I have red hair!

Recently I took a trip to Eastern Turkey with some of my friends. While we were out there we were able to stay one night with a local family. The experience was quite amazing! That night they decided that it would be fun to reenact a "kina gecesi" (henna night). In this culture, the night before a girl gets married there is usually a party for her where her girlfriends and family memebers come and put henna in her hands and give her gold and dance around her. For our mock kina gecesi I played the role of the bride (without the groom and the gold...bummer ;o) ). They put henna in the palms of my hands and on my finger tips...they even put henna all over my hair (which isn't necessarily a part of the kina gecesi). My friends and the relatives in this family all danced around me and some of my friends that I was traveling with got to dress up in the traditional clothing. It was a blast! I had to sleep with the henna in my hair (although I hardly slept that night) and the next morning we washed it out. I was transformed into a red head overnight. It actually didn't turn out as red as I thought it might and I'm enjoying the change in color. It was a great experience!


Mixing up the henna....you mean this green goop is going in my hair?




Everyone dancing around me




They're dressed for the party!



My friend who put the henna in my hair and I late at night....they put that scarf in my hair so that I could sleep without turning my pillow green...but I didn't really sleep much that night.




Check out my red hair!