Henna

Henna is a natural plant based dye that is traditionally used to die the skin, hair, clothes and other things. Artistic henna patterns on the skin are something you cannot help but notice when living in Chad (and probably many other African countries). It is something I have found quite intriguing, so although I haven't been brave enough to go and get it done to me yet, I thought I'd put together a bit of info for those of you who might be interested too!  

It is common to see Chadian women with the soles of their feet and the tips of their toes and fingers entirely coloured in the black dye. Many Chadian ladies also wear prominent designs on the skin around the feet, ankles, hands and wrists. Traditionally, special designs and patterns are used to mark special occasions such as weddings but nowadays it seems no particular reason is needed. Culturally, African women associate henna art with beauty and it is also supposed to draw extra attention from the male species.  

We have also been told about women using hot, melted rubber on their lips and gums to permanently blacken them (à la tattoos), despite the severe swelling and no doubt, excruciating pain. The things women go through in the name of fashion!

Thankfully henna is not so permanent. Sourced from a plant native to tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, southern Asia, and northern Australasia in semi-arid zones, henna used for staining the skin is powdered by drying, milling and sifting the leaves. It is then mixed with a mildly acidic liquid to form a thin paste which is applied directly to the skin. In order to set the dye after it is applied to the skin, the limb is held over a flame. How long the henna lasts depends on how long it has been heated. (Wikipedia)

Areas of henna body art practices in the early 20th century - North African Henna: History and Technique, Catherine Cartwright-Jones 

Locally, it seems that hair dye is now commonly used as a common alternative to natural henna. I assume this is simply because nowadays hair dye is easier to access and does a similar job. Our friend here in N'Djamena learnt first hand that the hair dye factor means you should to do the usual hair dye skin reaction tests beforehand, or you may experience an unpleasant break-out of sorts J. Another friend gave it a go while visiting Hadjer Hadid, a village beyond the Guera in eastern Chad.

Below are some henna designs based on Bible stories. There is an explanation of each (as found at southasianpeoples.imb.org/henna). Henna designs can be a great source of interest, provoking conversation and curious questions. As a result, you can see how henna can actually be used as an effective tool for teaching Bible stories in the community.

No idea whether these designs are prevalent in Chad, however they’re an interesting example of how traditional customs can be used to build the Lord’s kingdom.

In the drawing there is a moon, sun, and stars. The peacocks represent all the living things that God created. The flowers and the vines represent all the plants God made.

On the palm of a hand is a fruit surrounded by a vine. On each side of that vine is a heart. One heart represents God and the other heart represents man. When the man and woman sinned, they were separated from God. The vine and the fruit are a symbol of that separation.

In this drawing there are four shapes in the middle of the hand that tell the story. These four shapes are distinct. In one is a fruit. This is a reminder that Cain worked the soil. In the next shape is a peacock. This is a reminder that Abel took care of the animals. In the next shape are small leaves. This is a reminder of Cain bringing only his fruit as an offering. And the next shape you see a more decorative beautiful flower, this is a reminder that Abel gave the best of his animals to God.

The rainbow is a reminder of God’s promise to not flood the earth again. The peacock is a reminder of the dove that Noah sent out looking for land. Just below the peacock’s beak is a branch. This is a reminder of the olive branch that the peacock brought back to Noah after the flood.

In the fingers there are numerous stars. This is a reminder of God saying to Abraham, “Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.” There is a rainbow in the hand; this represents God’s promise to Abraham and the fulfillment of his promise when his son was born.

In the middle of the drawing, there is a burning bush. This bush has 10 flames around it symbolizing the 10 plagues God sent on the land. Above that bush is a rainbow; this is a reminder of God’s promise to bring the people out of slavery.

The rainbow in the hand represents God’s promise to all mankind that One would come to take on all of our wrongs. The sun is a reminder that after the Promised Saviour died He would come to life again, seeing “the light of day.” The sun is also a reminder that the Saviour is a “light to the nations.” The rainbow is at the bottom of the design and everything on top of it symbolizes the Promised Saviour carrying our burdens.

There is a star at the top of one finger that is a reminder of God putting a star in the sky to lead men to the place of Jesus’ birth. The sun at the bottom of the drawing is a reminder of Simeon calling Jesus a “light to the nations.”

On the wrist there is a square design; this is a reminder of the mat that the paralyzed man was brought to Jesus on. Under the mat design there are footprints that are a reminder that after Jesus healed the man he got up, took his mat and walked.

On the bottom side of the hand there is a small pile of rocks. That is a reminder of how the man would cut himself with stones. Then you see two lines. One line does not have a break in it and the other does have a break in it. The one with the break is a reminder of the condition the man was in before he met Jesus. He had a problem no one could control or fix. These spirits bound him. But after he met Jesus he was set free; Jesus set him free from the evil spirits. The cross is a reminder of this. Then you will see a mango design through the fingers. There are ten of them that are a reminder of the ten towns the man went to, to tell his story.

In the shape in the middle of the drawing there is a flower. This flower represents the woman. Below the flower there is a stem with twelve thorns. The twelve thorns represent the twelve years the woman was sick. Above the flower is a cross. The cross is a reminder of Jesus. The flower is touching the edge of the cross and that is a reminder of the part of the story where the woman touches the edge of Jesus’ clothes.

There are two fish in the drawing. Those are a reminder of the fish Jesus multiplied to feed the people. There are also five flowers as a reminder of the five loaves of bread Jesus multiplied to feed the people.

There are two “roads” that both start on the left side of the hand. One way is narrower than the other. The way that is narrow has a flower at the end of it, and the other road leads down to the bottom right side of the hand. This way is wider than the other. The flower at the end of the narrow way depicts life.

In the middle of the hand there is a shape, which has two important symbols to remember this story. The first one is in the shape of a cross. This is a reminder of the death of Jesus. Above it is a flower. This flower is a reminder that Jesus came to life after three days.

The apple at the bottom of the hand is the fruit Adam and Eve ate in the garden. The rainbow represents promise. The first promise in the story is the promise God made to Noah and to all people after to never destroy the earth with a flood again. It also represents the promise God made to Abraham and the promise to all people for a Saviour. The flame in the drawing is a reminder of the Saviour being called “a light to all nations.” The star is a reminder of the birth of Jesus. The cross is a reminder of the death of Jesus. The flower represents life. Jesus came to life after three days!

 (no descriptions for these 3)

Henna is also used to colour hair (with a reddish tinge) and is also known for it’s good conditioning properties. A few of the girls at SIL have experimented with the genuine product. It is like you cake thick red/brown mud all over your head, wrap it up in plastic and then you wait. Like with flaming henna patterns on your skin, the longer you wait, the darker the colour and longer lasting the effect.

Chadian Lawn Mowing

So wet season started a few mon back and it’s nearly gone already! It seems that traditionally things heat up again for the month of October, before the country begins to dry out and start cooling down a little leading into Chad’s coolest months December and January (keep in mind, when we arrived in January 2011, there was maybe one morning when we needed to where a jumper to stave off the ‘cold’). Obviously, one last burst of heat is just what we need – Chad’s way of making sure we don’t forget!

Anyway, in the wet season (which has been well below par this year apparently) the grass goes crazy. The point of this post wasn’t to complain about the slight increase in temperature, but rather show you that things do get green for a little while! The grass grows, and it needs cutting. Only thing is, most of the year there isn’t grass, so did you think we had lawn mowers in Chad? Well, in a way…

Where have we been?

Well, Lebanon for starters...but since returning, things have been pretty hectic for us. Stress levels have been high and blogging priorities have not. Apologies for the lack of input while we’ve been working through other things. We know the Lord is holding us close as we live to serve Him. Do pray for us, as you feel led. We’ll try and fill in the gaps as time and circumstances permit J

Étendez les étagères

SIL have a common room that members use for all-in lunches once a week, movies on Friday nights (on the only TV on centre), prayer meetings and various other small functions among the staff. The common room also holds shelves and shelves full of general reading books for people to borrow. With most of the shelves bowed and straining under the weight of 2 rows of books (rendering the row at the back pretty much useless), John took on another side project to improve the capacity of the existing shelving. A month or more in the making (with Lebanon in the middle) due to its ‘side project’ status, the shelves were finally finished and installed the week we returned. There is only just enough space for all of the books even with the addition of the new shelves! We spent half a day roughly reorganizing the books, but with many unlabeled and yet to be categorized, this is a work in progress. Health permitting, this is something Katie hopes to chip away at to mix up her tasks here at SIL.

Lebanon

We were blessed to be able to spend 2 weeks in Lebanon. As Katie is half Lebanese, we had originally planned to try and fit in a dog-leg to Lebanon on our way home later in the year. We knew nothing about Lebanon other than the fact that since becoming an independent nation after WWII, it has had a very turbulent history. With no idea what we were in for, or even whether the trip would in fact eventuate, in late May we decided to contact the Lebanese side of the family back in Australia to get some local insight on how to go about it. The family loved the fact that we wanted to go and check out the country that provided a quarter of our heritage and we received a very enthusiastic and encouraging response.

It turned out that there were actually Australian rellies visiting Lebanon in June/July and we were urged to change our plans and visit during July! On a missionary budget, it was a huge blessing that the family assured us that if we could get there at the same time, we would have a place to stay and we would be well looked after. So with a month to get organized, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves with return tickets to travel to Lebanon from Chad (surely not a commonly seen itinerary)!

Come early July, we flew out of N’Djamena, via Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and arrived at the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut at around 2am. Katie’s dad’s cousin David Essey met us at the airport in his father’s Merc with his brother-in-law Johnny (Lebanese local) acting as chauffeur. Understandably, they looked wrecked, but they still managed to pick us out of the arriving crowd with only a vague verbal description to help. David said, “You were the only couple that wandered past looking like you didn’t know where to go.” Most of those on the plane with us were unmistakably Lebanese.

We drove straight up to Bcharre in the mountains of North Lebanon for an early breakfast with those of the family that had managed to wake up for our arrival. Shivering slightly in the crisp air on the verandah of the Sleiman (the in-laws) house while watching the sun rising over the beautiful Qadisha Valley was a welcome to Lebanon we won’t forget in a hurry. It was cold! We don’t do cold anymore!

Bcharre from a street above the Sleimane's house

Both David and his in-laws were so genuine in welcoming us into the extended family. With a family of 14, and most of them around while we were there, it was every bit of the big, hectic Lebanese family experience we expected. Although a local Arabic dialect is spoken in the house, the children all speak French thanks to the Lebanese schooling system and those that were at, or had been through university also spoke reasonable English (better than our French anyway). Mrs Sleiman understands some English thanks to her kids, but when she found out John understood and spoke some French; she beamed brightly and launched into an enthusiastic stream of friendly conversation. Once John was able to slow her down, it was great that he could communicate a little directly with her. When they hit a block, there was no shortage of willing translators around, English to French, English to Arabic or French to Arabic! And meals with the family – David’s wife Nathalie cooked up a storm with her mum most days and if you didn’t know, authentic Lebanese food is fantastic!

As is also common in some other countries, much of the Sleimane extended family shares a house,
immediate families each living on a different floor.

David's in-laws live on the floor with striped curtain on the balcony. 

We actually stayed in another village in the mountains called Kfarsghab. It was this village that Katie’s grandparents were from and we were able to stay in a magnificent house that David’s parents (Katie’s Dad’s Uncle and Aunt) have slowly been building over the last 10 or so years. Although they live in Australia, they visit most years and the house has been slowly built in this time. The top floor is now almost finished and we had the whole place to ourselves! To be able to stay in such a beautiful house was fantastic, but we agree that the house itself was topped by the view…waking up to such a wonderful view every morning was an amazing change of scenery for us from Chad!

L: Kfarsghab looking across the valley from Ehden, R: The Essey's house and our home for our 2 weeks in Lebanon.

Looking back across at Ehden from the balcony

Kfarsghab at night.

Looking out from the balcony to the Mediterranean in the distance.

One afternoon as we strolled around Kfarsghab, we stumbled across a little Catholic chapel. As we wandered into the courtyard, we were approached by a local guy and asked who we were and where we were from (questions we became very familiar with during our stay – in a small village not frequented by tourists, there aren’t many strangers and understandably everyone is curious). Funnily enough, most English speakers in the area spoke with a distinctly Australian accent. As you walked past another Lebanese local in the street, your polite wave and passing “bonjour” would usually be met with a string of local Arabic greetings/questions (?) to which you smile and understandingly nod “ahah,” then mumble something just audible that might sound slightly Arabic and keep on walking J Often enough, however, you’d be thrown off your stride by a grinning Australian “howya goin? Youse Aussies or what? Where’reya from? Sydney?” So, it wasn’t a surprise for this guy in the little cobbled chapel courtyard to find out where we were from. The next question is usually “where are you staying/who are you staying with?” and when we explained where we were staying and who we were related to (Chidor – Katie’s grandpa), we were stunned when the guy pointed just over the wall of the courtyard, to the tiny stone house in the steeply sloped narrow alley directly below saying “that’s where he was born and raised you know.” As David hadn’t been sure exactly where Chidor’s family’s house was (it no longer belongs to the family) we were stoked to stumble onto it in a way so appropriate for a tiny mountainside Lebanese village.

The house where Chidor (Katie's grandfather) was raised before his family came to Australia (the chapel is the building just
above it on the right).

Most days, David and his father in-law, or one of the various brothers in-law would pick us up and drive us around to the many interesting sites in and around the mountains of North Lebanon. On a couple of occasions we travelled further to places like Byblos in Jöuni, Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley and Jeita Grotto which is on the shortlist for the New 7 Wonders of the Natural World. We are so thankful to have had local family show us around and we saw so many remarkable places that we would never have had access to if left to our own devices!

We saw the Monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya Monastery the day we arrived in Lebanon.

The church of the monastery was originally a cave. In more recent times a beautiful stone wall façade has been added.

The printing press inside the monastery's museum is the first in the Middle East. It has been dated back to 1585, with the
oldest accessible printed text a copy of the Book of Psalms printed in 1610.

Ascetic life was widespread in the Qozhaya Valley. Hermits lived in cells chiseled into the rocks and several have been
 preserved within the monastery complex. 

Coming from Chad, we were stoked to get the chance to muck around in the remnant snow on the mountain pass 15mins
 drive from the Sleimane house in Bcharre. As it is now summer in Lebanon, the snow was far from fresh powder, but as
 neither of us have ever seen snow before we weren't worried!

Johnny and Johnny

L-R: David, Mansour (David's father in-law) and us.

The drive back down to Bcharre.

The famous Cedars of Lebanon are also very close to Bcharre. To walk amongst such ancient trees from bible times
was amazing, especially considering they now only grow in the one location.

Saint George's is a tiny stone chapel perched near the edge of the sheer cliffs just below Bcharre. The chapel is within
 easy walking distance of the Sleimane house.

The view from the cliff's edge beyond Saint George's.

On the same day we went and checked out Qadisha Grotto, a cave from which constantly flows the water that supplies all of the
 villages in the Bcharre area. The grotto is only accessible by foot.

At the gates of the hydro electricity plant.

We took a day trip to see the ruins of the ancient Port city of Byblos (now known as Jbeil). Byblos is said to have been
 settled around 6230BC. Archeological remains date back to the 3rd millennium BC, the period when the Phoenician
 civilisation began to develop.

There were so many interesting things to see and we could easily have spent more time taking it all in.

Byblos castle, built by the crusaders in the 12th century is the dominant structure of the archeological site near the port.
 Same of the stones they used to build the castle are massive!

We finished at Byblos and went to Jouni where we took a cable car to Harissa in order to take in the view from the foot
 of Our Lady of Lebanon.

The bronze statue (painted white) was actually
 constructed a decade or two before Christ the
 Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.

Another day saw us visiting the Monastery of Saint Elisha at the foot of the cliffs directly below Bcharre. 

From the monastery we took a long walk along a track near the bottom of the valley. The weather was beautiful and the
 scenery was breathtaking. Looking around the cliff faces, you couldn't help but imagine a time when there were hermits
 living in just about every cave-like hole you spotted.

We stopped for a drink at a natural well and got talking to an old local farmer - there are terraces along the valley floor
 wherever it is possible to grow something.

Our most anticipated day trip would have been out to the ancient Roman ruins at Baalbeck. This shot faces East into the
 Bekaa valley from the Eastern side of the mountain pass above Bcharre (on the way to Baalbeck). 

The ancient ruins at Baalbeck are Lebanon's greatest Roman treasure. Construction of the temples began around 25BC and
 was nearing completion during the final years of Nero's reign (37-68AD). The temple complex is made up of the Jupiter Temple
 and the Bacchus Temple with The Temple of Venus a short distance away.

The great Temple of Jupiter was the largest religious building in the Roman Empire. The temple was originally surrounded
 by 54 columns 20m high and 2.2m in diameter. (L) We are standing at the base of one of the remaining columns!

The smaller Bacchus Temple was built about a century after the Temple of Jupiter and still stands in remarkably intact today.

On the way home, we stopped at the top of the mountain pass to buy nuts from these guys selling an amazing variety from
 the back of their station wagon!

Our final grand expedition was to Jeita Grotto (the photos aren't ours, you aren't allowed to take a camera inside). These caves
were truly incredible. Consisting of an upper and lower 'gallery,' we were blown away by the sheer size of the caves, let alone
 the intricacy of the natural formations inside. It is no surprise that Jeita Grotto is vying for a place in the new 7 Natural Wonders
 of the World.

After walking through the upper gallery, it was amazing to be able to tour the lower gallery (above) in flat bottomed electric boats!

This trip isn’t something we’ll forget and it wouldn’t have been possible without the kindness and hospitality of the Esseys and the Sleimanes. We know that they also shared our hope that our recollections and photos will go a long way to convincing our Lebanese family back home (most of who haven’t ever been to Lebanon) that it is definitely worth a visit! We’ll give it a good shot and maybe we’ll get back again one day.