pre-wedding beautification

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Henna art is used here to decorate the bride's hands and feet before her wedding (and sometimes women do it just to be extra pretty for a special occasion). The painting is done three times, each time producing a progressively more red color. On the first day of henna, there is a ladies-only party at the bride's house with her friends. She is pretty much immobile for three or four hours while the henna is being painted on and dries. And then she does the same thing the next day and the day after. Maybe because I'm a foreigner, they thought it would be cool if I got some henna too, so they painted my hand. Now everywhere I go, people ask me if I just got married. When I answer that the henna was for a friend's wedding and that I'm not married, they tell me I can marry a local.