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Talking about a trip to Aleg in Mauritania and the presents she received ..
our friend wrote :
The beads that I was given are reddish /
burgundy and amberish in colour .. they are usually strung singly on string .. then several strings are bunched / twisted together in their traditional style.
The scent was not recognizable to me and I was not able to clarify with my French exactly what it was, but they all told me the same story. The scent is arousing to men, and
the necklace is actually worn loosely around the waist so the strands rattle against each other.
Straight from the mouths of the girls at one of the henna places in the village where my son stayed for the first three
months when he joined the peace corps ..
they told me that the sound the strands made was to enhance the virility and potency of the man's performance !!!!!
The mom and big sisters of the host family gave me several
of these necklaces, with the same explanation, although a bit more discreet in words that went via my son .. as I do not speak Hassaniya.
When I was at the henna place, luckily one of the girls, who were all youngish,
probably late teens, early twenties, spoke some French .. and there was lots of giggling when I was asking what they were for. They even showed me how to wear them as the other customer at the henna place was being decorated
for her wedding that weekend.
Many thanks for this entertaining account go to Kaethe from the USA
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