Henna night in Cairo - Leilet el henna

Kaidi with the bride

Leilet el henna is a traditional part before the Egyptian wedding, hosted by the aruusa (bride) for her family and close friends to celebrate her last night of singelhood with the ancient symbol of female beauty and vitality - henna.

GUESTS
Yesterday I had the great pleasure to be invited to such a party! It was held in the home of the bride family. There were so many quests, dominated by women and children and a very her close men (father, brother, uncles etc). But all the female family and girl friends were present, giving the event a real girly feeling!

BLESSING OF THE BRIDE

The ceremony dress

The first ceremony to take place during the night was the entrance of the bride in a temple-like ancient dress with lots of gold accessories to emphasize her beauty. Her parents seated her in a chair and twirled the tray of bahur (a special oriental scent) around her head. Her mothers in this moment was in tears, a very emotional spiritual cleaning ceremony before giving her daughter away. After that the people bursted out dancing to celebrate her arrival to the party, her in the middle and guest taking turns to dance with her or around her. Zagareet followed with each new song.

MUSIC
Now about the music in the party! Quite a funny cocktail! Firstly the music was waaaaay too laud. As I mentioned the party was indoors in an Egyptian home, where the living room doesn't exceed 25 m2. They had organized for massive speakers to cater to the mood in the party, but these speakers were ridiculous, powerful enough to paly for a street wedding, reach to the next block and further. Many girls got a headache! But they kept on dancing, singing and jumping around and on top of each other. The small, but very Egyptian detail that annoyed me in the party was the fact that in crowded places they forget about polite distance and just bump into each other all the time, every second and touch each other all the time unintentionally. For me as an Estonian girl with an admirable personal space, I felt claustrophobic:)
So, back to the music. For all of you bellydancers out there, the DJ played the really old evergreen songs, the famous pop songs, the latest shaaby hits and now and then the traditional henna or wedding songs. What I remember to hear was the bollywood song Nari-Nari, "Leilet Henna" by famous Nubian singer Ali Hasan Kuban, songs from Ahmed Adawyea, Hakim and by Shakira, "Shik Shak Shok", "El Hantuur" and "El Morgeha", some shisha smoking songs and some naughty new shaaby.

HENNA

With the henna lady

So why they call it the night of henna? Because there is a special central lady in the party,  - special henna lady. She was small and elegant, probably from Sudan or Nubia, wearing light violet clothes and heavy golden jewelry. A stunning face! She made henna for all the quests who wanted one. I got my hands painted by Arabic letters and a few flowers. When she's done with the quests, she takes the bride to a private room and gives her the "grand henna" the pattern henna paintings on the hands and feet of the bride. This ritual is considered so sacred and private and I nor anyone else was not allowed to witness it.

COSTUME SHOW
There is one more exciting thing that the henna lady brought with her. Entertainment! Well not exactly, but she helped the bride to entertain the quests. She brought 4 costumes with her for the bride to wear during the evening. The first one was the traditional henna party temple-style dress. The second a crazy summery yellow-flowers costume. Third was a classic saidi dancer look. And last one was an Alexandrian mileya-leff style costume. Every time she entered with a new costume the music would go up, the cameras and would turn to her and she would enter with a dance, rebooting the party spirit with her crazy cute costumes. The she would leave again to change for the next costume, leaving the quests to dance and mingle (see video below).

BELLYDANCE
All men and women and children at the party were dancing baladi style. The simple and joyful way they naturally move and feel the music and joke and play with each other on the dance floor has always been admirable for me! As for myself, I already attracted lots of attention as being the only foreigner at this all-Egyptian party, so I didn't want to cause havoc with my more than profound knowledge of oriental dance. At the end my friend still dragged me to the floor and I kept the cool and stranger attitude, copying his movements, but I copied too well nd people got ecstatic recording all of our oriental duet to their mobiles and i-pods:)

It was crazy experience inside a middle-class Cairo family, where old traditions still live, but have a modern twist. The wedding is tomorrow but unfortunately I can't attend because of work. Lets wish this young Egyptian couple "Alf marbook we Rabina maakum!" - Congratulations and may God bless them!

PS! Dear readers, please do not share my posted videos directly on Your Internet accounts or web-sites. I have posted these video as "unlisted" in YouTube (only visible with the video address) because they are friends of a friend and I'd like to limit the spread of these private family party videos as much as I can, while also sharing it with the ones who truly take interest and open and read my blog. You can share my blog and I will be delighted of that, but not the videos separately. Thanks for understanding!