Henna Hair

One of my first days in the Middle East and I saw a guy with bright orange hair.  He was a middle aged Arab and his hair looked so strange.  I first thought that it was impossible, but then I decided that there could be a small population of red heads in the Middle East with some genetic material from northern Europe.  In Yemen, I saw a couple more of these guys (of course, I saw no women’s hair so I could only go by the observations of men) and they looked so weird that I was really confused.  Let’s just say that none of them looked chic enough to have gone as far as dying their hair.  Finally, I saw an old man with just the little beard on his chin colored orange.  I asked my guide and he broke out laughing telling me that they use henna to dye it.  That’s when I realized why the color was so odd… henna!  One night while watching local TV there was an old imam preaching who also had the orange hair thing going.  They may think this is a great makeover technique here, but I believe we won’t see it spreading around the globe.