old if her parents had chosen her groom for her and she replied, "No, it was a love marriage. My parents did not approve and have not talked to me for the 3 years that I've been married. I have a 4 month year old son, and they still wont talk to me, even to see their Grandson." It's amazing how real these issues are. The Indian traditions are very hard for people to break, especially when followed by so many past generations.