Henna

Thursday was Yehi's brothers henna. It took place in Kiryat Shmona, up on the northen border of Israel. Yehis mom rented a bus to make the 3+ hour drive. It was smaller than our henna, since they will (obviously) also be having the wedding here in Israel. It was a fun night overall...

We drove back Thursday night (early Friday morning), but Ami stayed in the north. On his way back Friday morning he got a call from his fiance... apparently she fell and.. broke her arm. She spent the day in the hospital, and now has a cast. This has cause a lot of craziness, since the wedding is on Tuesday. In religious Judaism, before a wedding a woman has to go to a Mikvah, where she immerses in a pool of water. Since Ami's fiance is now wearing a cast, she cant go into the water... and according to religious Judaism this means she cant get married. So after a lot of debate with the Rabbi's, it was agreed that they would get married, as long as they made sure Yochi went to the mikvah as soon as possible...

Even more than that... now Yehis mom is convinced that someone has trained the evil eye on us (set? put? what exactly is the verb with that). As such, she is now sewing hamsas onto all of Maya's clothing to protect her... and is upset that we havent already done so. slight cultural differences... its been an interesting week, and the wedding stands to be just as memorable.

things have been going pretty steadily. Ulpan has been a lot of fun, and part of me likes being a student again. I know there is a lot of work ahead of me as far as learning hebrew, but I like the challenge. I have been getting a newspaper once a week called Shaar Lamatchil, which has all the news in hebrew, but written with vowels and in relatively easy grammar and vocab.

The holidays start this week, and it will be my first Yom Kippur ever in Israel, and my first time having my own sukkah to build. I am sad to not be able to spend the holidays with my family, especially since Rosh Hashana also happens to fall on my brothers birthday. At least we have Yehis family here to celebrate with, and most of his siblings will be around.

One of Yehi's brothers (the best man at our wedding) is getting married after sukkot, and things have already been gearing up to get ready for the henna and the wedding. They have been planning decorations, food, outfits and everything else one could possibly think of. My mother-in-law has been teaching me how to make Moroccan style cookies, so I can help her with the preparations. I enjoy baking, so it has been fun. We will be baking for about 600 people for BOTH the wedding and the henna, so there will be a lot of work. at least it enjoyable, and helps me practice my hebrew