Beauty is Pain

This would be one of my coworkers and a new national I've met.  We were hanging out at her house, and I decided to ask questions about beauty, especially related to what I've learned about in a book I recently read called The Beauty School of Kabul.  Although I am nowhere near Kabul, I learned a lot about women there, their beauty techniques based on what is available to them, but also their life stories. These people have a lot of life stories to tell, and sometimes they will really open up and educate us about themselves while they participate in beautification techniques.  My coworker and I learned that almost all of the beauty techniques practiced in Kabul are also regularly practiced here, especially when it comes to brides and grooms and their guests at wedding events.

I loved this national's local dress.  They call it a kras and I have recently had 2 kras made but I will hopefully pick them up from the seamstress in a couple of days.  I hope to post a picture of them in the near future.

Hair removal here is a big deal, especially for the face.  Many people here tend to be on the hairy side.  Many girls have some significant unibrowsn and some of the women's hairlines extend almost all the way down to their eyebrows.  They often get threading (called hefaf) done to remove the hair, although when it is being removed from large areas, they will use different types of wax to get it done.  My coworker, S, and I got demonstrations of both hefaf and waxing on our arms this particular day.  Kind of painful.

In a town two hours southeast of us, it is considered stylishly unacceptable if you do not wax your arms.  In our town it is common to have it done, but not 100% unacceptable, so I plan to avoid it if I can.  However, I could not avoid my new friend, Z, threading my face.  I told her "Okay, but I'm going to cry."  She said, "Okay, cry."  So now, after I did indeed shed tears, I have a "clean" face.  And then afterwards, we talked about her own pain, as she has premature arthritis and back problems, and I remembered her pain for her.  Would you also remember Z, that she would find healing?